At about 130 BC, a Greek merchant vessel, made of walnut wood, carrying a cargo of Syrian glassware and medicines, sank off the coast of Tuscany, Italy in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Archaelogists and archaeobotanists have been able to examine and analyse the cargo of medicine pills that were prepared by physicians of ancient Greece.
DNA analyses show that the tablets were a mixture of more than ten different plant extracts from hibiscus to celery. For the first time, there is physical evidence of what has been written by ancient Greek doctors such as Dioscorides and Galen. The boxers of pills discovered in the wreck, most of which were still dry, show a complex ingredient of carrot, radish, celery, wild onion, oak, cabbage, alfalfa and yarrow. The hibiscus extract probably was imported from present day India or Ethiopia.
Most of these plants are known to have been used by the ancients to treat sick people. For example, yarrow reduced the flow of blood from wounds. Pedanius Dioscorides, a physician and pharmacologist in ancient Rome, wrote in 60 AD, about the benefits of carrots as a panacea for a number of health problems.
One startling discovery was the finding of a sunflower extract. Though widely used as a less expensive sourse of cooking oil than olive oil in modern Italy, sunflowers are thought to be a North American plant unknown to Europeans until their arrival to the New World some 400 years ago. Further study will be required to determine if this is a mistake.
Drugs described by Dioscorides and Galen of Pergamon, have often been dismissed as quackery. Scholars have often doubted the ancient literature of such medicines as having any efficacy on illnesses. The discovery in 1989,of the medical cargo inside this ancient Greek wreck may open new paths for pharmacological research.
Montani semper liberi ! Happy modeling to all and every one of you.
Crackers 