Hey dear Hive community, first of all I would like to welcome you all to my contribution and hope you had a day that was full of positive experiences! In this post, I have decided to go into the history of an important spice and hope you can expand your knowledge.
Here you can see some crocus flowers which have been the important basis for the well-known spice saffron for several thousand years and especially the species Crocus sativus is suitable for these purposes. It is a very laborious work to extract the spice and and after about two weeks of flowering it is time for the harvest and the red threads in the middle of the flower are often plucked by hand and then dried and when you look at the pictures you quickly notice that the yield is really low and you need thousands of plants for a good yield. It is not for nothing that it is one of the most expensive spices in the world and the earliest traces are already 4000 years old and there are traces that it was already cultivated on a large scale in the Mediterranean and in the Akkadian empire there are discoveries of clay tablets that emphasize the importance of this spice at the time and in the city of Azupiranu the cultivation was probably very common and it was also known as the saffron city. It was already used in ancient times for various purposes and it was found that in addition to being used as a spice, it can also be very interesting for the production of color pigments or as a medicinal plant and it was considered a luxury item at the time. The dye was mainly used for dyeing textiles and also in ancient Greece saffron was of great importance and also here there are discoveries of murals that emphasized the importance and the Greeks use it to dye their robes. It was also used for cultural purposes and from a cultural point of view it was often used to give gods a gift and it was often scattered in temples for honor and according to mythology, the god Zeus was even so enthusiastic about saffron that he had slept in a bed full of it.
Many scholars from ancient Greece wrote about it and Homer, Hippocrates, Ovid and others mentioned the importance of saffron and also in ancient Greece there were large areas that were cultivated with it. The spice also had an important meaning for the Romans and here it was often used as an aphrodisiac and some emperors were so convinced about this luxury spice that they decided to grow it on a large scale and at that time it was mainly reserved for nobles and the ordinary citizens knew it rather less. Also in ancient Egypt it had an important meaning and Cleopatra probably bathed in water which was mixed with saffron and old writings on Papyrus showed how important it was in the medicine of the ancient Egyptians and similar to ancient Greece it became also used for offerings to send a gift to the gods. The high demand also caused an ever more growing trade and there were even people who tried to imitate it and the Romans spread saffron more and more in the Roman Empire and in the early Middle Ages it came to Spain by Arab traders from where it spread more and more. The Phoenicians who were known for their strong power at sea also recognized the importance of this spice and decided to participate in trade and in Europe at that time Switzerland was an important country when it came to trade and there were even often armed conflicts and it did not take long until it reached other countries and also met with a high acceptance there and was strongly divided at the time and some concentrated only on producing pigments and selling them afterwards. In the Middle Ages, trade flourished especially because it was recognized that it had helped well with pandemics such as the plague and this increasing demand even led to many deliveries being attacked on the way and the most important center for trade was Basel at the time. Even today it is still an extremely important spice and the most important producers nowadays is Spain and from a medical point of view it can be a great remedy, but as always I would like to mention that in case of illness you always have to ask your doctor about the right dosage or side effects!
Thank you very much for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about history! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens!