[Sca-cooks] Vanilla in the old and new world?

[Johnna Holloway]

The paper to look at will be the one given at the conference which is undoubtedly to be published.

The synopsis 

V. Linares. Long distance trade: Vanillin as a mortuary offering in Middle Bronze Age Megiddo <http://www.asor.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/2018-Abstract-Book_updated_10-15-18.pdf>. American Schools of Oriental Research annual meeting, Denver, November 16, 2018.

Vanessa Linares (Tel Aviv University), “Long Distance Trade: Vanillin as a Mortuary Offering in Middle Bronze Age Megiddo”
Organic residue analysis was conducted on four small containers (juglets) placed as offerings in an elite MB III (ca. 1650–1550 B.C.E.) masonry tomb uncovered at Tel Megiddo, Israel. Compounds vanillin and 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde were identified in three out of the four juglets examined. These compounds are the major compounds found in natural vanilla extract. Until now it has been commonly accepted that vanilla was

domesticated in the New World and subsequently spread to other parts of the globe. Once all possibilities of contamination were ruled out, a post-organic residue analysis investigation of various species within the plant kingdom from which these principle compounds could have been exploited was conducted.

The source of vanillin from the juglets examined stem from the vanilla orchid. This is based on the profuse quantity of vanillin found in the juglets that could have only derived from the abundant amount of vanillin yield from the vanilla orchid pods. This conjecture is supported by the presence of compound 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde that is also a major component of natural vanilla extract. After a close study of vanilla orchid plants, three different species were identified as possible sources for vanilla exploitation in antiquity: V. polylepsis Summerh (central east Africa), V. albidia Blume (India), and V. abundiflora J.J. Sm. (southeast Asia). These results shed new light on the first known exploitation of vanilla, local uses, significance in mortuary practices, and possible long-distance trade networks in the ancient Near East during the second millennium B.C.E.

What it seems we have is vanillin turning up as an uncommon perfuming agent used in high status funeral offerings.

Johnna