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UVIC Hempology Lecture Series: 1st Lecture- Cannabis B.C. (Before Christ)
By Hempology | September 10, 2007
September 10th 2007
1st Lecture- Cannabis B.C. (Before Christ)
The history of the cannabis plant is as old as the story of human civilization. The plant has been used by our ancestors and other species as a source of protein for millions of years. About one million years ago the capacity to control fire was developed by pre-humans and one can assume that within a few hundred thousand years almost every plant available had been burned in a campfire or cave. As humans began forming larger groups, the ability to collect hemp seed and store it for years gave them control over a source of protein that could keep them alive through harsh winters.
In his book, The Dragons Of Eden, Carl Sagan suggests that cannabis was the first domestic crop grown by humans almost 12,000 years ago. Cannabis provided food, oil, fibre for rope and cloth, and was eaten or inhaled for religious and medical purposes. A popular ancient method of ingesting cannabis was to cook it in milk and add honey for sweetener to produce what is commonly known as bhang. Hemp fibers were found in 10,000 year-old pottery found in Taiwan, probably to help strengthen the clay.
The Chinese have long considered their country the ‘land of mulberry and hemp’. The oldest paper in the world is hemp paper from China. The Chinese were using cannabis as medicine before the 28th century and later began making clothing from it because the dwindling animal population could not produce enough fur for the growing human civilization. Early Chinese healers used to wrap a dead snake around a hemp stalk, or carve the image of a snake on a hemp stalk, and would beat it around the bed of a sick person to ward off evil spirits.
Ancient Japanese people used hemp for seed, cloth and healing. India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan have been excellent sources of hashish since the beginning of time. The Egyptians pharaohs were also cannabis consumers, burning hash in elaborate incense chambers at almost every ceremony. A cone of hash was made which was placed upon the top of the heads of entertainers and guests at various functions, including parties and funerals. The Assyrians were another civilization that grew cannabis that they worshipped as the Tree of Life.
The Sumerians, Mesopotamians, Greeks and Persians also used hash in their homes and temples. Many believe that The Bible is full of references to cannabis from the Tree of Life to the ‘old vinegar’ that was placed on the lips of Jesus before he died. God taught Moses how to make cannabis anointing oil. The ‘burning bush’ was likely a hash plant that helped Moses talk to God. After all, God gave man all seed bearing herbs.
The Hebrew people used this anointing oil and hash incense until 621 B.C. when King Josiah declared that using anointing oil and burning incense was prohibited except in the worship of Jahweh. Though this original prohibition contained in the ‘Book Of Law’only lasted a few years, it was used in 325 by the newly formed Roman Catholic Church to justify abolishing the use of cannabis or any other plant for healing. This anointing oil was openly used by Jesus to ‘heal the lepers’, an act for which he was condemned. However, during his time the burning of hash incense in the worship of various gods and goddesses of every known civilization was quite popular.
Pygmies in Africa believe that they have smoked cannabis since the beginning of time. Though the introduction of cannabis to most of Africa may have been in the last 2000 years, northern parts of the continent have grown the herb for many millenium. The water pipe was likely invented in Ethiopia. It is likely that the ancient ‘food of the gods’ was hashish that came from Western Arabia and between the Red Sea and the Nile.
And the Lord God made all kinds of tree grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:8-9
Then the Lord said to Moses, “take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of q’aneh-bosm, 500 shekels of cassia- all according to the sanctuary shekel- and a hind of olive oil. Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the anointing oil.? Exodus 30:22-24Around 1980, etymologists at Hebrew University in Jerusalem confirmed that cannabis is mentioned in the Bible by name, Kineboisin (also spelled Kannabosm), in a list of measured ingredients for ‘an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of apothecary’ to be smeared on the head. The word was mistranslated in King James version as calamus. D. Latimer
The earliest record of man’s use of cannabis comes from the island of Taiwan located off the coast of mainland China. In this densely populated part of the world, archaeologists have unearthed an ancient village site dating back over 10,000 years to the Stone Age.
Scattered among the trash and debris from this prehistoric community were some broken pieces of pottery the sides of which had been decorated by pressing strips of cord into the wet clay before it hardened. Also dispersed among the pottery fragments were some elongated rod-shaped tools, very similar in appearance to those later used to loosen cannabis fibers from their stems. These simple pots, with their patterns of twisted fiber embedded in their sides, suggest that men have been using the marijuana plant in some manner since the dawn of history. The discovery that twisted strands of fiber were much stronger than individual strands was followed by developments in the arts of spinning and weaving fibers into fabric – innovations that ended man’s reliance on animal skins for clothing.
Here, too, it was hemp fiber that the Chinese chose for their first homespun garments. So important a place did hemp fiber occupy in ancient Chinese culture that the Book of Rites (second century B.C.) ordained that out of respect for the dead, mourners should wear clothes made from hemp fabric, a custom followed down to modern times. Abel, Earnest, Marijuana – The First Twelve Thousand Years, 1980. The earliest physical evidence of burning cannabis, according to Oxford archeologist Andrew Sherrat, dates back to at least 5,000 years ago. Sherrat points to archaeological finds at a gravesite of a group known as the Proto-Indo-Europeans, also called the Kurgans, who occupied what is now Romania.
The discovery at this site of a “smoking cup” which contained remnants of charred hemp seeds shows that 3,000 years before Christ, humanity had already been using cannabis for religious purposes. From remnants of the charred hemp seeds, we discover that the combustible (and psychoactive) parts of the plant – namely flowers and leaves – had been consumed and the hard shell-like residue of the seeds was left behind.
Sherrat also points to even older ceramic tripod bowls believed to have been used as burners for cannabis incense, due to the use of hemp cords to place impressions upon them.
Likewise in ancient Mesopotamia, largely regarded as the birthplace of civilized culture, cannabis incense was burned because “its aroma was pleasing to the Gods.” Recipes for cannabis incense, regarded as copies of much older versions, were found in the cuneiform library of the legendary Assyrian king Assurbanipal. Records from the time of his father, Esarhaddon, record “cannabis,” under the name “qunubu,” as one of the main ingredients of the “sacred rites.”
Incense tents like those used by Esarhaddon were part of the ancient world’s standard paraphernalia. The use of cannabis and these incense tents was spread throughout the ancient world by the Scythians. Chris Bennett, cannabisculture.com
Incense, used religiously by the ancient Babylonians, was made from cannabis psychoactive resins collected by hand from the flowering female cannabis plants. This highly fragrant sticky entheogenic resin was rolled into balls and short-fingered rods that were traded throughout the ancient world since the remotest times. The ancients called it incense; we call it hashish. It is still traded throughout the world, still prepared in the same manner-collected by hand and rolled into balls, short rods and thin slabs. The legendary hashish balls are still called Napalese temple balls. For thousands of years temple balls have been used for religious contemplation burned in ornate incensors by devotees in the temples. Chris Bennett, Green Gold, The Tree of Life; Marijuana in Magic and Religion, 1995
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