„Your food shall be your remedy.“
These words are (probably incorrectly) ascribed to the great ancient physician Hippocrates (around 460-370 BCE). Even if he never said it like that, this statement should have been a truism throughout the ancient world: Most of the plants used in medicinal formulas were certainly also used as food. For no other plant is this finding as clear as it is for the date palm.
Archaeobotanical findings prove the existence of date palms in Egypt from the 8th millennium BCE onwards. Its cultivation and systematic use probably began in the Old Kingdom at the latest. The date palm supplied the Egyptians with building materials for small furniture and roofing of huts, as well as fibers for making ropes. The tomb of Ineni from the 18th dynasty shows a representation of his own orchard, in which date palms grow in addition to vines, fig and pomegranate trees. The date palm trees, up to 30 m high, provided shade and coolness in the burning Egyptian sun. Not only the garden owner could enjoy it, the palm trees also created a perfect microclimate for the lower plants growing underneath, so that they would not burn in the sun.
Drawing of a relief in the tomb of Ineni, TT81, 18th dynasty
from: Tietze, Ägyptische Gärten, Abb. 277.
In addition to the use of wood and fibers, as well as the design of an optimal garden, we are of course still missing the most obvious use: Date fruits have always been an extremely high-calorie and sweet enrichment of the diet. 100g fresh dates provide 280 kcal, with a carbohydrate content of 65% and 2.5% protein content. Real calorie bombs! However, dates can also be eaten dry and can therefore be stored and taken along as non-perishable provisions when traveling. Last but not least, dates can be fermented into a sweet, alcoholic drink, which the Egyptians called "date wine".
This is where medicine finally comes into play: Hardly any other plant is mentioned in so many different recipes of the medicinal papyri. The date could be cut, crushed, dried, used fresh or as flour, syrup or wine, both internally and externally.
Externally, for example, we find the following application:
Another remedy for the development of pus: flour of dried dates: 1, flour of emmer wheat: 1, natron: 1, kat-schut-plant: 1. The affected area should be bandaged with it and heated.
Similar to this recipe, many external applications with the ingredient "date" are intended to treat wounds or swellings. Recent studies have shown that dates actually have anti-inflammatory potential due to their high content of antioxidants.
The internal use of dates is still known and well documented today: the consumption of dates, especially the excessive consumption, has a laxative effect. This is due to the high content of sugar and fiber, which can bind fluids in the intestine and thus help with constipation. Accordingly, there are countless recipes for "eliminating toxins in the stomach", for "causing you to defecate", for "emptying the stomach" and "against a blockage of the stomach". However, some internal uses cannot be explained with medical-pharmaceutical facts, such as "eliminating cough" or "eliminating lameness". Here Egyptian doctors probably made use of the sweet taste: similar to honey, dates or date syrup may have served to improve the flavor.
The importance of the date palm in Egypt cannot be overestimated. The same goes for the eternal rivals of the ancient Egyptians, the Mesopotamians. From the Codex Hammurabi, we know the punishment for the unauthorized cutting down of someone else's date palm: "Assuming that a man has cut down a date palm in someone else's garden without the permission of the owner of a garden, he will pay half a mine of silver." We can assume that the unauthorized logging of date palms was not a trivial offense in Egypt either.
Literature
- William J. Darby, Paul Ghalioungui, Louis Grivetti, Food: The Gift of Osiris, Vol. 2, London 1977.
- Renate Germer, Handbuch der altägyptischen Heilpflanzen, Wiesbaden 2008.
- Christian Tietze (Hrsg.), Ägyptische Gärten, Weimar 2011.
Cover Picture
Dates and date stones, Ident.Nr. ÄM 3361 Collection: Egyptian Museum and Papyrus colelction
© Foto: Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz
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