Saffron has been treasured by people all across the world and time. In this post, you will find the YouTube video exploring the luxurious archaeology of saffron, and a full video transcript (with relevant sources and links).

YouTube Video

YouTube Video Transcript

Here, you will find the complete transcript of the video in the previous section with hyperlinked references/citations.

Intro

On the Greek island of Santorini, a fresco decorates the wall of an over 3,500 year old building. 

Against a rocky landscape, there are two women wearing colorful clothing and elaborate jewelry. This artwork is not just notable for its beauty and antiquity, but it provides a glimpse into one of history’s most beloved, and most luxurious, spices: saffron. 

You may know saffron from the flavor and color it brings to certain dishes like paella, bouillabaisse, and tahdig. The spice is also really expensive – a few grams could easily cost you between $50 and $100. During my archaeological fieldwork in Oman, it was quite an honor to be served saffron tea.

Hi, I’m Dr. Smiti Nathan, and I’m an archaeologist. In this video, we’re going to explore the luxurious archaeology of saffron. So let’s get into it.

Saffron 101

As we mentioned earlier, saffron is pricey – it’s actually one of the most expensive spices in the world. 

So why is saffron so expensive? 

Let’s start with what saffron actually is. It’s a bright yellow spice that comes from the dried stigmas of Crocus sativus, or the saffron crocus. This is a purple, fall-blooming flower in the Iris family, Iridaceae. Stigmas are often found at the center of flowers, and they are essentially like a sticky doorstep for pollinators to come in and fertilize the plant.

Saffron is harvested carefully by hand-collecting the flower’s three stigmas. In some places, collection happens before dawn because the sun can degrade the delicate plant. These stigmas must be dried immediately. In general, harvesting and processing saffron is a long, labor-intensive process. According to John Humphries’ “The Essential Saffron Companion”, it takes about 160,000 flowers to produce 5 kilograms of stigmas, which become 1 kilogram of the dried spice. In some places, that 1 dried kilogram takes around 400 hours to process. 

This is why saffron was–and still is–extremely expensive. 

Despite how challenging it can be to harvest saffron, it has been important throughout antiquity. The spice’s English name gives a nod to its worldly history.

We can trace the English word “saffron” as far back as the 12th century CE. Currently, its known English etymology comes from the Old French “safran”, which comes from the Latin “safranum”, which likely comes from the Arabic “az-za’farān”. Now other languages have similar sounding words for saffron. In certain places and times, a variant of the word “Crocus” was used to denote saffron. The multiple etymologies of saffron point to its importance across the world.  

Saffron Origins

So you might be wondering, “Where did saffron come from?”

To date, we haven’t found saffron stigmas in archaeological excavations at ancient sites. However, we have other ways to figure out saffron’s origins.

When scholars are looking for the origin of a certain plant, especially a domesticated plant, we often start in places where we see a lot of varieties of that plant, aka diversity. With saffron, its genetic diversity is limited when it comes to past varieties. So scholars turned their efforts to finding its wild ancestor – another clue we often turn to when looking at the origins of a domesticated plant.

Using genetic sequencing, scholars found that the closest known relative to the domesticated saffron crocus variety, Crocus sativus, is a wild variety called Crocus cartwrightianus. What’s important here is that Crocus cartwrightianus is only found in southern Greece. This strongly suggests that the saffron crocus was first domesticated in this region. 

Some of the earliest written mentions of saffron also come from Greece. On the Greek island of Crete in the city of Knossos, archaeologists found 59 tablets–whole and partial–that contain the ideogram–or symbol–for saffron. Scholar Jo Day notes the tablets demonstrate that the Mycenaeans who ruled here were increasing their economic and organizational control of saffron. She argues that increased quantities of the spice recorded in the tablets, as well as people who might have been in charge of overseeing its collection, are indicators of saffron control. According to the tablets, it seems that saffron was used mostly as a dye for cloth and as a medicine.

Saffron motifs were also found in art throughout ancient Greece. For example, at Knossos, a potsherd featuring the saffron flower and stigmas was unearthed.

And remember the painting of the two Minoan women from the beginning of this video? This fresco is an important early depiction of saffron harvesting in ancient Greece. It’s now known as “the Saffron Gatherers.”  

Saffron & Texts

While genetic sequencing and corresponding archaeological artifacts suggest that ancient Greece is the home of domesticated saffron, the plant has ancient ties in many other parts of the world. 

In fact, there are many mentions of wild saffron pigments that were used in 50,000-year-old cave paintings in modern-day Iraq. When we dug deeper into this, we couldn’t find the site’s name or a study that sampled the pigments. So if you know more about this, please let us know in the comments.

Typically, scholars have primarily relied on textual sources to better understand saffron’s role across time and the world. 

Egypt

For example, when it comes to ancient Egypt, there are a lot of mentions online about saffron’s importance in this region during antiquity. The New Kingdom (ca. 1550 BCE) Ebers papyrus is often cited as mentioning medical uses for saffron to treat eye disorders. As we looked a bit deeper, that assumption isn’t so clear. This mainly has to do with translation and plant identification.

According to the Cyril Bryan translation of the Ebers papyrus (Bryan 1974), it mentioned the use of an ”incense and crocus” poultice for bloodshot eye (p 96), as well as mentions of saffron, saffron seeds, and blossom of the saffron as plant remedies (p 30). Bryan didn’t include the original Egyptian words for saffron, which is an important point. 

According to several scholars (see Forsyth 2000 for full list of citations), three words have been translated as saffron: matet, sn-wt.t, and djaret. 

Ongoing scholarship has demonstrated that the first two are likely other plants (see Forsyth 2000 for full list of citations). This leaves us with djaret. According to one scholar there are instances of this word in the Ebers papyrus, especially for eye afflictions. However, when we looked at the English translation of the Leipzig Ebers Papyrus database, it didn’t include saffron in any of the entries, and we couldn’t find a reference to the djaret plant. This might be because djaret was translated as another ingredient in this database.

So to us, we feel like the jury is still deliberating on saffron’s medical uses in ancient Egypt, as mentioned in the Ebers papyrus. This has to do with how we’re engaging with translated sources, as well as there not, at least to date, being a solid translation for the word saffron.

If you have more information on this front, please let us know in the comments. 

Ancient Persia

Now let’s go to a neighboring region, Ancient Persia. This region has a long history with saffron. It was a major exporter of the spice and was thought to be its origin center at one time. We have evidence that saffron was part of food, medicine, rituals, dyes, and fragrances. 

Within this region, if we go to Babylonia during the 6th-8th centuries CE, in certain contexts, saffron seems to have been intertwined with sorcery and magic bowls. These magic bowls, also called incantation bowls, drew upon a mix of magic and medicine for purposes like warding off demons.  This particular bowl contains an incantation that reads:

“Your spices are scattered, your gates fly away, and I have loosened (their) hinges. The blast demon (carries off) (6) the new saffron which you grasp. Show me favour and he will show you favour.”

This is just one example of the spice’s use in both magic and medicine and it’s pretty cool we have this archaeological artifact with text that demonstrates this.

A few centuries later, the Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote the epic poem, The Shahnameh, which details the mythic and historical past of the Persian Empire. Saffron is mentioned multiple times in different contexts.

In one passage, the great hero warrior Rustam is choosing a horse. He ends up selecting Rakhsh and, according to one translation, this is the description we get of the horse:

In our research, the translations we found of the Shahnameh consistently used saffron in the description of Rakhsh.  What stands out here to me is that a likeness to saffron evokes greatness, rarity, and wonder. 

And saffron was important in this region for millennia. In fact, modern-day Iran is one of the primary growers of saffron, and it’s used in a diversity of ways, like in food, dyes, and fragrances. 

Kashmir & China

Another important center for saffron cultivation was Kashmir. In fact, saffron is also still cultivated in Kashmir today. The UN has even recognized it as a “Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System”. In the past, Kashmiri saffron was exported to various places, including ancient China. 

According to scholar, Yan Liu, one of the earliest written records possibly describing saffron is the third-century CE text, “Record of Strange Things in Southern Districts” by Wan Zhen. While the text in its entirety is lost, parts of it have been preserved in later works. Here is one excerpt:

“Yujin originated in the country of Jibin. People of that country cultivate it. They first collect [the plants] to offer to Buddha. As the days wear on, [the plants] dry and wither, and they are then carried away [from the altar]. Afterward, [people] collect the yujin, which are pure yellow and slender, like [the strands] draped around the seed pod inside a lotus flower. They can [be used to] scent wine.”

Liu thinks that the “yujin” described here is saffron for two reasons. First off, Jibin is a place in the Kashmir region, which is where saffron grows. Second, the description, especially the parts about the pure yellow and slender, seem to be describing the saffron’s notable stigmas. 

According to Liu, this passage also highlights that the plants were first offered to Buddha, and then, once they dried, the stigmas were harvested to scent wine.

We have examples from other places and times when saffron was used as an aromatic in foods, beverages, and perfumes. 

Kashmir & South India

Saffron made its way from Kashmir to other parts of Asia too. If we go back to around 1087 CE, the Kashmiri poet Bilhaṇa seems to have been going through it when he wrote the following lines, which have been translated by scholar Whitney Cox:

“It seems that those who really delight in poetry are close kin to the saffron flower, for I haven’t seen a trace of them anywhere else since I left Kashmir, Sarasvatī’s country”.

Bilhaṇa was originally from Kashmir, but he made his way down to southern India as a travelling teacher and author. His statement might have been a bit harsh in referencing the people he was encountering; however, there are some interesting parallels to saffron’s journey southward on the subcontinent.

Much like Bilhaṇa, saffron made its way around the subcontinent too, and was considered a luxury good. What’s interesting here is that once saffron reached the south, where my ancestors are from :),  it was often substituted and confused with another potent yellow spice – turmeric. Like with many luxury goods, people sought substitutes and dupes. While turmeric can closely mimic saffron’s color, the two have noticeably different flavor profiles. 

Ancient Rome

Saffron was also an important trade item in the Roman Empire. The plant was described by classical philosophers, physicians, and historians, including Dioscorides, Hippocrates, Galen, and Pliny. Recently, scholar Kathleen Birney dove into the writings of Dioscordes and Pliny and unearthed something quite interesting.

As we mentioned before, saffron’s genetic diversity was limited in antiquity, especially in terms of varietals. Though limited, Birney suggests that Crocus longiflorus – a wild, endemic crocus native to Sicily, may have been the Sicilian saffron described in certain texts.

Pliny thought the Sicilian city of Centuripa was a top producer of quality saffron. The physician, Dioscorides, disagreed. He thought Sicilian saffron’s medicinal properties were weak, though he did acknowledge their use as a dye. 

Regardless of who is right on the matter of Sicilian saffron quality, Birney argues that if Crocus longiflorus was actually Sicilian saffron, its existence and commercial value in the ancient Mediterranean is important in correcting the assumption that Crocus sativus was the sole noteworthy crocus species.

Shipwrecked Saffron

And saffron not only spread across the Mediterranean, Asia, and northern Africa, but it made its way to Scandinavia by the medieval era. A tragic historical event gave archaeologists an invaluable opportunity to glimpse into the luxurious world of saffron in this region.

In 1495 CE, a royal warship called the Gribshunden was en route to the Swedish council, where King Hans of Denmark and Norway was set to be elected king of Sweden as well. This event marked an important moment where most of Scandinavia was to be united under one ruler. While en route, King Hans got off the ship at Great Oak Island (Stora Ekön), to likely meet with officials there. While he was off the ship, there was a fire and explosion that eventually sank the ship down 11 meters. 

While scholars think that folx tried to salvage what they could from the ship, eventually, parts of the ship collapsed, making it difficult to retrieve anything else. 

Centuries later, a team of archaeologists decided to excavate the site. Part of the team studied the botanical remains from the wrecked ship and found 40 different plant taxa. They unearthed almond shell, peppercorn fruits, several different parts of the clove, ginger rhizome, fruits and veggies like cucumber and raspberry, AND actual threads of saffron stigmas!

This is truly remarkable as this is one of the only archaeological excavations to yield actual saffron stigmas. Some of the other other finds like ginger and clove are pretty rare as well. These medieval finds give me hope that we might find something like this in the ancient archaeological record in the future. 

We’re not entirely sure what King Hans would have done with these spices and foods if they had made it to Sweden. They could have been gifts or used to cook a lavish banquet. Scholars note, “The consumption of luxurious foods was a crucial aspect of King Hans’ and other monarchs’ presentation of themselves to their subjects.” Whatever the intended purpose, it seems that Hans wanted to impress Nordic royalty with rare and luxurious foods. Perhaps, to signal his social status, prestige, and connectedness to other lands and cultures. 

Outro

The luxurious history of saffron spans thousands of years. From its archaeological origins in Bronze Age Greece to its spread across the Mediterranean, Asia, and beyond. Saffron has been treasured for its vibrant color, unique flavor, enticing aroma, and its rarity. Archaeological discoveries like the frescoes in Santorini and the shipwreck of the Gribshunden, as well as textual and genetic sources, give us a glimpse into the history of this unique plant. 

Now if you’re interested in learning about another important plant in the ancient world, check out this video here. That’s all for this video, and we’ll catch you in the next one! Bye!

Credits

Anya Gruber: Co-Producer, Researcher, Scriptwriter

Noor Hanania: Lead Video Editor

Brooke Norton: Researcher, Scriptwriter, Peer Reviewer

Nada Sabbah: Thumbnail Designer

Sneh P. Patel: Peer Reviewer

Taylor Zaneri: Peer Reviewer

Smiti Nathan: Director, Co-Producer, Support Video Editor, Researcher, Scriptwriter

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