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- "One of the earliest references to saffron dates to 2300 BCE, in The Legend of Sargon of Akkad, a Mesopotamian work that describes the birthplace of the found
by perihelions 3y ago
- "One of the earliest references to saffron dates to 2300 BCE, in The Legend of Sargon of Akkad, a Mesopotamian work that describes the birthplace of the founder of the Akkadian empire as “city of saffron.”"
This doesn't seem right: Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known Mesopotamian work of fiction and it's a more recent ~2,100 BCE [0].
The historic person Sargon of Assad lived in the 24th/23rd century BCE [1]—are they perhaps confusing his biographical era, with the era when (surviving, extant) poetic epics were written about him? His Wikipedia entry [1] doesn't seem to mention any written works older than 8th century BCE.
edit: I've tracked down [2] what I think is the original source of the "city of saffron" quote. It's from an "autobiography" of Sargon which seems to be a much, much later (7th century BCE?) work of fiction—not a historical autobiography (see the introductory discussion starting page 16).
- "4. As has already been noted, no such city has been located, but its meaning, “a specific azupiru-like spice and medicinal plant, is well known. Note, however, the logogram U.HURSAG would mean ‘Mountain Plant’ in Sumerian, which may be related to Sargon’s supposed origins in the highlands. This herb was also used as a potion to produce abortions, which may lend a double entendre to this so-called place-name."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargon_of_Akkad
[2] https://archive.org/details/resgestaesargonis/page/39/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/resgestaesargonis/page/39/mode/2... (Joan Goodnick Westenholz, "Legends of the kings of Akkade : The Texts" (1997), page 39, footnote 4)
https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/cbd/sux/o0024740.html https://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/epsd2/cbd/sux/o0024740.html (Electronic Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, ePSD2: "azugna [VEGETABLE] (N)")
(footnote: I'll never not be amazed modern web browsers support 4,000-year-old writing systems. Look, it's 𒀭𒄑𒉋𒂵𒎌!)
- jjulius 3y ago>This doesn't seem right: Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest known Mesopotamian work of fiction and it's a more recent ~2,100 BCE [0]. Perhaps because The Legend of Sargon of Akkad isn't fiction, it's an autobiography? Edit: Is this perhaps the autobiography that his Wiki article is referring to under "Birth Legend"? https://www.worldhistory.org/article/746/the-legend-of-sargon-of-akkad/ https://www.worldhistory.org/article/746/the-legend-of-sargo...
- perihelions 3y agoYeah, but, per your link: - "Both pieces today are sometimes classified as belonging to the genre of Mesopotamian naru literature – the world's first historical fiction – in which a famous figure, usually a king, is featured as the main character in a fictional work." - "The earliest copy is dated to the 7th century BCE"
- glitchc 3y agoAny dates before recorded/written history should be assumed to have a large margin of error, on the order of +/-500 years, especially true for all dates earlier than 1000 BCE. We don't have a precise way of dating. Carbon dating requires longer timescales and the writing substrates used (typically stone) contain minimal traces.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wl 3y agoLate third millennium BCE is the era of written history in Mesopotamia. There are documents with dates. There’s some debates about how we might line up their dates with our calendar, but the discrepancies are nowhere near 500 years.
- wl 3y agoGilgamesh stories start showing up circa 2100 BCE. The epic proper, a compilation of several of these stories, is newer, dating no earlier than 1300 BCE. And while the Gilgamesh stories that became the epic date nearly to the point where stories started being written down in Mesopotamia, there are plenty of other stories that are as old, if not older. Gilgamesh is just prominent as the most widely-read work of pre-Homeric literature.
- falaki 3y agoThanks for digging it up. I can shed more light on the meaning of the original word for Saffron. The article mentions Saffron comes from Arabic az-za’faran. That word is the Arabicized version of an older Persian word: Za-paran (Zayesh-paran), which means "causes abortion" (zaa/zayesh --> birth). The most common source of Saffron in Iran is area in southern Khorasan called Ghohistan (from Kohistan) meaning mountainous. Both of these facts corroborate the Akkadian sources.
- pazimzadeh 3y agoYeah something tells me there is more to why Iran is a huge producer of Saffron than what the article says: > Today, most saffron is grown in countries where workers are paid less than their Western European counterparts would need to be. The primary producers are Iran, India, and Greece.
- thisislife2 3y agoDoes that mean Saffron is dangerous for pregnant women?
- cess11 3y agoIf the dose is sufficiently large, possibly. In the doses commonly used in the Occident, not likely. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235659/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6235659/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0254629922001612 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02546... https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-0029-1234792 https://www.thieme-connect.com/products/ejournals/abstract/1...
- falaki 3y agoIn Iran, pregnant women are advised to significantly reduce Saffron consumption. Note that the base level consumption is much higher in that country.
- perihelions 3y agoThanks for those insights. It's fun to follow the the links in the Wiktionary etymology sections: I found myself on the page زعتر (za'atar, the herb) [0,1], which is apparently similar to Akkadian words found written in cuneiform, and possibly descends from them! [0] https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/زعتر#Etymology https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/زعتر#Etymology [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Za'atar#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Za'atar#Etymology - "However the oldest forms seem to be found in Akkadian 𒌑𒍝𒋼𒊒 (U2.za-te-ru / zateru, ṣateru /, “savory and the Origanum family”) found in lexical lists connected to Akkadian 𒌑𒈛𒈥𒌅 (U2.LUḪ.MAR.TU / šibburratu /, “an aromatic herb”) and Akkadian 𒍝𒄠𒁍𒊒𒊬 (za-am-bu-ruSAR / zambūru /, “thyme”)." - "Of further curiosity is the possible attestation of the /ʕ/ preserved in cuneiform; it is common for the zero reflex of /ʕ/, to only be detectable in Akkadian by the e-coloring of an adjacent *a. The distance between Arabic and Akkadian and the lack of its presence in their likely intermediaries, possibly suggests a form of further common origin, albeit with a metathesis of /ʕ/ and /t/, and a retention of that form in Arabic, but not so in other Semitic tongues. "