The earliest evidence of opium use has been found in an ancient burial site in Israel . Not only does the uncovering tell archeologists about the trippy funeral of the Bronze Age , but it ’s also spill visible radiation on the murky opium trade of the Levant during the fourteenth century BCE .
pay their poppy - like shape when placed upside down , it was previously reflect they were used as ritual vessels for opium , which isderived fromthe opium poppy plant ( genus Papaver somniferum ) . Until now , however , this had never been show .
In a new field of study , research worker from the IAA , Tel Aviv University , and the Weizmann Institute of Science carried out a chemical analysis of the residuum found inside the vessels .
Hints of opium were found in several of the vessels. Image credit: Assaf Peretz/Israel Antiquities Authority.
Just as they hoped , the residue incorporate trace of legion compound establish inP. somniferum , including morphinan , a category of lifelike chemical substance that includes compounds like morphia and codeine .
“ This is the only psychoactive drug that has been witness in the Levant in the later Bronze Age , ” Vanessa Linares , lead study author from Tel Aviv University , pronounce in a statement sent to IFLScience .
Burying someone alongside some drug might seem a little bit strange by today ’s monetary standard , but a all-encompassing variety of archaeological jibe have shown how drug have play animportant role in funerary ritualsthroughout history .
A Base Ring juglet imported from Cyprus. Image credit: Clara Amit/Israel Antiquities Authority.
“ Of naturally , we do not know what the opium ’s function was in the ceremonial occasion – whether the Canaanites in Yehud believed that the dead would need opium in the hereafter , or whether it was the priests who consumed the drug for the purposes of the ceremony , ” suppose Linares .
By tracing the pedigree of the poppy and the pottery , it ’s clear that the drug user went to great exertion to get their hands on this stiff narcotic .
Many of the stack were crafted in Cyprus , an island in the Mediterranean Sea . Opium poppiesare aboriginal tothe eastern Mediterranean and were belike grown in the land currently known as Turkey . This suggests that the narcotic took quite a journey to end up in the Levant .
“ In other Christian Bible , the opium was brought to Yehud from Turkey , through Cyprus ; this of course designate the importance that was attributed to the drug , ” explained Linares .
The new field of study was of late write in the journalArchaeometry .
