The eggshell looks like a century egg, but as mentioned by the comment the contents may have decomposed if the mud wasn't alkaline like the century egg production process.
It might be the only 1700 year old egg in the world. Surely the prudent thing to do is wait some fraction of its age (200 years?) and reevaluate. What are the chances that, out of all of history, now is the best time to open it?
> A Micro CT scan showed that this ancient egg is still full of liquid.
> “Researchers are planning to carefully extract the liquid to better study it,” stated Edward Biddulph, Senior Project Manager, who oversaw the site excavation. “It’s a controlled process similar to egg blowing, where a tiny hole is made in its shell after creating a 3D model.”
I think it is a mistake not to cut the top off the egg and just look inside as ancient egg shell has no value after it drys out and the visual information may be unique,so off with its top, and
then take samples of the "liquid" and the inner shell lining, if it's present, and then see if there is any remaining structure of an embryo or the egg as laid.
Readit News
Egg shells are more organic than you expect.
This is why you use stuff like waterglass https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_silicate to seal them.
I expect them to be completely organic. What else would they be?
i admit i read ops comment and was confused for a second until it clicked. they're mostly calcium carbonate
Regardless of getting funding, I don't see why our level of technology is not adequate to study an egg.
> “Researchers are planning to carefully extract the liquid to better study it,” stated Edward Biddulph, Senior Project Manager, who oversaw the site excavation. “It’s a controlled process similar to egg blowing, where a tiny hole is made in its shell after creating a 3D model.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_microtomography
how much DNA is in an egg, isn't it just a single cell with a single nucleus? and if unfertilized is haploid?