Download PDF | (Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture) Marcus Milwright - The Queen of Sheba's Gift_ A History of the True Balsam of Matarea-Edinburgh University Press (2021).
353 Pages
Introduction
In the last days of March 1611 George Sandys (d. 1644) rode to Matarea, about 8 km to the north-east of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. This trip was about midway through a long journey that had begun in Venice in August of the previous year. He sailed to the island of Zakynthos, onward to the Peloponnese and from there via the Greek islands to Troy and Istanbul (Constantinople). The next stage of his journey took him from the capital of the Ottoman empire to the islands of Patmos, Kos and Rhodes, before landing on the Egyptian coast at Alexandria. Like many travellers before him, he was fascinated by the teeming metropolis of Cairo, the Nile river and the antiquities of Egypt. Matarea was another popular stop on the itineraries of European visitors, and was often used as the point of departure for the arduous journey that led through the Sinai to the Holy Land.
What Sandys found when he got to Matarea was a compound contained within a mud-brick wall. The land within owed its fertility to a well, the water of which was drawn to the surface by buffalo and fed into a cistern. From this cistern a channel ran towards a marble basin within a small chapel. This chapel — which the author claims had been ‘spitefully defiled’ by the Muslims — contained a plaque made of porphyry. The cistern also watered an orchard, within which was an ancient fig tree, the trunk pierced by a hole large enough for a small child to pass through. Sandys saves the greatest attraction of the garden until the end, writing:
But I abuse my time, and prouoke my Reader. In an inclosure adioyning, they shewed vs a plant of Balme: the whole remainder of that store which this orchard produced: destroyed by the Turks, or enuie of the Jewes, as by them reported: being transported out of Jury, in the daies of Herod the Great, by commandment of Antonius, at the suite of Cleopatra: but others say, brought hither out of Arabia Felix, at the cost of the Saracen Sultan.'
These famous trees were the sole source of the ‘oil’ of balsam (known in Latin as opobalsamum and in Greek as bdlsamon) and other valued products. Sandys claims an ancient pedigree for these plants, having been brought from the Holy Land in the time of Herod the Great (r. 37—4 or 1 Bc), but counters this with the contrary opinion that the trees were actually brought by the sultan from the Yemen (Arabia Felix). Uncertainty concerning the provenance of the balsam trees of Matarea is common in medieval and early modern descriptions of the site. The year 1615, when Sandys’ travel journal was first published, also marked the demise of the last balsam tree in the plantation of Matarea.’ In fact, the trees had long been in poor health, a problem that can be traced back to the last two decades of the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt and Syria (1250-1517). Repeated attempts by the Ottoman governors of Egypt to restock the plantation failed to produce long-term results and the numbers of trees dwindled. At the beginning of the seventeenth century only a handful remained, a state of affairs wistfully recorded by several travellers. The poor management of the site by the Turkish authorities remained a theme in later writing: for example, Claude Etienne Savary (d. 1788) remarks, “This precious plant is lost in Egypt, where the Pachas remain too short a time to employ themselves about anything but their own interest . . . At this day it is scarcely in remembrance’ .*
In fact, balsam was far from forgotten in European scholarship. The Swiss botanist Prosper Alpin (or Alpinus, d. 1617) penned an entire book on the subject, De dialogus balsamo, published in Venice in 1591. The Latin edition was subsequently reprinted in 1615, with a French translation by André Colin (Histoire du baulme) appearing four years later.* The Histoire du baulme (1619) even contained a versed prologue that praised balsam as an ‘ornament of the Levant’ and bemoaned its loss to the world. The poem concluded with the sentiment that trees could be brought from the Americas to revive the Egyptian garden.° Interest in balsam continued through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.° The botanist and father of modern scientific nomenclature, Carl Linnaeus (d. 1778), commissioned his student, Pehr (or Peter) Forsskal (d. 1763) to travel to Arabia in search of this, and other plants mentioned in the Bible.’ Forsskal was one of several members of this ill-fated expedition to die in the Yemen, but he recorded the discovery near to the town of Uday ofa single example of a tree that he believed was the source of opobalsamum (Chapter 4).8
If one surveys geographical, historical, pharmacological and medical literature of the Islamic world, it becomes apparent that balsam (Arabic: balasan) was held in great regard by members of the literate elite. The Egyptian chronicler Ibn Iyas (d. c. 1523) tells us that in his time, finest balasan was traded for its weight in gold.’ This high price tag reflected its intrinsic rarity and the high demand for balsam of Matarea (known in Arabic as Matariyya) in both the Middle East and Christian Europe. The political value of balsam was also widely understood: from at least the late twelfth century, the gardens of Matarea were under the direct ownership of the sultan of Egypt, who also controlled the supply of the products extracted from the trees (Chapters 3 and 5).
Why did balsam exert such a hold over the imaginations of European and Muslim writers through the medieval period? Certainly, this seems a little strange when one considers that the current usages of the English words ‘balsam’ and ‘balm’ hardly bring to mind the sense of wonder and rarity found in medieval literature. Rather, these terms now have the generic meaning of something that will soothe or heal. In the hackneyed vocabulary of modern advertising, balsam and balm appear as part of the titles of shampoos, toilet paper and mild over-the-counter medicines. The practice of applying grandiose labels such as ‘balm of Gilead’ to cheap commercial medicines can be traced considerably earlier, a memorable instance of this genre being a pamphlet printed in Derby in about 1810 entitled To the weak, the relaxed and debilitated, Solomon’s cordial balm of Gilead is an invaluable restorative. An earlier medicine, “Turlington’s Balsam of Life’, received a royal patent from George II (r. 1727-60) and advertised its curative qualities in a pamphlet printed in London in 1750. The creator of this much praised tonic, Robert Turlington (d. 1767), drew upon the witnessed testimony of those who had experienced its benefits. For the substantial sum of three shillings and sixpence a bottle, purchasers could expect to be relieved of ailments including stomach and back pain, rheumatism, kidney stones, bowel disorders, colic, gout, pleurisy, trembling, whooping cough, high fever and low spirits. Applied to wounds, “Turlington’s Balsam of Life’ both healed and disinfected (Fig. I.1a and b).'°
The understanding of balsam as a sort of panacea occurs in poetry, such as John Donne’s (d. 1631) Twickenham Garden,'! as well as in more surprising contexts; for example, in chapter 11 of The Compleat Angler Izaak Walton (d. 1683) observes of the tench that it ‘carries a natural Balsome in him to cure both himself and others’. The author also asserts that pike refrain from eating or injuring this fish ‘because the Pike being sick or hurt by any accident, is cured by touching the Tench’.'? For these reasons tench was often more valued in Walton’s time for its supposed medicinal
qualities than for eating. This notion of the bodies of animals and humans containing a natural balsam may draw upon Paracelsian medicine, and particularly the work of Petrus Severinus (Peder Sorenson, d. 1602). In his major work, the [dea medicinae philosophicae (1571), there is the claim that ‘general cures’ operate because they contain a balsam that strengthens the ‘natural balsam’ of the patient, as well as driving out the disease. The author also develops the idea of vital balsam, containing semina (literally seed, but referring to the component that permits bodies to be generated from spirit), that distinguishes living bodies from dead or inert matter.'? An anonymous English work, Philiatros, published in 1615, directly cites Severinus and his ‘Balsome of Nature’, and expresses the wish to find a ‘Catholique Medecine; that is, such a Medecine as in all cases might furnish that Seede or Balsum, with hability against all sorts of Diseases’.'* Glazed vessels were also produced in Italy for storing alchemical preparations such as ‘balsam of the philosophers’, also known as ‘balsam of wisdom’ and, more prosaically, ‘brick oil’ (Fig. 1.2).!°
Healing connotations are also a feature of the Arabic word balasan; a Jordanian friend informed me that her grandmother would say of her doctor when he came to visit, ‘his hands are like the balsam’.'° In literature as diverse as poetry and church sermons one finds these qualities of balsam employed in similar metaphorical senses.'’ The Spanish Jewish poet Judah al-Harizi (d. 1235) evokes the notion of a ‘balm’ that would cure love-sickness in his poem the Tahkemoni.'* This theme is also developed by al-Hamdani (d. 945) in his description of the pre-Islamic palace of Ghumdan in Yemen; the sight of this lofty structure is, he claims, like ‘pouring balsam on the aching heart’.!? The scent of balsam could also provide the outward sign of a miraculous intervention; for example, St Gregory of Tours (d. 594) claims that sailors caught in a fierce storm had prayed to St Martin, and had then detected the perfume as the saint calmed the sea.”
This book tries to answer the question posed above by presenting an account of the history of the trees of Matarea and of the plantations that existed before the trees were brought to Egypt. The book explores the many texts outlining the uses to which the products of the balsam trees were put in the antique and medieval periods, and the ways in which this knowledge was transferred between authors writing in Greek, Arabic, Latin and a range of other languages. Before embarking on this inquiry, however, it is important to address the fundamental difficulty: how is one to distinguish between the generic or metaphorical employments of the words ‘balsam’ and ‘balm’, and the highly valued ‘oil’ that was harvested from the trees of Matarea? A much fuller answer to this will be presented later, but some preliminary observations can be offered here. First, it is clear from the written sources of the antique and medieval periods that the products from the trees of Matarea commanded far higher prices than any comparable ‘balsams’ or ‘balms’ from other localities (Chapter 4). Texts containing recipes for medicines sometimes specify substitutes for the most expensive ingredients, and one can reasonably infer that most pharmacologists and physicians regarded the balsam of Matarea as the product of choice. Second, it was not merely the real, or perceived, qualities of the balsam of Matarea that generated the extraordinary level of demand (and the substantial price). One has to look to a confluence of factors, religious and historical, that led to the formulation of the idea that Matarea was the only ‘true’ source of balsam in the medieval world. It s in this context that one starts to appreciate the list of famous individuals — among them Mark Antony, Cleopatra, Herod the Great, Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, the Virgin Mary and Christ — whose names are so often linked, directly or indirectly, to this walled garden north-east of Cairo.
That these associations are, to modern eyes at least, as much myth as verifiable historical fact is less important than it might appear at first glance. Travellers and chroniclers of the medieval and early modern periods — even ones as educated and sophisticated as George Sandys and Ibn yas — did not evaluate the past in the manner of a contemporary historian. This is not to say that writers before the modern age were incapable of forming astute opinions concerning the veracity of texts or oral traditions,”! though they certainly lacked the critical editions of primary written sources and the wider scholarly apparatus available to the historian today. Thus, what would now be regarded merely as folk tales often found their way into serious and scholarly tracts bearing on the topography or history of Matarea (Chapter 1). Well-known writers, particularly those of classical antiquity, were often accorded overwhelming credence by European travellers, their observations being repeated verbatim. This is only to state the situation for the most perceptive of writers; for many others ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ were jumbled together and largely indistinguishable. For these reasons the first chapter of this book is devoted not to a conventional historical reconstruction of the gardens of Matarea and its forebears in Palestine, but to the representations of the site in travel writings and Coptic hagiographic literature.
Chapter 2 establishes the history of balsam prior to the creation of the plantation in Matarea. The first part of the chapter reviews the evidence for the collection, distribution and use of aromatic tree resins in the ancient world. This includes well-known substances such as myrrh and frankincense that are still available today. Difficulties arise, however, in the identification of valued resins that are described in Old Testament texts, including the ‘balm’ (Hebrew: zori) of Gilead and another substance known in Hebrew as bosem. Greek sources provide more solid evidence for the introduction of balsam into ancient Palestine at least from the fourth century Bc. The second section reviews the literary references to balsam cultivation in the period prior to the first Jewish Revolt against the Romans in 66 cE, comparing the claims of Flavius Josephus (who relates that the trees were a gift for King Solomon) with those of botanists and geographers. This part reviews the archaeological evidence for specialised agriculture in the regions of Jericho and En-Gedi. Excavations and surveys have revealed suggestive signs that balsam and other perfumed products were processed in these areas.
The third part of Chapter 2 is concerned with the period from the suppression of the Jewish Revolt through to the end of balsam cultivation in Palestine. Economic factors can be used to explain some acts of Roman territorial expansion, and it appears as if the revenues derived from high-value crops, including balsam, made Palestine a desirable prize. Certainly, Rome was a huge market for aromatic resins and other perfumed products, and after 70 ce the Roman authorities invested heavily in the expansion of the areas given over to balsam trees. There is abundant evidence that the balsam trees were thriving in the second century, with the bulk of the profits held in the hands of the Roman state. The remainder of the chapter looks at the evidence for the decline of the balsam trees of Palestine and the transfer of specimens to Egypt, perhaps in the late fourth or fifth centuries.
‘The Egyptian phase lasts until the early seventeenth century, and is the subject dealt with in Chapter 3. Arabic geographers note the presence of the trees in the region (known to them as ‘Ayn Shams) in the ninth century. Coptic legends associate the event much earlier with the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt (Chapter 1), though this must be understood as an attempt to lend an aura of sanctity to a locality that previously had been most strongly associated with its Pharaonic heritage. The first part of the chapter briefly reviews this ancient history, discussing both the Pharaonic remains at Heliopolis and the textual evidence for religious and scholarly activities at the site. The second part is concerned with the history of Matarea from the Islamic conquest of the seventh century through to the end of the Ayyubid sultanate in 1250. While there are references to the balsam plantations during the Fatimid period in Egypt (969-1171), it seems that it was the Ayyubids (1171-1250) who brought the precious trees under direct state control. This represented a challenge for Coptic patriarchate, and the uneasy relationship is reflected in the construction and demolition of churches at Matarea.
‘The next part of Chapter 3 is concerned with Matarea during the Mamluk sultanate. This appears to have been the high point in the history of the site, with balsam playing a significant role in Mamluk interactions with other polities and with the representatives of Christian denominations in Europe and the Middle East. Mamluk sultans and high officials attended the annual collection of balsam from the trees, and there is also evidence for investment in agriculture in the region. Political instability in the latter part of the fifteenth century marks the beginning of a long decline that would stretch through the first century of Ottoman rule in Egypt. The period from the Ottoman conquest in 1517 to the death of the last tree in 1615 is surveyed in the final part. While the accounts given by travellers indicate that the numbers of trees continued to dwindle through the sixteenth century, the governors of Egypt remained committed to the maintenance of the plantation, even importing new trees from Arabia. This process of repeated restocking with wild trees from the region of Mecca opens up the possibility that the balsam gathered in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was different from that available in earlier times.
I have already described balsam as an ‘oil’, but this designation requires further attention. The finest balsam was, in fact, a type of resin (or oleo-resin) gathered by scoring into the bark of the balsam tree. This resin was then subjected to a variety of processes before it was ready for use. These issues are considered in greater detail in Chapter 4. The central issue is the identification of the species of plant found in Matarea, and before that in the plantations of Jericho and En-Gedi. This problem is, of course, made more complex by the fact that no living specimens exist today. Various species of wild tree, most notably Commiphora gileadensis, have been suggested as candidates, though it is clear from historical evidence that the balsam of ancient Palestine and medieval Matarea had been selectively grown and possessed qualities quite distinct from its wild counterparts. The first part of the chapter reviews the primary written descriptions of balsam, as well as the visual representations of the plant in mosaics, manuscripts and printed books.
‘The second part of Chapter 4 turns to botanical and ethnopharmacological research of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in order to establish the characteristics of Commiphora opobalsamum, and of similar plants found in Arabia and the Horn of Africa. The third part is an attempt to reconcile the available evidence about the physical properties of the balsam trees of Palestine and Egypt and their wild forebears. This analysis pays particular attention to the detailed accounts provided by Pliny the Elder, Dioscorides and the thirteenth-century scholar “Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi. The final part draws together the information concerning the collection of balsam from the trees, and of the procedures that were then employed in the creation of the refined balsam ‘oil’.
Chapter 5 considers the ways in which the products of the balsam tree were distributed around the ancient and medieval worlds. The rarity of ‘true’ balsam was one of the factors determining its high cost, though this can also be related to the associations forged between the trees and famous historical figures (Chapter 1). Balsam also enjoyed numerous applications in medicine (Chapters 6 and 7), and religious and royal rituals (Chapter 8). For all of these reasons balsam had an important role to play in diplomatic exchanges and international trade. The first part of the chapter assesses the ways in which balsam was exploited by Muslim rulers from the early ninth to the sixteenth centuries. The second part of the chapter turns to the sphere of trade, tracing the references to the traffic in balsam in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. Balsam is considered in relation to the other high-value commodities transported along land and sea routes in the ancient, medieval and early modern periods. Purchasers of balsam had to be wary of fakes, and scholars such as Dioscorides offer methods to detect fraudulent imitations that were available in marketplaces. The last part of the chapter reviews these methods and identifies the principal plant oils that were used as substitutes, particularly in the preparation of medicaments.
‘The remaining chapters (6-8) are concerned with the uses to which the products of the balsam tree were put in the ancient and medieval worlds. Chapters 6 and 7 consider the diverse ways in which balsam oil was employed in medicine. This survey encompasses medical and pharmacological writing in Greek from ancient times to the end of late antiquity (seventh century CE), as well as later writings in, to list only the most significant, Syriac, Arabic and Latin. Chapter 6 begins a discussion of the medicinal qualities possessed by tree resins, most notably in the healing of wounds. This part deals with some of the problems in evaluating the claims made in pre-modern medical writings, and contrasts this with modern scientific evaluations of myrrh, and other aromatic tree resins. The main part of the chapter reviews the place of balsam in ancient medicine, from the passing references in the Old Testament to the much fuller presentation found in the corpus of antique Greek medical and pharmacological literature. This evaluation takes in larger issues, most notably the humoral system of medicine and the ways in which balsam was understood as a substance that would encourage heating and drying within the organs of the body.
The third part of Chapter 6 deals briefly with the appearance of balsam in Syriac medical texts of late antiquity. The language of Syriac has additional importance in the history of medicine because of its role in what has come to be known as the “Translation Movement’. This term refers to the drive, promoted by the Abbasid caliphs of the late eighth and early ninth centuries, to translate Greek scholarship — philosophy, rhetoric, medicine, astronomy, engineering, agronomy and many other branches of science — into Arabic. The fourth part is concerned with the medical writing that came into being during the first phase (late eighth to the tenth century) of the Translation Movement. The aims are to establish the relationships with the practices outlined in earlier Greek writing, and to identify areas of adaptation and innovation.
The first part of Chapter 7 considers the Arabic and Persian medical literature of this later phase. Comments are also made about medical writing in the Byzantine empire in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The second part discusses the translation of the Arabic medical tradition (which by then had fully incorporated earlier works in Greek) in Western Europe, particularly in scholarly centres such as Salerno and Montpellier. Balsam was already known prior to the eleventh century — for example, in the Anglo-Saxon Leechbook of Bald — but the translation of fundamental works such as Ibn Sina’s (known in Europe as Avicenna; d. 1037) Qdandn by Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187) greatly increased knowledge about the applications of this precious oleo-resin. European scholars used these translations and built upon them in subsequent centuries. The last part deals with the creation and sale of compound theriacs, or ‘treacles’. These recipes had their origins in ancient antidotes, such as Mithridatium, though they continued to evolve over time, with cities such as Venice producing their own versions.
Tree resins have long been used in a variety of religious and royal rituals. Aromatic resins were burned around the altar of the Jewish Temple, while balsam and other substances were employed in the anointing of the kings of Judaea. Chapter 8 is largely devoted to this question of ritual dimensions, with most attention given to the practices in the Christian Churches, and in the royal dynasties of Western Europe. ‘The first part of the chapter examines connections often made between balsam and the practice of embalming. The second part explores the role played by balsam in liturgy, particularly in the oil of consecration. This oil was made in different ways, with the recipes in some of the eastern Churches being especially involved. Anointment was an important aspect of the investiture of medieval European rulers, and there are numerous references to the inclusion of balsam in these oils. The methods of anointing and the composition of these oils are reviewed in the second part of the chapter.
‘The previous paragraphs give a summary of the contents, but some further comments are warranted concerning the wider aims of this book. One motivation was simply to relate the story of a single product, illuminating the surprising ways in which this rare commodity was drawn into different aspects of the social and cultural lives of the medieval world. These interactions were not limited to one region, encompassing many polities from the Atlantic coasts of Europe and North Africa to Central Asia and spanning the three major Abrahamic religions. While these factors make it worthwhile to explore the history of the balsam trees and products derived from them, there are also other issues that spring from a detailed consideration of human interactions with a single plant or mineral. This focused approach to a single commodity has been taken in several other published studies, most famously, Redcliffe Salaman’s 1949 book, The History and Social Influence of the Potato. Other notable examples of this genre in more recent times include Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History; Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans; Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History; lain Gately, Tobacco: A Cultural History of how an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization; and Antony Wild, Coffee: A Dark History.” Manufactured goods such as silk, paper and blue-and-white porcelain have also received interesting cultural histories.”
Potatoes, sugar, tobacco and coffee all draw significance from their ubiquity in modern life. The very fact that they are now rather unremarkable features of human existence across the modern world makes them worthy of scholarly attention. Each one has affected the social and cultural lives of the regions into which they have been introduced at different phases in history.
Their impact has been felt ultimately at all levels of society, regardless of wealth or political power, and it is difficult to imagine the contemporary world without them. This characteristic is, of course, lacking in the story of balsam. Due to its rarity and high cost, balsam remained a commodity appreciated and utilised by a relatively narrow spectrum of society (even if awareness of it was more widespread through popular literature and oral transmission). Furthermore, the trees in Matarea have long since died, denying balsam the chance to shape our contemporary experience, beyond the occasional figure of speech or advertising label. It would be fruitless, therefore, to advance for balsam the claims that might be made for less expensive, but more essential commodities.
‘The present book takes a different direction, seeking to understand the mechanisms by which a single product comes to be valued and how this value is expressed in social, cultural and intellectual terms (these ideas are addressed further in the Conclusion). All commodities can be said to have intrinsic properties that represent a baseline for the estimation of their value to human society. Foodstuffs can be understood in terms of their calorific content and nutritional qualities, their resistance to decay and a range of other practical considerations. To these can be added subjective criteria, including the perceived qualities of taste and texture, and their relative rarity. Hence, the societal value accorded to a comestible is not merely the sum of its intrinsic properties. Similar points can be made about the organic and non-organic substances that throughout history have been fashioned into clothing, tools, weapons and all other aspects of human material culture. Gold is a good example to explore in the present context, as it shares with balsam the notion of rarity. Gold clearly possesses intrinsic properties in that it does not corrode and is both highly malleable and ductile. The first property means that, unlike most metals, it is commonly found in its pure form rather than bound into a rock matrix, while the second and third allow it to be used economically, either in thin sheets (gold leaf) or as wire. One might also add the metal’s distinctive colour and weight (what the Bond villain Auric Goldfinger memorably described as its ‘divine heaviness’) to its attractive characteristics.
Neither this list of properties nor the rarity of gold on the surface of the Earth fully account for the value attributed to it through history. Ever since they were first extracted, copper and iron have been employed in many more ways, and no past society with access to such metals would countenance the fashioning of tools or weapons from gold. The utilities gold possessed made it attractive primarily for decorative purposes and for the minting of coinage. Hence, it is necessary to consider the ways in which value is generated through the mechanisms of symbolism, ritual and myth. These are all features that are prominent in the story of balsam. It too can be argued to have both intrinsic and culturally constructed properties, though many of these are also found in other aromatic tree resins gathered in regions of the Middle East, East Africa and the Indian Subcontinent (Chapter 4). Balsam cannot necessarily be categorised as the most ‘useful’ of these substances; for example, prior to the advent of modern medicine myrrh was employed in the treatment of more illnesses. Where balsam differs from its counterparts, however, is in its value, whether this is computed in purely financial terms or according to the range of social-cultural venues in which it operated.
This second factor can be equated with the anthropological concept of ‘use value’. This idea has been elaborated in a variety of contexts, but the key point is that value is defined less according to economic criteria and more as a social construct. This approach allows the values associated with material objects to be assessed in relation to societal beliefs and practices. The latter could comprise modes of gift-giving or ceremonial interactions.” As a result, two objects might look more or less identical to an outside observer, but be strongly differentiated for members of the society in which they were made. Difference can reside not only in visible characteristics — shape, decoration, colour and so on — but also in perceived properties of the materials used in the construction of objects or rituals associated with the construction process.”° ‘These points can be illustrated in a contemporary context by the market for collectible books: for example, while a second-hand hardback copy of Ian Fleming’s Goldfinger can be obtained online for as little as £5, a signed first edition of the same book with its original dust jacket will cost anywhere from 1,800 to 8,000 times as much.” For those who wish simply to read the novel there is no meaningful difference between the cheaper and the more expensive volumes, but the aura surrounding both the first appearance of a book in print and the signature of the author are sufficient to stimulate a small
group of enthusiasts to pay extravagant sums for the latter.** Importantly, high prices in this context are not merely a product of rarity, as there are many equally scarce books by less sought-after authors that can be purchased for considerably more modest amounts. ‘This is not an isolated phenomenon, and elsewhere in the book I have made use of analogies to explicate the values that accrete to balsam over time.
Balsam too had an aura surrounding it in the medieval period. “True’ balsam came only from Matarea, and this site was lent further lustre with its religious and historical associations. The product appears in many different social-cultural contexts, cementing the notion among the literate elite of its unique power and potency. The wealth of primary accounts — in literary genres as diverse as history, geography, poetry, liturgy, travel writing, medicine, botany and pharmacology — offer a rare opportunity to establish the mechanisms by which use value is elaborated over time. This examination is both diachronic and cross-cultural, taking in a broad sweep of time from the fourth century Bc to the seventeenth century cE and an extensive geographical region. Notably, there are writers who seek to distinguish between the characteristics of balsam and those resinous materials that apparently exhibited similar qualities (Chapter 4), and there are also accounts detailing how purchasers could detect imitations in the marketplace (Chapter 5). Such analyses — whether or not they are based on verifiable observations — illustrate the ways in which information was circulated in pre-modern cultures.
A central argument of the present book is that the creation of value, at least as it applies to precious and high-cost commodities, is dependent upon the distribution and circulation of information. Quite simply, balsam could not generate its socio-cultural or economic value simply on the basis of its intrinsic properties; the prior or coeval circulation of written or oral testimony is required in order to generate demand.” The collecting of information was not, of course, static, but was subject to continual change and adaptation. The challenge, therefore, is to isolate which writers or groups of texts were most influential in this process, and the times when new observations added to the essential core of information (or, indeed, when information was lost). While much of this is specific to balsam, the general dynamics revealed in this study will be of some utility in the study of the distribution and uses of other pre-modern commodities. Distribution patterns have been formulated by archaeologists, anthropologists and economic historians, and these studies can be further augmented by the careful examination of the cultural factors informing the generation of demand and the modes of consumption.*”
As noted above, the methodology in this book builds on the insights in numerous historical, archaeological and anthropological studies. Lastly, mention should be made of the prior scholarship on balsam itself. While this is, to the best of my knowledge, the first book-length work to track the history of the plants and their products from ancient times to the death of the last tree in the seventeenth century, there are other publications that deal with aspects of this larger subject. The early history of balsam in the plantations of Jericho and En-Gedi has been the subject of excavations, and further important discoveries have been made in Masada and the Qumran caves. In addition, there have been studies making use of textual sources and mosaics of this period (Chapter 2). Scholars have also analysed the writings pertinent to the history of Matarea, drawing out historical facts and mythic detail from Coptic, Arabic and European sources (Chapters 1 and 3). The modern botanical study of balsam can be said to have started with the writings of Prosper Alpin in the late sixteenth century, and detailed accounts of balsam and comparable species appear in a range of botanical works.” There are, of course, many other references — some passing and others more extensive — to the place of balsam in areas such as medicine and ritual (Chapters 6-8). There are too many to list here, though they are cited in the notes accompanying the following chapters.
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