Browse Items (23 total)

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Musk oil, obtained from the musk deer, native to the Himalaya area (including India and China) was shipped to Europe through Islamic lands during the Renaissance. Scents of animal origin, including musk and two other ingredients made from animal…

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Clove is native to the Maluku Islands in eastern Indonesia. It was in use in China as early as the third century BCE, and has been used in India since ancient times. Between the second and eighth centuries CE, it was spread from Egypt throughout the…

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The silkworm was domesticated in China by 3000 BCE, and silk became a major trade good between Xi’an in central China and the eastern Mediterranean, carried by caravans across ancient routes that span the Taklamakan Desert. Known as the Silk Road,…

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Fenugreek is native to Southern Europe and Asia. In classical times, it was well known in Europe for the medicinal properties of its seeds. Evidence also shows that fenugreek was used for culinary purposes in ancient Egypt.

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In the early modern period, sugar production was mainly focused on cane sugar collected from the stalks of tall grasses in the genus Saccharum. During the late medieval period, large-scale sugar production developed in the Mediterranean, especially…

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The term “lac” originates from Hindi and Sanskrit words, respectively lakh and laksha, which mean “hundred thousand,” referring to the large quantity of insects needed to produce enough lac material. Used as early as around 1200 BCE in India, lac…

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Dragon’s blood, obtained from the species Dracaena draco, Dracaena cinnabari, and likely Daemonorops draco from the island of Sokotra, was available in Europe since at least the first century CE. Later, with the expansion of European voyages, the…

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Liquidambar orientalis comes from Turkey. It is also known as “Turkish sweetgum”. It is widely distributed across southwestern Anatolia nowadays. Benzoin styrax is found across Southeast Asia and in particular the island of Sumatra. As early as the…

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At the end of the fourteenth century and start of the fifteenth century, Armenian bole as a recommended base for water gilding was mentioned for the first time by Johannes Archerius and Cennino Cennini. The red color of the gilding base in many…

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The mastic tree is native to the shores of the Mediterranean. Specifically, mastic resin is known to be produced from Chios, an island in the Aegean Archipelago. Throughout history, the resin was highly prized. In 1346, the city of Chios was…
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