RE: Ancient Medit Plants
- To: m*@ucdavis.edu, "Colette DUNKLEY"
- Subject: RE: Ancient Medit Plants
- From:
- Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2000 9:40:16 -0700
>
> At the moment I am looking at Greeks and Romans I have only been able
> to get a couple of books about the subject and the one which gives the
> most detail is the History of Flower arranging by Julia Berral
> published 1953.
> There is a book from Timber Press (Portland, Oregon), by Hellmut Bauman,
called "The Greek Plant World in Myth, Art and Literature" that I think
will answer many of your questions. For example, he mentions that
Dioscorides recommends adding pine resin to wine to make it more
digestible. The book has many photographs of Greek plants and
representaions in mosaics, frescoes, and sculpture.
> A mosaic in the Villa Quintilli apparently shows a woven basket holding
> various flowers ( unusual because the Ancients did not use containers
> for diplaying cut flowers.) It is said to contain roses carnations
> hyacinths anemones narcissi and a tulip.
>
> There is some conjecture that the the tulip should not be featured in
> the basket and that many ancient works of art were altered to show
> tulips when tulips were introduced to the west from Turkey inthe middle
> ages. Surely there are wild tulips that are native to Greece its not
> unlikely that the ancients would have used them.?
Is anyone familar with the picture "The Prince of the Lilies" the wall
> painting from the palace of Knossos in Crete?
>
> What are those fantastic red and orange blooms? Martagon lilies???
Martagon lilies or Lilium chalcedonicum.
> Can any one tell me why resin was used to flavour wine? Was any sort of
> Pine resin used or was it just from one tree?
Resin was collected from Pinus halepensis.
--- Tom Chakas
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