History Of Saffron

Human cultivation and use of saffron spans more than 3,500 years and extends across cultures, continents, and civilizations. Saffron, a spice derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus (''Crocus sativus''), has through history remained among the world's most costly substances. With its bitter taste, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes, the apocarotenoid-rich saffron has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine.

Crocus cartwrightianus, a plant native to mainland Greece, Euboea, Crete, Skyros and some islands of the Cyclades is a possible ancestor of saffron. A study reported in 2019 that the authors considered that a cross between two cytotypes of ''Crocus cartwrightianus'' was responsible for the emergence of ''Crocus sativus''. This was probably a unique or very rare event as there is no genetic diversity in commercial saffron today. Another study in 2019 suggested that a population of ''Crocus cartwrightianus'' near Athens in Attica was the closest match to the theoretical ancestors of ''Crocus sativus''.

'' C. thomasii'' and '' C. pallasii'' have also been suggested as possible ancestors. Various origins have been proposed, with suggestions that saffron originated in Iran (Persia), Greece, Mesopotamia and even Kashmir, Indian subcontinent.

Several wild species of ''Crocus'' are known to have been harvested for use as saffron. ''Crocus ancyrensis'' was used to make saffron in Sivas in Central Turkey, the corms were also eaten. ''Crocus cartwrightianus'' was harvested on Andros in the islands of the Cyclades, for medicinal purposes and the stigmas for making a pigment called Zafran. '' Crocus longiflorus'' stigmas were used for saffron in Sicily. ''Crocus thomasii'' stigmas were used to flavour dishes around Taranto, South Italy. In Syria the stigmas of an unknown wild species were collected by women and children, sun-dried and pressed into small tablets which were sold in the Bazaars.

The saffron crocus is now a triploid that is "self-incompatible" and male sterile; it undergoes aberrant meiosis and is hence incapable of independent sexual reproduction—all propagation is by vegetative multiplication via manual "divide-and-set" of a starter clone or by interspecific hybridisation. If ''C. sativus'' is a mutant form of ''C. cartwrightianus'', then it may have emerged via plant breeding, which would have selected for elongated stigmas, in late Bronze Age Crete.

Humans may have bred ''C. cartwrightianus'' specimens by screening for specimens with abnormally long stigmas. The resulting saffron crocus was documented in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical reference compiled under Ashurbanipal, and it has since been traded and used over the course of four millennia and has been used as treatment for some ninety disorders. The ''C. sativus'' clone was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia, later reaching parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania.

Etymology

The word "saffron" immediately stems from the Latin word ' via the 12th-century Old French term ''safran''. The French was borrowed from Arabic زَعْفَرَان (''za'farān''), and ultimately from Persian (zarparān) which literally means "golden leaves".

The Latin form ' is also the source of the Catalan '' safrà'', Italian '' zafferano'', but Portuguese'' açafrão'', and Spanish '' azafrán'' come from the Arabic ''az-zaferán''.

The Latin term ''crocus'' is certainly a Semitic loanword. It is adapted from the Aramaic form ''kurkema'' via the Arabic term ''kurkum'' and the Greek intermediate κρόκος ''krokos'', which once again signifies "yellowish". The Sanskrit ''kunkumam'' might be ultimately the origin, or in some way related to the Semitic term.

Minoan and Greco-Roman

'' Crocus cartwrightianus'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Iridaceae, native to Greece and Crete. ''C. cartwrightianus'' is the presumed wild progenitor of the domesticated triploid ''Crocus sativus'' – the saffron crocus. Saffron is the triploid form of a species found in Eastern Greece, ''Crocus cartwrightianus''; it probably appeared first in Crete. An origin in Western or Central Asia, although often suspected, has been disproved by botanical research. Minoan depictions of saffron are now considered to be '' Crocus cartwrightianus''.

Saffron played a significant role in the Greco-Roman pre-classical period bracketed by the 8th century BC and the 3rd century AD. The first known image of saffron in pre-Greek culture is much older and stems from the Bronze Age. A saffron harvest is shown in the Knossos palace frescoes of Minoan Crete, which depict the flowers being picked by young girls and monkeys. One of these fresco sites is located in the "Xeste 3" building at Akrotiri, on the Aegean island of Santorini—the ancient Greeks knew it as "Thera". These frescoes likely date from the 16th or 17th century BC but may have been produced anywhere between 3000 and 1100 BC. They portray a Minoan goddess supervising the plucking of flowers and the gleaning of stigmas for use in the manufacture of what is possibly a therapeutic drug. A fresco from the same site also depicts a woman using saffron to treat her bleeding foot. These "Theran" frescoes are the first botanically accurate visual representations of saffron's use as an herbal remedy. This saffron-growing Minoan settlement was ultimately destroyed by a powerful earthquake and subsequent volcanic eruption sometime between 1645 and 1500 BC. The volcanic ash from the destruction entombed and helped preserve these key herbal frescoes.

Ancient Greek legends tell of brazen sailors embarking on long and perilous voyages to the remote land of Cilicia, where they traveled to procure what they believed was the world's most valuable saffron. The best-known Hellenic saffron legend is that of Crocus and Smilax: The handsome youth Crocus sets out in pursuit of the nymph Smilax in the woods near Athens; in a brief dallying interlude of idyllic love, Smilax is flattered by his amorous advances, but all too soon tires of his attentions. He continues his pursuit; she resists. She bewitches Crocus: he is transformed—into a saffron crocus. Its radiant orange stigmas were held as a relict glow of an undying and unrequited passion. The tragedy and the spice would be recalled later:

In another variation, Crocus was the lover of the messenger god Hermes. Hermes accidentally killed his lover during a game with the discus, and thus turned the dying Crocus into a saffron flower, in an aetiological myth explaining the origin of the plant.

For the ancient Mediterraneans, saffron gathered around the Cilician coastal town of Soli was of top value, particularly for use in perfumes and ointments. Herodotus and Pliny the Elder, however, rated rival Assyrian and Babylonian saffron from the Fertile Crescent as best—to treat gastrointestinal or renal upsets. Greek saffron from the Corycian Cave of Mount Parnassus was also of note: the color offered by the Corycian crocus is used as a benchmark in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius and similarly with its fragrance in the epigrams of Martial.

Cleopatra of late Ptolemaic Egypt used a quarter-cup of saffron in her warm baths, as she prized its colouring and cosmetic properties. She used it before encounters with men, trusting that saffron would render lovemaking yet more pleasurable. Egyptian healers used saffron as a treatment for all varieties of gastrointestinal ailments: when stomach pains progressed to internal hemorrhaging, an Egyptian treatment consisted of saffron crocus seeds mixed and crushed together with ''aager''-tree remnants, ox fat, coriander, and myrrh. This ointment or poultice was applied to the body. The physicians expected it to " xpelblood through the mouth or rectum which resembles hog's blood when it is cooked". Urinary tract conditions were also treated with an oil-based emulsion of premature saffron flowers mixed with roasted beans; this was used topically on men. Women ingested a more complex preparation.

In Greco-Roman times saffron was widely traded across the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. Their customers ranged from the perfumers of Rosetta, in Egypt, to physicians in Gaza to townsfolk in Rhodes, who wore pouches of saffron in order to mask the presence of malodorous fellow citizens during outings to the theatre. For the Greeks, saffron was widely associated with professional courtesans and retainers known as the ''hetaerae''. Large dye works operating in Sidon and Tyre used saffron baths as a substitute; there, royal robes were ''triple''-dipped in deep purple dyes; for the robes of royal pretenders and commoners, the last two dips were replaced with a saffron dip, which gave a less intense purple hue.

The ancient Greeks and Romans prized saffron as a perfume or deodoriser and scattered it about their public spaces: royal halls, courts, and amphitheatres alike. When Nero entered Rome they spread saffron along the streets; wealthy Romans partook of daily saffron baths. They used it as mascara, stirred saffron threads into their wines, cast it aloft in their halls and streets as a potpourri, and offered it to their deities. Roman colonists took saffron with them when they settled in southern Roman Gaul, where it was extensively cultivated until the AD 271 barbarian invasion of Italy. Competing theories state that saffron only returned to France with 8th-century Moors or with the Avignon Papacy in the 14th century.

Middle Eastern and Persian

Saffron-based pigments have been found in the prehistoric paints used to illustrate beasts in 50,000-year-old cave art found in modern-day Iraq, which was even then northwest of the Persian Empire. The Sumerians used saffron as an ingredient in their remedies and magical potions. Sumerians did not cultivate saffron. They gathered their stores from wild flowers, believing that divine intervention alone enables saffron's medicinal properties. Such evidence suggests that saffron was an article of long-distance trade before Crete's Minoan palace culture reached a peak in the 2nd millennium BC. Saffron was also honoured as a sweet-smelling spice over three millennia ago in the Hebrew Tanakh

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