Yolk, saffron or saffron, the most expensive spice in the world, appeared, was domesticated and cultivated for the first time in the region of Greece during the Bronze Age. This is the conclusion of a new German scientific study, which seems to give a definitive answer to the question of where the crocus plant comes from, as until now many countries have claimed it.
Saffron is extracted from the flowers of the crocus plant (Crocus sativus), which has been cultivated for thousands of years in the Mediterranean region, from where it has spread to many other places, without being sure where and when exactly its cultivation began. . Today yolk has a variety of uses, from cooking and perfumes to dyes. From about 15,000 to 16,000 crocus flowers, which take 370 to 470 hours to collect, produce just one pound of yolk worth $ 1,300 to $ 10,000.
Read the scientific study here.
The researchers, led by Ludwig Mann of the Technical University of Dresden, who published the paper in the journal Plant Science “Frontiers in Plant Science”, analyzed all available data and concluded that they converge in the same area. “Both ancient works of art and genetics show Bronze Age Greece, around 1,700 BC. “or even earlier, as the origin of saffron domestication,” Mann said.
The genus Crocus, which includes about 250 wild plant species, is present from Southern and Central Europe and North Africa to Western China. The first known use of wild yolk by humans was as a pigment for cave paintings, about 50,000 years ago in present-day Iraq. Ancient Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian texts also describe the use of wild yolk for medicine and dye.
The researchers said that the origin of saffron could not be easily determined because the plant is difficult to study genetically, as it has three – instead of the usual two – copies of each chromosome, as well as a very large genome containing a high percentage of repeat DNA. difficult in sequencing.
According to the study, probably the oldest depiction of cultivated crocus in the world is from the Minoan civilization the mural “Crocus collector” around 1,600 BC. Crocus flowers are also depicted on Bronze Age ceramics and fabrics in Greece, while the ancient Linear B script also has an ideogram for the crocus. Tombs in Egypt of the 15th and 16th century BC. show ambassadors from Crete bringing saffron dyed fabrics.
Genetic studies from 2019 have shown that the plant C.cartwrightianus, the closest wild relative of the cultivated yolk, has been found only in mainland Greece, which is a strong indication that the initial domestication of the plant took place here. The researchers estimate that modern saffron saffron originated naturally, either from the related wild plant C. Cartwrightianus or from hybrids between the latter and some other species of saffron. Then the yolk was systematically utilized by the Greeks of the Bronze Age thanks to its superior properties as a spice.
As Dr. Tony Haytkham, head of the Plant Genomics Group at the Technical University of Dresden, said, “All over the world today, all saffron yolks are essentially clones that go back to the appearance of saffron in ancient Greece. “Although everyone shares the same genome, saffron can have different properties depending on the region.”
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