1621 Plymouth Pilgrim Thanksgiving Menu

1899 The 1st Thanksgiving in 1621 by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris  Jean Leon Gerome Ferris !863-1930)  was an American painter best known for his series of 78 scenes from American history, entitled The Pageant of a Nation, the largest series of American historical paintings by a single artist.

What Was on the Menu at the First Thanksgiving?

By Megan Gambino in the Smithsonian November 21, 2011

Today, the traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes any number of dishes: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie. But if one were to create a historically accurate feast, consisting of only those foods that historians are certain were served at the so-called “first Thanksgiving,” there would be slimmer pickings. “Wildfowl was there. Corn, in grain form for bread or for porridge, was there. Venison was there,” says Kathleen Wall. “These are absolutes.”

Two primary sources—the only surviving documents that reference the meal—confirm that these staples were part of the harvest celebration shared by the Pilgrims and Wampanoag at Plymouth Colony in 1621. Edward Winslow, an English leader who attended, wrote home to a friend: “Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others.”

William Bradford, the governor Winslow mentions, also described the autumn of 1621, adding, “And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion.”

But determining what else the colonists and Wampanoag might have eaten at the 17th-century feast takes some digging. To form educated guesses, Wall, a foodways culinarian at Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, studies cookbooks and descriptions of gardens from the period, archaeological remains such as pollen samples that might clue her in to what the colonists were growing.

Our discussion begins with the bird. Turkey was not the centerpiece of the meal, as it is today, explains Wall. Though it is possible the colonists and American Indians cooked wild turkey, she suspects that goose or duck was the wildfowl of choice. In her research, she has found that swan and passenger pigeons would have been available as well. “Passenger pigeons—extinct in the wild for over a century now—were so thick in the 1620s, they said you could hear them a quarter-hour before you saw them,” says Wall. “They say a man could shoot at the birds in flight and bring down 200. Small birds were often spit-roasted, while larger birds were boiled. “I also think some birds—in a lot of recipes you see this—were boiled first, then roasted to finish them off. Or things are roasted first and then boiled,” says Wall. “The early roasting gives them nicer flavor, sort of caramelizes them on the outside and makes the broth darker." It is possible that the birds were stuffed, though probably not with bread. (Bread, made from maize not wheat, was likely a part of the meal, but exactly how it was made is unknown.) The Pilgrims instead stuffed birds with chunks of onion and herbs. “There is a wonderful stuffing for goose in the 17th-century that is just shelled chestnuts,” says Wall. “I am thinking of that right now, and it is sounding very nice.” Since the first Thanksgiving was a three-day celebration, she adds, “I have no doubt whatsoever that birds that are roasted one day, the remains of them are all thrown in a pot and boiled up to make broth the next day. That broth thickened with grain to make a pottage.”

In addition to wildfowl and deer, the colonists and Wampanoag probably ate eels and shellfish, such as lobster, clams and mussels. “They were drying shellfish and smoking other sorts of fish,” says Wall. According to the culinarian, the Wampanoag, like most eastern woodlands people, had a “varied and extremely good diet.” The forest provided chestnuts, walnuts and beechnuts. “They grew flint corn (multicolored Indian corn), and that was their staple. They grew beans, which they used from when they were small and green until when they were mature,” says Wall. “They also had different sorts of pumpkins or squashes.”

As we are taught in school, the Indians showed the colonists how to plant native crops. “The English colonists plant gardens in March of 1620 and 1621,” says Wall. “We don’t know exactly what’s in those gardens. But in later sources, they talk about turnips, carrots, onions, garlic and pumpkins as the sorts of things that they were growing.”

Of course, to some extent, the exercise of reimagining the spread of food at the 1621 celebration becomes a process of elimination. “You look at what an English celebration in England is at this time. What are the things on the table? You see lots of pies in the first course and in the second course, meat and fish pies. To cook a turkey in a pie was not terribly uncommon,” says Wall. “But it is like, no, the pastry isn’t there.” The colonists did not have butter and wheat flour to make crusts for pies and tarts. (That’s right: No pumpkin pie!) “That is a blank in the table, for an English eye. So what are they putting on instead? I think meat, meat and more meat,” says Wall.

Meat without potatoes, that is. White potatoes, originating in South America, and sweet potatoes, from the Caribbean, had yet to infiltrate North America. Also, there would have been no cranberry sauce. It would be another 50 years before an Englishman wrote about boiling cranberries and sugar into a “Sauce to eat with. . . .Meat.” Says Wall: “If there was beer, there were only a couple of gallons for 150 people for three days.” She thinks that to wash it all down the English and Wampanoag drank water.

All this, naturally, begs a follow-up question. So how did the Thanksgiving menu evolve into what it is today? Wall explains that the Thanksgiving holiday, as we know it, took root in the mid-19th century. At this time, Edward Winslow’s letter, printed in a pamphlet called Mourt’s Relation, and Governor Bradford’s manuscript, titled Of Plimoth Plantation, were rediscovered and published. Boston clergyman Alexander Young printed Winslow’s letter in his Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers, and in the footnotes to the resurrected letter, he somewhat arbitrarily declared the feast the first Thanksgiving. (Wall and others at Plimoth Plantation prefer to call it “the harvest celebration in 1621.”) There was nostalgia for colonial times, and by the 1850s, most states and territories were celebrating Thanksgiving.

See:

Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie, Kathleen A. Curtin, Sandra L. Oliver and Plimoth Plantation [Clarkson Potter:New York] 2005.

American Heritage Cookbook and Illustrated History of American Eating & Drinking, Menus and Recipes, Helen McCully recipe editor [American Heritage Publishing Co.:New York] 1964 (p.416-417)

History of the Turkey for Thanksgiving & Christmas Celebrations

 

An engraving from Audubon's painting of a hen with her poults, or chicks, circa 1827–30.

A Short History of the Turkey

Centuries before Christopher Columbus reached the New World, the Aztecs had domesticated a wild game bird that we call the turkey, but they called huexolotl. The turkey was so important to the Aztecs as a source of food that the Indians regarded the bird as a god. There were two religious festivals a year in the turkey's honor.

When the Spanish arrived in the earliest years of the sixteenth century, they were at a loss what to name the strange bird ...& settled on calling it "a kind of a peacock with great hanging chins." The bird's reputation for delicious, fine-textured flesh & distinguished plumage, as well as a comical appearance, was soon talked about in the court circles of Madrid & Seville. Who sent the first birds back to Spain is unclear. Most likely, it was Columbus after his fourth transatlantic visit in 1502, when he visited Cape Honduras. 

Some historians say Hernando Cortes, the swashbuckling Spanish conquistador, deserves the credit. But Cortes began his Mexican adventures in 1519, eight years after King Ferdinand sent out instructions that every Spanish ship returning from the New World should bring back ten turkeys, "half males, & the other half females ...because I desire that there be bred here some cocks & hens of those which you have there & were brought from Tierra Firme."

There are two wild species of turkey, members of the pheasant family that evolved in the New World about eleven million years ago. The Ocellated turkey—Agriocharis ocellata—is native to the jungles of the Yucatan & Guatemala. The other, more familiar species is the granddaddy of all present-day gobblers—Meleagris gallopova—& ranged from southeastern Canada to Mexico. Like pheasant & grouse, wild turkeys can burst into a short flight that clocks up to 55 miles per hour. On the ground they are no slouches either, running at up to 30 miles per hour. But turkeys are bred nowadays for brawn, not speed. 

Like the Aztecs to the south, the North American Indian tribes regarded the turkey as a powerful spiritual symbol. They prized its breast feathers as an alternative to goose down for warm winter cloaks. Southwestern tribes, believing the turkey to be the guide that ushered the dead into the next world, buried their loved ones in turkey-feather robes. 

But with the advent of the Europeans, the turkey's prospects turned. They were still revered—but now as an easily obtained meal. Early reports talk of hunters shooting 100 birds in a day—day after day...

The spread of the delectable turkey around Europe quickly followed its introduction into Spain. England gawked at its first turkey in the 1520s—introduced, it is said, by William Strickland of East Yorkshire after a visit to the New World with John Cabot. In later life, Strickland's perspicacity appears to have been honored with the award of a grant of arms—a family crest—that sported a heraldic "turkey-bird in his pride proper." 

As elsewhere in Europe, the bird proved a great hit in England. Hitherto, the high-end feathered diet of English aristocrats had included such tough & chewy morsels as cormorants, swans, cranes, herons, storks, & another, now critically endangered bird known as the Great Bustard...

According to Thomas Tusser's 1570 Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry, turkey meat was now part & parcel of England's Christmas celebrations, at least for the well off. Such was the demand, that farmers from Norfolk, eighty or more miles distant, would drive their thousand-strong turkey flocks to market in London on foot, reportedly creating the first traffic jams on the streets of the English capital...

By 1541 eating turkey was so popular that when Thomas Cranmer, the Church of England's top archbishop, introduced a sumptuary law to restrict the consumption of meat dishes by his underlings, turkey was on the hit list. He said "of the greater fishes or fowles, there should be but one in a dish, as crane, swan, turkeycocke, haddocke, pyke, tench."

In Italy, the Venetian senate passed similar laws to curtail excessive feasting, & turkey—this time along with pigeon—was outlawed. But the Venetians did not take kindly to being told what not to eat & apparently continued to evade the law by carving the birds in secret & making enormous pies with the meat. One similar, monster English pie made in the northern cathedral city of Durham was touted as having used up 100 turkeys in the making.

The turkey's European invasion was virtually complete by 1560. The novelty of the birds made them status symbols for the rich & famous. With European nobility fond of turning their estates into zoological extravaganzas, all manner of exotic birds & beasts were sent home from the New World, & what more intriguing species to join the now passé Indian peacock than a strutting, gobbling turkey-cock? Particularly if you had not seen one before...

Put there were questions about what to call it. Once the bird began to strut its stuff across the European continent, every different language settled on a different name. The result was a muddle. Adding to the confusion was that people mistook the word for "turkey" as referring to the equally odd-looking guinea-fowl that were being imported from West Africa about the same period. The French called the turkey coq d'Inde, meaning rooster of India. This was shortened to dinde—the modern French word for turkey—but as we know, it did not come from India.

Columbus had sown the seeds of geographic confusion with his assessment that the New World was India. Nevertheless, the name-that-bird quest did not end there. In Arabic, the turkey was called the Ethiopian bird; to the Lebanese—the Abyssinian cock; the Portuguese called it the Peru bird, though there never was a turkey in that country either; in Greek it went by the name gallopoula, or French girl. Presumably, the Greeks got their first turkeys from the French. But it gets curiouser. In Malay, a turkey is ayam belanda, or Dutch chicken, though the Dutch & the Germans call it a Calicut chicken, after a southwest Indian seaport; & to cap it all, the Turks call the bird hindi...

Two hundred years later, when the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus tried to classify the turkey & its relatives in the natural scheme of things, he did not get it right either. He cobbled together the Latin name Meleagris gallopova. Well, meleagris is a guinea fowl, gallus is a chicken, & pova is a peacock—a mishmash if ever there was one. All in all, the turkey had Linnaeus stumped.

But how did the English-speaking world make the mistake of calling a North American bird a turkey when everyone else was heading off in the direction of India, Peru, or Ethiopia? The first explanation was that Columbus called it "turkey" after the noise it makes: tuka, tuka. Similarly, North American Indians supposedly called it turkey after the sound they thought it made—firkee—though it seems a stretch from firkee to gobble-gobble. It has also been suggested that Luis de Torres, a doctor who sailed with Columbus, called the bird tukki, which in Hebrew means "big bird."

Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that English traders who specialized in trading with the Ottoman Empire, which included Turkey, were called Turkey merchants, & they had tasted roast turkey in Spain or Portugal on their way to & from the eastern Mediterranean. With an eye to a profit, the traders brought birds back to England, augmenting those introduced by Strickland. But the name turkey stuck.

When the Pilgrims disembarked from the Mayflower in 1620, along with livestock that reportedly included some domesticated turkeys, it didn't take them long to realize that the wheel had turned full circle, & the native birds they admired & hunted were distant cousins of their own domestic turkeys.

Of all the hallowed stories of the Pilgrim fathers, the most venerable is that of their Thanksgiving dinner—particularly the turkey...But sad to say there is no real evidence that turkey was on the menu that day.

Colonist Edward Winslow wrote:  Our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, & amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained & feasted, & they went out & killed five Deere, which they brought to the Plantation & bestowed on our Governour, & upon the Captaine & others.

No mention of turkeys, except in an ambiguous account written years later by the governor, William Bradford, who makes no specific connection between the turkey & the 1621 festivities. He wrote: They begane now to gather in ye small harvest they had, & to fitte up their houses & dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health & strenght, & had all things in good plenty; ffor as some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, & bass, & other fish, of which yey tooke good store, of which every family had their portion. All ye somer ther was no want. & now begane to come in store of foule, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many, besids venison, &c.

Bradford had "sent four men fowling" to find food, but whether they returned with turkey to grace their table is not clear. It hardly matters. The tradition is still revered, & turkey is still served. Only nowadays, there is little doubt about what it is we are eating.

By Andrew Gardner,  Christmas 2005 edition of the Colonial Williamsburg Journal.   https://www.slaveryandremembrance.org/almanack/life/christmas/din_turkey.cfm

Ireland - Why Kill Wrens - Saint Stephen or some Vikings were Betrayed by a Wren

The Irish used to celebrate the day after Christmas, St Stephens Day, by killing wrens

In Ireland, the day after Christmas once included hunting down a small bird & tying it to the top of a pole. That’s how the Irish celebrated St. Stephens Day, or Wren Day. The name alludes to several legends linking episodes in the life of Jesus to the wren. People dress up in old clothes, wear straw hats & travel from door to door with fake wrens (previously real wrens were killed), while they dance, sing, & play music. One myth said that the robin, that was suppose to represent the New Year, killed the wren which represented the Old Year during this time.

Apparently birds hold a special place in the ancient Irish imagination & in that mythology the tiny wren holds powerful sway. Some believe the word "dreoilín" (Gaelic for "wren") has its roots in the term "Druid's bird" which acted as as messenger between this world & the next. In Irish folklore, the wren was viewed as the cleverest of birds, & hunting the wren is thought to have a stronger relationship to sacrificing a sacred symbol.

Limerick-born Gerald Griffin (1803-1840), novelist, poet and playwright wrote of 19C wren boys in a book published after his death of typhus in 1857, called The Half Sir published in Dublin by James Duffy.
"The Wren-boys of Shanagolden] … were all assembled pursuant to custom on the green before the chapel-door on a fine frosty morning, being the twenty-sixth of December, or Saint Stephen’s Day – a festival yet held in much reverence in Mumha [Griffin has Munster], although the Catholic Church has for many years ceased to look upon it as a holiday of “obligation.”

‘Seven or eight handsome young fellows, tricked out in ribbons of the gayest colours, white waistcoats and stockings, and furnished with musical instruments of various kinds – a fife, a piccolo, an old drum, a cracked fidde, and a set of bagpipes – assumed their place in the rear [Griffin has rere] of the procession, and startled the yet slumbering inhabitants of the neighbouring houses by a fearfully discordant prelude.

‘Behind those came the Wren-boy par excellence – a lad who bore in his hands a holly-bush, the leaves of which were interwoven with long streamers of red, yellow, blue and white ribbon; all which finery, nevertheless, in no way contributed to reconcile the little mottled tenant of the bower (a wren which was tied by the leg to one of the boughs) to his state of durance. After the Wren-boy came a promiscuous crowd of youngsters, of all ages under fifteen, composing just such a little ragged rabble as one observes attending the band of a marching regiment on its entrance into a country town, shouting, hallooing, laughing, and joining in apt chorus with the droning, shrilling, squeaking, and rattling of the musicians of the morn...

Around this space the procession formed, and the Wren-boy, elevating his bush, gave out the opening stave of the festive chant, in which the whole rout presently joined:
“The Wran! the Wran! the king of all birds,
St Stephen’s day was caught in the furze;
Although he’s little, his family’s great.
Get up, fair ladies! and give us a trate!
And if your trate be of the best,
In heaven we hope your soul will rest!”’

Daniel Maclise illustration for S.C. Hall’s Ireland Its Scenery and Character (1841)

The tradition of Hunting the Wren was celebrated on Dec 26th, when a wren was captured & thought to bring good luck for the new year. In modern times, the tradition of "hunting the wren" involves musicians roaming from house to house playing music on "St. Stephen's Day" and "passing the hat."

The killing of birds on Wren Day was reportedly done by young boys also called Mummers. Originally, groups of small boys would hunt for a wren, and then chase the bird until they either have caught it or it died from exhaustion. The dead bird was tied to the top of a pole or holly bush, which was decorated with ribbons or colored paper.

Early in the morning of St. Stephen’s Day, the wren was carried from house to house by the boys, who wore straw masks or blackened their faces with burnt cork, and dressed in old clothes. At each house, the boys sing a Wren Boys’ song.

Typical lyrics are:
The wren, the wren, the king of all birds,
St. Stephen’s Day was caught in the furze,
Although he was little his honour was great,
Jump up me lads and give us a treat.
As I was going to Killenaule,
I met a wren upon the wall.
Up with me wattle and knocked him down,
And brought him in to Carrick Town.

Drooolin, Droolin, where’s your nest?
Tis in the bush that I love best
In the tree, the holly tree,
Where all the boys do follow me.
Up with the kettle and down with the pan,
And give us a penny to bury the wren.
I followed the wren three miles or more,
Three miles or more three miles or more.
I followed the wren three miles or more,
At six o’clock in the morning.
I have a little box under me arm,
Under me arm under me arm.
I have a little box under me arm,
A penny or tuppence would do it no harm.
Mrs. Clancy’s a very good woman,
a very good woman, a very good woman,
Mrs. Clancy’s a very good woman,
She give us a penny to bury the wren.

Another explanation of this myth is that St. Stephen, hiding from his enemies in a bush, was betrayed by a chattering wren. The wren, like St. Stephen, should be hunted down and stoned to death. Another legend holds that during the Viking raids of the 700's, Irish soldiers were betrayed by a wren as they were sneaking up on a Viking camp in the dead of night. A wren began to eat breadcrumbs left on the head of a drum, and the rat-a-tat-tat of its beak woke the drummer, who sounded the alarm and woke the camp, leading to the defeat of the Irish soldiers and the continuing persecution of the wren.

The tradition of "hunting the wren" has continued virtually unbroken, at least in some parts of the country, for centuries. Men primarily, carrying tin whistles, accordions and the like, went from house to house playing simple tunes (due to the cold weather when stiff fingers can prevent the playing of more difficult pieces) and dressed in disguise. They often wore costumes of straw, but should not be confused with strawboys who often performed at wakes in times past.

The wren boys were often led by a 'hobby horse,' with a wooden head, with snapping jaws, placed on the shoulders of the 'leader.' Believed to have associations with the ancient god Lugh, the horse was thought to be of great importance in old Ireland, but like many of these old traditions, it's original meaning are often lost to us. That said, the antics of the hobby horse often made for great entertainment. They are most common in West Kerry where wrenboys and the tradition of Mummers plays and Mumming stayed very strong long after it had died out in many other parts of the country.

Today, no wrens are harmed in the name of Wren Day. In fact, the holiday is barely celebrated in most of Ireland. The town of Dingle has a parade. Come Wren’s Day, thousands of spectators line the streets of Dingle to watch this spectacle of men, dressed in rigs and brightly colored costumes, take over the town.

They wren boys often begin their festivities with this old song:
The Wren, The Wren
The Wren, the Wren the king of all birds,
St. Stephenses day, he was caught in the furze.
Although he is little, his honor is great,
Rise up, kind sir, and give us a trate.
We followed this Wren ten miles or more
Through hedges and ditches and heaps of snow,
We up with our wattles and gave him a fall
And brought him here to show you all.
For we are the boys that came your way
To bury the Wren on Saint Stephenses Day,
So up with the kettle and down with the pan!
Give us some help for to bury the Wren!

Starting at noon and going on until the early hours of the following day, The Wren is a blaze of color and a lot of noise, thanks not only to the accompanying musicians’ fife and drums, but to the collection boxes the wren boys shake. Rather than paying for a dance for the whole town, today’s funds go to local charities. Be warned. Innocent by-standers will often get swept into the parade or chased down side-streets. No longer to wrens have to fear Wren Day, but it seems like if you’re in Dingle, you might.

The proceeds of the collection boxes traditionally was spent on a party called a ‘Join’. Picking a house for the shindig, a barrel of porter was bought for the men and wine for the ladies. Jam, currant cake, bread, sugar and lemonade was provided for everyone. A 'great night of sport and fun, dancing and music' followed that lasted until morning.

At the very least, 'hunting the wren,' reflects the universal practice of dressing in costume or disguise and having an 'out of body' or 'out or everyday life' experience, in order to relieve the tensions and constraints of every day life.

Another Version of the Wren Song:
The Wran, the Wran the king of all birds,
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze,
Although he is little, his honour is great,
Put your hand in your pocket and give us a trate.
Dreoilin, dreoilin where is your nest?
Its in the bush that I love best,
Behind the holly and ivy tree,
Where all the birds shall follow me.
As I was goin' down to Youghal,
I saw a wran upon a wall,
I up with my stick and I knocked him down,
Then brought him back to Mitchelstown.
Mister_______ is a very fine man,
It was to him we brought the Wran,
You'll have luck throughout the year
If ya give us the price of a gallon o' beer.
Raise up your glasses, your bottles and cans
We toast your subscription to bury the Wran,
Up with the kettle and down with the pot,
Give us your money and let us be off!

Mythical Gardens - The Garden of Eden at Creation - Illuminated Manuscripts

French illuminated manuscript, Image du Monde, attributed to Gautier de Metz, portraying God creating animals and birds; Harley 344, folio 1. British Library

In Western iconography the early Christian garden is usually defined by the Biblical story of Adam & Eve, the original lovers thrown out of paradise for tasting forbidden fruit, & cast into the wilderness to define their own lives & gardens. Before the Western printing press, illustrated manuscripts & early depictions of landscapes in portrayals of Biblical gardens give us a glimpse of gardens familiar & imagined during the periods the images were created. 

Gardens are often mentioned in the Bible. In the language of the Hebrews, every place where plants & trees were cultivated with greater care than in the open field, was called a garden. Fruit & shade trees, with aromatic shrubs, sometimes constituted the garden; though roses, lilies, & various gardens were used only for table vegetables, Genesis 2:8-10 15:1-21; 1 Kings 21:2; Ecclesiastes 2:5,6.

Genesis 2:8 “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed...And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."

18C Allegory of Spring - Love & Bird Nests

1800 Spring by P Stampa published in London

This couple is in a garden with flowers in bloom & a cold frame on the right side. The man is picking a rose to add to the bunch he holds, while looking back at the woman, who carries a parasol. A boy shows passes a birds' nest to a little girl who holds out her apron.  In the background are men in a hay-field.

Mythical Gardens - The Garden of Eden at Creation - Illuminated Manuscripts

Genesis, The Creation of the Animals.  Oxford MS. Douce 135 fol-017v Here the garden is filled with trees & birds.

In Western iconography the early Christian garden is usually defined by the Biblical story of Adam & Eve, the original lovers thrown out of paradise for tasting forbidden fruit, & cast into the wilderness to define their own lives & gardens. Before the Western printing press, illustrated manuscripts & early depictions of landscapes in portrayals of Biblical gardens give us a glimpse of gardens familiar & imagined during the periods the images were created. 

Gardens are often mentioned in the Bible. In the language of the Hebrews, every place where plants & trees were cultivated with greater care than in the open field, was called a garden. Fruit & shade trees, with aromatic shrubs, sometimes constituted the garden; though roses, lilies, & various gardens were used only for table vegetables, Genesis 2:8-10 15:1-21; 1 Kings 21:2; Ecclesiastes 2:5,6.

Genesis 2:8 “And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed...And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."

Jesus as Gardener - The Risen Christ Reveals Himself to Mary

1368-70, Probably by Jacopo di Cione(c 1325-after 1390) an Italian painter in the Republic of Florence. Resurrection Noli me tangere.   Jesus holds a hoe.

The Gospel of John 20:1-13 (NIV) contains a narrative of an empty garden tomb including the appearance of Jesus: Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb & saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter & the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, & said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, & we don't know where they have put him!" 

So Peter & the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter & reached the tomb first. He bent over & looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived & went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw & believed. 

Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb & saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head & the other at the foot. They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?" "They have taken my Lord away," she said, "& I don't know where they have put him." At this, she turned around & saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, "Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?" Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, & I will get him."  Jesus said to her, "Mary." She turned toward him & cried out, "Rabboni!" ("Teacher"). Jesus said, "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, & say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, & your Father; & to my God, & your God." 

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

13C Fresco - in Lower Basilica in Assisi Noli Me Tangere

Giotto di Bondone (c. 1267 - 1337). Resurrection Noli me tangere - on North wall of Scrovegni (Arena) Chapel, Padua. 1305-1306

1460 The Meister des Göttinger Barfüßeraltars Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel. The wattle fenced flowery mead follows Boccaccio's model.

Fra Angelico, Noli Me Tangere 1440-42 Jesus and Mary Magdalene in a walled Garden

1460-90s Master of the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand (German; 1460 - 1470; fl. c.) Christ appearing as a gardener to St Mary Magdalene within a garden with wattle fencing. Jesus holds a shovel.

1469 Noli me tangere in Prayer Book of Charles the Bold, Lieven van Lathem. J. Paul Getty Museum, Ms. 37, fol. 46v. Jesus holds a shovel in a wattle-fenced mead.

Martin Schongauer German, c. 1450-1491. Noli me tangere. Here Jesus holds a staff but the garden is surrounded by a wattle fence.

1473 Martin Schongauer (1450–1491) Noli Me Tangere. This garden appears to be enclosed with a wattle fence, and roses grow in the background. Birds perch in the trees.

c 1500 Perugino, Pietro di Cristoforo Vannucci 1445-1523) Resurrection Noli me tangere. Here Jesus holds a garden tool. Art Institute of Chicago

1506 Fra Bartolomeo (1472–1517) Noli Me Tangere. Depicted at the tomb with Christ holding a garden tool.

c 1500 by Master of the Chronique scandaleuse, illuminator (French, active about 1493 - 1510), Noli me tangere, French. Here Jesus & Mary Magdalene meet on a garden path.

1512 Titian (1490–1576) Noli Me Tangere. Christ appears holding a garden tool.

1500s Greek Icon Μη μου άπτου Crete Resurrection - Noli me tangere. Here Jesus & Mary Magdalene are in a flowery mead.

1526 Hans Holbein the Younger (1498–1543) Noli Me Tangere. Depicted at the tomb on a flowery mead.

1534 Antonio da Correggio (1489-1534) Noli Me Tangere. Christ appears as a gardener holding a hoe.

1548-53 Lambert Sustris (Dutch artist, c.1515-1520-c.1584) Noli Me Tangere
This image includes formal gardens used as the background for a Biblical scene. These gardens are primarily from the Italian Renaissance.  The trellis walkways & arbors were built to provide both shade & privacy. Planners raised beds to prevent plants becoming waterlogged. Gardens were used for recreation, relaxation, & sport. The garden consists of geometric beds of interlacing patterns designed to be seen from windows & hills above & is filled with herbs & favorite flowers. A fountain sits in the farthest parterre. Statues & symbolic ornaments are spread throughout the grounds.

1560-70 Unknown German artist. Christ appears here as a gardener to Mary Magdalene; part of a town beyond the garden & three crosses on the hill behind at left. Jesus holds a garden shovel in a bedded garden surrounded by a wooden fence.

Agnolo di Cosimo usually known as Bronzino or Agnolo Bronzino, Italian Mannerist painter, 1503-72) Resurrection, Noli Me Tangere Jesus holds a shovel, and a walled garden of flowers blooms just behind them.

1581 Lavinia Fontana Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel in a defined garden area.

1620 Abraham Janssens (1567–1632) painted figures & Jan Wildens (15841586–1653) painted the landscape Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel & the fruits of the garden are on the earth.

1630-35 Pedro Núñez del Valle (Spanish, 1597-1649)Noli me tangere. A garden of formal beds defined by a wattle wall appears to be growing food.

Ciro Ferri 1670-80s (1634-1689) Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a shovel in a garden protected by a wood fence.

1539 Hans Baldung (c.1484 - 1545) Resurrection Noli me tangere. Jesus holds a garden shovel.

The Roads from The East - Medieval Spice Trade's Appeal for Muslim, Jewish & Christian Merchants

Catalan Caravan Atlas Drawing

The Medieval Spice Trade

Newberry Library by Sarah Peters Kernan

How were spices used by medieval Europeans, & why were spices so valuable in medieval Europe? 

Spices were not solely culinary ingredients; they were also used for their aromatic properties in perfumes & incense. In a time when bathing was infrequent, streets were not paved, & animal dung was a constant presence, pleasant aromas were highly valued. For example, frankincense & myrrh were prized for their aromas. 

Additionally, these spices were closely tied to the Christian tradition. In images of the three kings visiting the newborn Christ Child on Epiphany, the close of the Christmas season, frankincense & myrrh are presented as gifts equal to gold.

Spices were an important commodity in the Middle Ages with an allure & mythology dating back to Antiquity. Spices were expensive & a sign of status in the Roman Empire. They were consumed in large quantities by the wealthiest citizens. Like many other goods, spices were easy to transport because of safe & maintained routes controlled by the Romans. 

When the Roman Empire fell, local powers took control of routes & travel became more difficult as these entities engaged in war, embraced different religions, & neglected maintenance of old Roman roads. As a result, for several centuries in the early Middle Ages, people in Western Europe lacked consistent access to spices.

After religious crusaders tasted the cuisines of the Middle East in the high Middle Ages, they renewed a widespread European interest in spices for culinary & medicinal applications. Merchants procured a wide range of spices for consumers, including pepper, ginger, cinnamon, clove, & saffron, as well as the now-obscure spices like grains of paradise & spikenard. Sugar was also used as a spice during the Middle Ages. 

Spices again became revered luxury items & status symbols across Europe. European merchants sought out spices from Asia, traveling dangerous routes through the Middle East & Africa. Traders were faced with many challenges, including physical danger & constant economic strain from local tariffs & taxes. 

Because spices were from distant lands & European consumers had no direct access to their sources, stories about spice origins flourished. Contemporary authors recorded myths about pepper trees guarded by serpents & cinnamon requiring harvest from nests of fantastical birds built on perilous cliffs. These legends only added to their mystique & justified their expense.

Muslims controlled all routes of access to spices in the East from Europe. This presented a challenge for Christian & Jewish traders from the West, as there was perpetual tensions & outright warfare between Christian & Muslim powers. 

Muslims dominated not only land routes which spanned across the Middle East & northern Africa to Pakistan & western India, but also maritime routes throughout the Indian Ocean. In 1453, Italian merchants were largely forced to stop trading spices through combined land & sea routes. In that year the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople, a city at the convergence of all land routes to the spice centers of the East, & began levying prohibitively expensive tariffs on goods transported through the city. 

n an effort to find new seaways to Asia, kingdoms sponsored exploratory expeditions. Some explorers discovered new water routes to China & India, re-opening trade of spices & other goods, while others claimed land & resources in the New World.

Luxurious Consumption

Throughout the Middle Ages, spices were a status symbol & sign of luxury. Only the wealthiest could afford large quantities of spices to use for culinary purposes. Meals in noble households were ostentatious affairs, even small & relatively private meals. 

Consider what spices do in a cooked dish: they color food, flavor food, & make food more aromatic. Spices, then, enhance the senses of sight, taste, & smell. In the context of a medieval meal, especially a feast intended to impress guests, spices played a major role. 

Fountains flowing with spiced wine might be installed in or near a great hall; this lavish service of wine would scent an entire room with spices like cloves, grains of paradise, ginger, & cinnamon. Nearly any dish, whether roasted, stewed, or baked, could include an impressive array of these imported spices. 

In one image of a meal from a 15C prayerbook, two wealthy diners share a private meal. They are being served a pie, which in the Middle Ages consisted of a meat or fish mixture baked in a decorated pastry crust. This mixture would undoubtedly include many spices. The exterior of the pie would often be brushed with a wash with saffron, a remarkably expensive spice made from the hand-picked threads of crocus flowers, turning the finished dish into a gleaming, golden work of art.

Wealthy Ancient Romans used spices copiously in their foods, a tradition that continued for many more centuries...Pepper & cumin were the most common combination, & the chicken dish also includes spiced wine as another ingredient. 

While the spice dishes of the popular cookbook De re coquinaria fell out of favor in medieval Europe, the cookbook was still copied by manuscript scribes & was printed several times during the Renaissance.

The Value of Spices

The value of spices was determined not only by their taste & status as luxury items, but also their medical properties & the fantastic legends attached to their production. Spices were believed to have important medical qualities; spices were ingredients in medieval pharmaceuticals. 

Apothecaries, the medieval equivalent to pharmacies, were stocked with supplies of spices which were then carefully mixed with other spices, minerals, & animal products to create an array of medications to be ingested by or applied on a patient. 

Medieval & renaissance writers devoted many pages to the benefits of spices, including the excerpts which describe cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, & pepper.

Some spices were legitimately difficult to harvest. Musk, an oil from the scent glands of a Central Eurasian deer, & ambergris, a waxy substance produced by the digestive system of the sperm whale, were 2 such spices. 

Others, however, were more easily procured. Yet merchants assigned bizarre stories to other spices to heighten their value for European consumers. Since most people in the medieval West had no contact with the Far East & the actual origins of spices, these myths persisted for centuries. 

The two most notable of these are tied to pepper & cinnamon. Pepper was said to be guarded by serpents which had to be chased away by fire. This fire turned fresh, white peppercorns into black, wrinkled spices...

Cinnamon had a similarly wild story. Merchants claimed that a mythical bird called a Cinnamologus made nests out of cinnamon sticks in Arabia. These nests were built on perilous cliffs, & people had to drive the birds from these nests in order to harvest the cinnamon. 

A Profitable Venture

Spice merchants could reap enormous profits, but they also faced dangerous journeys to procure their goods. Whether traveling by land or sea, they faced perils like pirates & raiders, religious & political conflict, & accidents like shipwrecks. 

Traders furthermore faced financial strain to move spices from Eastern points of trade to Europe. Whenever spices were transported through different kingdoms or points of trade, merchants had to pay steep tariffs. 

Depending upon the spice, merchants could charge 50 or 60 percent more in Europe for the spices they bought in the Middle East. Some contemporary accounts state that merchants charged 100 percent more. However, a majority of the markup was due to tariffs, leaving traders with a smaller profit, even as little as 10 percent.

Spices entering the European market were typically transported through Venice. This city was located in a prime location in Mediterranean. It was relatively easy to access major gateways to Eastern trade routes like Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey); Aleppo, Syria; & Alexandria, Egypt. 

From the eleventh through the 15C, Venetian merchants ruled the European spice trade. As a result, Venice became an extremely wealthy & powerful city. Such a wealthy city attracted the most talented artisans to produce innovative architecture, artwork, & music.

By the late Middle Ages, thousands of tons of the most common spices were imported into Europe annually through Venice. The value of these spices was approximately the value of a yearly supply of grain for 1.5 million people. 

In 15C England, a pound of pepper cost more than two days’ wages by a skilled London craftsman. A pound of cloves cost nearly five days’ wages, while a pound a saffron cost one month’s wages. Prices varied throughout Europe & fluctuated over time, but the general idea remained the same: spices were a very expensive ingredient in medieval Europe.

Changes in the Renaissance Spice Trade

Italian traders were forced to significantly reduce trade in spices via combined land & sea routes through Constantinople in 1453. In this year, the Ottoman Empire, an Eastern superpower, conquered the city. Since Constantinople was located on major east-west & north-south trade routes, the Ottomans could charge restrictively high taxes on all goods bound for the West.

Because Europeans were denied access to spices though Constantinople, kingdoms began to sponsor the exploration of new routes to India to directly obtain spices. Portugal & Spain, however, were the first to make significant headway. 

The Portuguese had already begun to explore northern Africa earlier in the 1400s. So, they quickly set out on a possible sea route to India around the southern tip of Africa. 

Bartolomeu Dias first crossed the Cape of Good Hope in 1488, & in 1497, Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape, continued to the eastern coast of Africa, & sailed across the Indian Ocean to Calicut in south India. 

At long last, Europeans had direct access to Indian spices without the intervention of Arab traders. By the beginning of the 16C, the Portuguese had complete control of the African sea route. 

Other explorers attempted alternate routes to India by traveling westward. Christopher Columbus, an explorer for the Spanish crown, was the first of these explorers to reach the New World in 1492 traveling this route, mistaking the Bahamas for the East Indies.

Over the following centuries, consumption of spices declined. Yet they still remained an important commodity. The Dutch struggled, & eventually succeeded at the turn of the 17C, to wrest control of trade from the Portuguese by establishing the Dutch East Indies Company. 

The British East India Company, a direct competitor, was founded at around the same time. The goal of these companies was all the same: to establish direct trade with Indian spice producers & keep tariffs as low as possible.

"Lent's Temptations" - Stanley Spencer 1891-1959 Foxes Have Holes

Stanley Spencer, (English painter, 1891-1959) Christ in the Wilderness The Foxes Have Holes

The origin of the season of Lent lies not in a conscious re-enactment of the Lord's time in the wilderness, but in the preparation of Christians for the celebration of the resurrection of Christ at Easter.  In many Christian churches, Lent starts on Ash Wednesday lasting for 40 days (not including Sundays) reflecting the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness. Related to Jesus' time in the wilderness, the Bible states;

‘ And Jesus saith unto him, the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.’ Matthew 8:20

British artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) sought to give some form to the Lent's 40 days. In the 1930s-40s Spencer set himself a goal of creating 40 paintings, one for each day Christ was in the wilderness. The series, called "Christ in the Wilderness," never came to full completion. Eighteen drawings were made & 8 paintings completed. Each of the designs explores the solitary figure of Christ interacting with various elements of the wilderness - a hen, a scorpion, lilies, eagles. The paintings titled "Driven by the spirit into the wilderness" was inspired by Mark 1:12.  Nothing overt in the paintings speaks of the details Christ's 40 days in the wilderness, echoing Mark's lack of narrative specifics. The figure of Jesus is not the slim body commonly seen in paintings. A bulky figure & billowing garment are common to all the finished paintings in the series. Spencer envisioned the pictures hanging as a group on the ceiling of a church. In such a position Jesus' garments would be perceived as billowing, ethereal clouds.

“The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.  He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.”  Mark 1:12-15

Ancient Societies also Stopped to Smell the Flowers

The spectrum of smells in ancient societies, & their possible cultural meanings, are being explored by scientists who study odor molecules, old documents & other archaeological finds. Here, a carved relief of an ancient Egyptian queen smelling a lotus flower represents the fragrant world that pharaohs & their families inhabited.

Ancient "Smellscapes" are wafting out of Artifacts & Old Texts

Science News. By Bruce Bower. May 4, 2022   

Ramses VI faced a smelly challenge when he became Egypt’s king in 1145 B.C. The new pharaoh’s first job was to rid the land of the stench of fish & birds, denizens of the Nile Delta’s fetid swamps.

That, at any rate, was the instruction in a hymn written to Ramses VI upon his ascension to the throne. Some smells, it seems, were considered far worse than others in the land of the pharaohs.

Surviving written accounts indicate that, perhaps unsurprisingly, residents of ancient Egyptian cities encountered a wide array of nice & nasty odors. Depending on the neighborhood, citizens inhaled smells of sweat, disease, cooking meat, incense, trees & flowers. Egypt’s hot weather heightened demand for perfumed oils & ointments that cloaked bodies in pleasant smells.

“The written sources demonstrate that ancient Egyptians lived in a rich olfactory world,” says Egyptologist Dora Goldsmith of Freie Universität Berlin...

Archaeologists have traditionally studied visible objects. Investigations have reconstructed what ...buildings looked like based on excavated remains & determined how people lived by analyzing their tools, personal ornaments & other tangible finds.

Rare projects have re-created what people may have heard thousands of years ago at sites such as Stonehenge (SN: 8/31/20). Piecing together, much less re-creating, the olfactory landscapes, or smellscapes, of long-ago places has attracted even less scholarly curiosity. Ancient cities in Egypt & elsewhere have been presented as “colorful & monumental, but odorless & sterile,” Goldsmith says.

Changes are in the air, though. Some archaeologists are sniffing out odor molecules from artifacts found at dig sites & held in museums. Others are poring over ancient texts for references to perfume recipes, & have even cooked up a scent much like one presumably favored by Cleopatra. In studying & reviving scents of the past, these researchers aim to understand how ancient people experienced, & interpreted, their worlds through smell...

Researchers generally assume that Tayma in what’s now Saudi Arabia .was a pit stop on an ancient network of trade routes, known as the Incense Route, that carried frankincense & myrrh from southern Arabia to Mediterranean destinations around 2,300 to 1,900 years ago. Frankincense & myrrh are both spicy-smelling resins extracted from shrubs & trees that grow on the Arabian Peninsula & in northeastern Africa & India. But Tayma was more than just a refueling oasis for trade caravans.

The desert outpost’s residents purchased aromatic plants for their own uses during much of the settlement’s history, a team led by Huber found. Chemical & molecular analyses of charred resins identified frankincense in cube-shaped incense burners previously unearthed in Tayma’s residential quarter, myrrh in cone-shaped incense burners that had been placed in graves outside the town wall, & an aromatic substance from Mediterranean mastic trees in small goblets used as incense burners in a large public building...

Other researchers have gone searching for molecular scent clues in previously excavated pottery. Analytical chemist Jacopo La Nasa of the University of Pisa in Italy & his colleagues used a portable version of a mass spectrometer to study 46 vessels, jars, cups & lumps of organic material.

These artifacts were found more than a century ago in the underground tomb of Kha & his wife Merit, prominent nonroyals who lived during Egypt’s 18th dynasty from about 1450 B.C. to 1400 B.C. The spectrometer can detect the signature chemical makeup of invisible gases emitted during the decay of different fragrant plants & other substances that had been placed inside vessels...

Re-creating Cleopatra’s perfume

A tradition of fragrant remedies & perfumes began as the first Egyptian royal dynasties assumed power around 5,100 years ago, Goldsmith’s research suggests. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic & cursive documents describe recipes for several perfumes. But precise ingredients & preparation methods remain unknown...

That didn’t stop Goldsmith & historian of Greco-Roman philosophy & science Sean Coughlin of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague from trying to re-create a celebrated Egyptian fragrance known as the Mendesian perfume. Cleopatra, a perfume devotee during her reign as queen from 51 B.C. to 30 B.C., may have doused herself with this scented potion. The perfume took its name from the city where it was made, Mendes.

Excavations conducted since 2009 at Thmouis, a city founded as an extension of Mendes, have uncovered the roughly 2,300-year-old remains of what was probably a fragrance factory, including kilns & clay perfume containers. Archaeologist Robert Littman of the University of Hawaii at Manoa & anthropological archaeologist Jay Silverstein of the University of Tyumen in Russia, who direct the Thmouis dig, asked Goldsmith & Coughlin to try to crack the Mendesian perfume code by consulting ancient writings.

After experimenting with ingredients that included desert date oil, myrrh, cinnamon & pine resin, Goldsmith & Coughlin produced a scent that they suspect approximates what Cleopatra probably wore. It’s a strong but pleasant, long-lasting blend of spiciness & sweetness, they say.

Ingredients of a re-creation of an ancient fragrance called the Mendesian perfume consist of pine resin, cinnamon cassia, true cinnamon, myrrh & moringa oil. Cleopatra herself may have worn the ancient scent. A description of the Thmouis discoveries & efforts to revive the Mendesian scent — dubbed Eau de Cleopatra by the researchers — appeared in the Sept. 2021 Near Eastern Archaeology.

Goldsmith has re-created several more ancient Egyptian perfumes from written recipes for fragrances that were used in everyday life, for temple rituals & in the mummification process...

In the royal palace, for instance, the perfumed smell of rulers & their family members would have overpowered that of court officials & servants. That would perhaps have denoted special ties to the gods among those in charge, Goldsmith wrote in a chapter of The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East, published in September of 2021.

In temples, priests anointed images of gods with what was called the 10 sacred oils. Though their ingredients are mostly unknown, each substance apparently had its own pleasing scent & ritual function...

Scent is a powerful part of the human experience. Today, scientists know that smells, which humans might discriminate surprisingly well, can instantly trigger memories of past experiences... 

People in modern settings probably perceive the same smells as nice or nasty as folks in ancient Egypt or other past societies did, says psychologist Asifa Majid of the University of Oxford. In line with that possibility, members of nine non-Western cultures, including hunter-gatherers in Thailand & farming villagers in highland Ecuador, closely agreed with Western city dwellers when ranking the pleasantness of 10 odors, Majid & her colleagues report April 4 in Current Biology.

Smells of vanilla, citrus & floral sweetness — dispensed by pen-sized devices — got high marks... 

So, even if the ancients tagged the same odors as pleasurable or offensive as people do today, culture & context probably profoundly shaped responses to those smells.

Working-class Romans living in Pompeii around 2,000 years ago — before Mount Vesuvius’ catastrophic eruption in A.D. 79 — provide one example. Archaeological evidence & written sources indicate that patrons of small taverns throughout the city were bombarded with strong smells, says archaeologist Erica Rowan of Royal Holloway, University of London. Diners standing or sitting in small rooms & at outdoor counters whiffed smoky, greasy food being cooked, body odors of other customers who had been toiling all day & pungent aromas wafting out of nearby latrines.

The smells & noises that filled Pompeii’s taverns provided a familiar & comforting experience for everyday Romans, who made these establishments successful, Rowan suspects. Excavations have uncovered 158 of these informal eating & drinking spots throughout Pompeii.

Roman cities generally smelled of human waste, decaying animal carcasses, garbage, smoke, incense, cooked meat & boiled cabbage, Classical historian Neville Morley of the University of Exeter in England wrote in 2014 in a chapter of Smell & the Ancient Senses. That potent mix “must have been the smell of home to its inhabitants & perhaps even the smell of civilization,” he concluded.

Ramses VI undoubtedly regarded the perfumed world of his palace as the epitome of civilized life. But at the end of a long day, Egyptian sandal-makers & smiths, like Pompeii’s working stiffs, may well have smelled home as the air of city streets filled their nostrils.

See:

A. Arshamian et al. The perception of odor pleasantness is shared across cultures. Current Biology. Published April 4, 2022. 

D. Goldsmith. Smellscapes in ancient Egypt. In K. Neumann & A. Thomason, eds., The Routledge Handbook of the Senses in the Ancient Near East. New York, September 2021.

D. Goldsmith. Fish, fowl & stench in ancient Egypt. In A. Schellenberg & T. Krüger, eds., Sounding Sensory Profiles in the Ancient Near East. SBL Press, 2019.

B. Huber et al. How to use modern science to reconstruct ancient scents. Nature Human Behavior. Published March 28, 2022. 

B. Huber et al. An archaeology of odors: Chemical evidence of ancient aromatics at the oasis of Tayma, NW Arabia. 11th International Conference on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. Munich, April 3–7, 2018.

R.J. Littman et al. Eau de Cleopatra: Mendesian perfume & Tell Timai. Near Eastern Archaeology. Vol. 84, September 2021.

N. Morley. Urban smells & Roman noses. In M. Bradley, ed., Smell & the Ancient Senses. New York, December 2014.

J. La Nasa et al. Archaeology of the invisible: The scent of Kha & Merit. Journal of Archaeological Science. Vol. 141, May 2022. 

E. Rowan. The sensory experiences of food consumption. In R. Skeates & J. Day, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Sensory Archaeology. New York, November 2019.