Spices in the Ancient World
Spices in the Ancient World
- Matthew Adam CobbMatthew Adam CobbUniversity of Wales, Trinity Saint David
Summary
The movement and consumption of spices and aromatics have been a feature of human history for many millennia. They have been found in contexts as diverse as early Iron Age Phoenician flasks, containing traces of cinnamon, to black peppercorns inserted into Rameses II’s nose cavity, as part of the mummification process. Traditionally, these plant products have been viewed as the preserve of the elite, at least in the Mediterranean world and parts of Europe, where many of them do not naturally grow. However, by the 1st millennium ce, thanks to a growing web of connections spanning Afro-Eurasia, especially via the Indian Ocean, a much wider range of peoples got a chance to experience spices. This impacted on everything from how their food tasted and smelled to the way in which religious and funerary rituals were performed.
Advances in archaeobotanical and the archaeological sciences enable us to build an increasingly more complex picture of the contexts in which spice consumption took place, the social paraphernalia that was associated with this, and the diversity of people involved. Moreover, these methods and bodies of data are also contributing to the identification of the spices and aromatics that were being consumed, adding more detail to the sometimes hazy picture provided by ancient authors.
Subjects
- Food History and Anthropology
- Food Globalization and Industrialization