Ancient Roots
The oldest evidence there is. Braziers from the Jirzankal cemetery in the Pamirs, the Yanghai tombs in Turpan, Herodotus on the Scythians, the Chinese herbals, the Atharvaveda and bhang in India, and the long westward spread through the Islamic world into Africa and the Americas.
Part of Marijuana
50 moments in this segment.
- - Cord-marked Yangshao amphora, c.4800 BC. Neolithic Yangshao amphora from Banpo, Shaanxi, decorated with cord impressions. Hemp cordage was used to make such marks; the vessel is dated to about 4800 BC and the photograph is a museum record of it.
- - Ebers Papyrus, column 41. Column 41 of the Ebers Papyrus, an Egyptian medical text of about 1550 BC. It is among the ancient pharmacopoeias cited for early medicinal cannabis use.
- - Renaissance herbal cannabis. Cannabis plate from De historia stirpivm commentarii insignes, a Renaissance herbal in the Wellcome rare book collection.
- - Shiva under the influence of bhang. Kangra school painting in opaque watercolour and gold showing Shiva under the influence of bhang, made about 1810-20. Bhang is ritually associated with Shiva.
- - Hashish smokers, Egypt. Orientalist studio photograph captioned Hashishe Smokers, showing two men with long pipes; produced for the Egyptian tourist trade.
- - Hashish Smoker, Émile Bernard 1893. Drawing of a hashish smoker by Émile Bernard, one of the works from his time in Egypt.
- - La fumeuse de haschisch, 1900. Orientalist painting by Émile Bernard of a woman smoking hashish, made during the artist's Egyptian period.
- - Hemp smoking, Swaziland. Two young men seated, one smoking hemp, from the Wellcome iconographic collections documenting southern African practice.
- - Hemp smokers, French Congo. Ethnographic postcard by Jean Audema captioned Types Bassokos, Fumeurs de chanvre, French Congo.
- - Peter Brown on the Silk Road in late antiquity. Penn Museum lecture by Princeton historian Peter Brown on trade, politics and cultural contact along the Silk Road between Rome and China.
- - Hemp heckling comb. A hemp comb (heckling comb), the tool used to separate and straighten hemp fibres, photographed at the Port-Musée in Douarnenez.
- - Mike Aldrich on Bhang and Shiva in India. Lecture by cannabis historian Dr Mike Aldrich on bhang, its place in Shaivite worship and the long Indian tradition of cannabis preparations.
- - Cannabis in the Ancient World: Lecture by Chris Bennett. Full lecture by cannabis historian Chris Bennett on cannabis in ancient religion and medicine, drawn from his book Cannabis and the Soma Solution.
- - Cannabis: A Lost History. Feature documentary tracing the human relationship with cannabis from ancient Asia through its use in religion and medicine to its twentieth-century prohibition.
- - How Cannabis Became the World's Most Controversial Plant. HISTORY channel segment from The Marijuana Revolution tracing the plant from ancient medicine to twentieth-century prohibition.
- - Exploring Tel Arad, Canaanite and Israelite city. A site tour of Tel Arad filmed on location, covering the Canaanite lower city and the Judahite fortress whose shrine later yielded the cannabis residue.
- - Origins of the Silk Roads: Harvard archaeologist Rowan Flad. Peabody Museum lecture on how exchange networks formed across China and Eurasia around 4,000 years ago, the corridors along which cannabis spread west.
- - Cannabis in the Atharvaveda and Ayurveda. Survey of what the Sanskrit medical and ritual texts, the Atharvaveda, Sushruta Samhita and Bhava Prakasha, actually say about cannabis.
- - Teaching ethnobotany through cannabis. A conference paper from the 60th Annual Conference of the Society for Economic Botany on using cannabis as a teaching case in ethnobotany.
- - Science: oldest evidence of cannabis smoking unearthed at Jirzankal. Science Magazine reports the 2019 Science Advances finding of cannabinoid residue in wooden braziers at the Jirzankal Cemetery in the Pamirs, dated to roughly 500 BCE. It is the earliest clear evidence of cannabis burned for its psychoactive effect.
- - Hasan-i Sabbah and the Legend of the Assassins. Biography of the founder of the Nizari Ismaili order at Alamut and the origin of the 'hashishin' label from which the word assassin derives.
- - The Hashashin: origins of the Order of Assassins. An animated history of Hassan-i Sabbah's Nizari Ismaili order in 11th-century Persia. The popular link between the sect's name and hashish is a later European legend rather than established fact.
- - Israeli TV report on ritual cannabis burning at Tel Arad. ILTV news report on the published research showing worshippers at Tel Arad burned cannabis some 2,700 years ago.
- - Cannabis Residue Found at an Ancient Israelite Shrine. Reuters report on the discovery of cannabis residue on an altar at the Iron Age shrine of Tel Arad, evidence of ritual burning of cannabis in ancient Judah.
- - Herodotus Describes the Scythians. Reading of Herodotus's Book Four account of the Scythian nomads, including the famous passage on throwing hemp seed on hot stones inside felt tents.
- - Kaneh bosm and soma: archaeology of cannabis in ancient ritual. A presentation for Oklahoma State University's Religious Studies programme on archaeological evidence for ritual cannabis use over 5,000 years, including the kaneh bosm and soma identifications.
- - The Ancient Cannabis Cult. Documentary on the archaeology and genetics of cannabis domestication in East Asia and its spread by Indo-European steppe peoples, covering the Yamnaya, Scythians and ritual burning.
- - Cannabis found in a Tang dynasty tomb in China. A report on an Agricultural Archaeology study finding cannabis in a Tang-era Chinese tomb, where the plant appears to have served as food and fibre rather than intoxicant.
- - Cannabis in ancient Greece and Rome. Examines what classical sources say about cannabis and hemp in Greece and Rome between roughly 600 BCE and 100 CE, and whether psychoactive use is attested.
- - Cannabis at the Judean temple of Tel Arad. An archaeology explainer on the Tel Arad shrine, the identification of cannabis and frankincense on its two altars, and its bearing on Hezekiah's cultic reforms.
- - The Scythians and Their Hemp Vapour Baths. Short history piece on the western steppe nomads and the Herodotean account of their cannabis vapour tents, with reference to the Pazyryk burials.
- - Hashish in the medieval Arab-Muslim world. A French-language history lecture on hashish in the medieval Islamic world, covering the jurists' debates, Sufi use, and how far the drug actually spread. Runs about 31 minutes.
- - The Pazyryk burials of the Altai. An art-history lecture on the frozen Pazyryk kurgans, whose Scythian tombs preserved textiles, tattooed mummies and the cannabis-burning equipment described by Herodotus.
- - Hashish in Sufism and the first war on cannabis. Covers hashish in Sufi practice, the Thousand and One Nights, the earliest recorded campaigns of suppression, and the plant's movement during the Age of Discovery.
- - BBC Reel: the prehistoric origins of the Silk Road. Kazakh and European archaeologists survey the Central Asian steppe for traces of the earliest routes that later became the Silk Road.
- - On location at Tel Arad: cannabis and an Israelite cult temple. A walk through the Canaanite city and Israelite fortress at Tel Arad, filmed at the site where cannabis was first identified in Near Eastern religious practice.
- - Ancient Egyptian medical uses of cannabis. A short survey of cannabis references in Egyptian medical papyri, including the Ebers Papyrus prescriptions and their modes of administration.
- - Agrobiodiversity in cannabis cultivation. A Society for Economic Botany and Society of Ethnobiology conference talk on landrace diversity and traditional cannabis agriculture, recorded at Emory University.
- - The Order of Assassins of Medieval Persia. Documentary on the eleventh-century Nizari Ismaili order at Alamut, separating the historical record from the hashish legend attached to them by later European writers.
- - Cannabis history in the Middle East. Traces hashish use across successive Middle Eastern regimes, from the medieval period through the early modern era.
- - The Hazy Evolution of Cannabis. PBS Eons on the deep evolutionary origins of the cannabis plant, where it was first domesticated, and why it produces cannabinoids.
- - Did ancient people smoke cannabis? An archaeologist answers. Archaeologist Smiti Nathan reviews the material evidence for ancient cannabis consumption, from seed finds to residue analysis, and what each type of evidence can and cannot show.
- - Bhang, India's Sacred Holi Drink. Cultural history of bhang in India, its preparation, its role in Holi and Shiva worship, and its ambiguous legal status.
- - This ancient Israelite altar burned cannabis. Religion scholar Andrew Mark Henry examines the cannabis residue identified on the 2,700-year-old Tel Arad altar and what it implies about Judahite temple ritual and Hezekiah's reforms.
- - The tomb of the Scythian prince. A French-language archaeology documentary on Scythian burial mounds and the steppe culture Herodotus described inhaling cannabis vapour in closed tents.
- - Travelling with Herodotus: The Scythian Nomads. Detailed walk through Herodotus's Book Four on the Scythians of the Black Sea steppe, their customs and their funerary rites.
- - The Origins of Cannabis: Deep Roots. Long-form research review of the botanical and archaeological origins of cannabis, drawing on published academic literature.
- - Cannabis in Pre-Colonial Africa. How cannabis reached Africa via Indian Ocean trade, its regional names, and the African invention of the water pipe long before modern smoking culture.
- - Hemp in colonial America, part one. How hemp cultivation was mandated in early colonial charters for rope, sailcloth and cordage, long before cannabis acquired its modern legal identity.
- - Hemp in colonial America, part two. The second part traces hemp's role in colonial agriculture and shipping through to the early republic.