UVSS HEMPOLOGY 101 CLUB
LECTURE SERIES 2007/08

LESSON #1 : CANNABIS B.C. - Part 2

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 30:22-24.

Around 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 archaeologist 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