WHAT TYPE OF FOOD OR PRODUCT IS “PRECIOUS” TO

YOU?

HOW MUCH WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO PAY if it BECAME DIFFICULT TO

find?

WHAT would you do if it was no longer available?

What is this, How does it taste, and where does it come from?

Roman Custard: Add honey or sugar to a large glass of milk and bring the mixture to a boil in a saucepan. Take a little of the boiling milk and add three egg or egg yolks to it. After this, place the mixture in an oven and cook until the dessert is set. Garnish with nutmeg or cinnamon before serving.

Roman Dates Alexandrina Recipe: Stuff stoned dates with almonds and cinnamon powder. Cover them in honey and butter. Then cook the stuffed dates in an oven at high temperature for about ten minutes. Serve hot.

Pears Cooked with Cinnamon and Wine: Boil pears till tender and drain the liquid. Reserve the fruit stock for use. Mash the pears and cook then in the stock. Add cumin, cinnamon, honey and olive oil, and sweet wine to this. Cook this mixture on a low flame for a few minutes. Add egg yolks to thicken the mixture.

So, where did ancient Mediterranean civilizations get their Cinnamon from?

Still more wonderful is the way in which they collect the cinnamon. Where the wood grows, and what country produces it, they cannot tell……Great birds, they say, bring the sticks which we Greeks, taking the word from the Phoenicians, call cinnamon, and carry them up into the air to make their nests. These are fastened with a sort of mud to a sheer face of rock, where no foot of man is able to climb. So the Arabians, to get the cinnamon, use the following technique. They cut all the oxen and asses and beasts of burden that die in their land into large pieces, which they carry with them into those regions, and place near the nests: then they withdraw to a distance, and the old birds, swooping down, seize the pieces of meat and fly with them up to their nests; which, not being able to support the weight, break off and fall to the ground.[10] Hereupon the Arabians return and collect the cinnamon, which is afterwards carried from Arabia into other countries.

Excerpted from Book 3, Chapters 107-82, in The Histories of Herodotus, by Herodotus, 484-425 BCE.

“These old tales were invented by the Arabs to raise

the price of their goods!”Pliny the Elder, Roman Writer

c. 77 CE

QUESTIONS TO ANSWER!

• What made cinnamon such a precious item in the ancient Mediterranean world?

• Why were spices like cinnamon so important to the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean world?

WRITTEN SOURCESThe Greeks and Romans used Cinnamon to add flavor to their food, and to flavor their wine.Both the Greeks and Egyptians burned Cinnamon sticks as a type of incense in their religious temples. The Egyptians also used Cinnamon in the embalming oils that they used to preserve the bodies of the dead for their journey to the after-lifeCinnamon was also a key ingredient in a type of Jewish holy oil called Abramelin.Cinnamon, as a warm and dry substance, was believed by doctors in ancient times to cure snakebites, freckles, the common cold, and kidney troubles, among other health problems.According to the Roman writer Pliny the Elder, a pound (the Roman pound, 327 g) of cinnamon cost up to 300 denarius, which added up to the wage of a farm laborer that had worked for ten months. Denarius: Small and made of silver, it was the most common form of ancient Roman coin. The word denarius is derived from the Latin dēnī "containing ten", as its value was 10 asses.

The majority of cinnamon that reached the ancient Mediterranean world originated from Sri Lanka and the South-West coast of India. When a cinnamon tree was around two years old, the farmers would cut back the tree to the size of a stump and cover it with soil. This technique caused the cinnamon tree to grow like a bush, with new shoots emerging out of the sides by the following year. It was these shoots that were used to make cinnamon. Once cut, the shoots were stripped of their inner bark and the bark was set out to dry in the sun for four to six hours. As this happened, the bark naturally curled into rolls (quills) that formed into sticks The most successful of the spice traders in the ancient world were the Arab tribes, the largest and most powerful being the Nabataeans.These Arab traders used ships which sailed north along the Indian coast from the port of Nelcynda, past the Persian Gulf, along the coast of South Arabia, stopping at the ports of Cane or Mocha. From these ports the Arab traders sailed up the Red Sea into Egypt. They then crossed the Eastern Desert (by camel) to the Nile River, finally reaching the Mediterranean port city of Alexandria. Long-distance trade in the ancient world was a risky business, as traders often ran the risks of robbery, storms and shipwrecks, and piracy. Despite these risks, however, spices such as cinnamon were in such great demand that the profits outweighed the risks. Port: A town or city with a harbor where ships load or unload

Graph: Guiding Questions

Where did the Cinnamon come from?How was it produced? Who transported the Cinnamon?What were the risks?How did they transport it? What was the demand for Cinnamon?How valuable did it become?

REFLECTIONS

What made cinnamon such a precious item in the ancient Mediterranean world?

Why were spices like cinnamon so important to the civilizations of the ancient Mediterranean world?