Opium Art and Truffle Texts in the Aegean and Ancient Near East
Karen Polinger Foster
Abstract:From the third millennium BC on, the opium poppy was exploited by the civilizations of the Aegean and Near East. While the terms for it in the ancient languages of the region are still unknown, the distinctive features of the harvest-ready seed pod would seem to find reflection in numerous works of Minoan, Mycenaean, Mesopotamian, and related art. This paper proposes that the corpus of opium imagery is far more extensive than previously recognized, including pins, finials, jewelry, seals, vessels, and weapons.… Show more
Set email alert for when this publication receives citations?
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.