It\u2019s rare when news headlines concern someone who died nearly 2,000 years ago, but that\u2019s what happened last month, when a scientific team in Italy reported results of their study finding that the skull in a Rome museum really is that of Pliny the Elder, the immortal naturalist of the ancient Roman world.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>\u00a0reported, the skull had been sitting for decades in the\u00a0Museo Storico Nazionale Dell\u2019Arte Sanitaria<\/a>, or National Historical Museum of Medical Arts, described as a \u201ctreasure trove of medical curiosities.\u201d It had been unearthed in an excavation in 1900 on the shore of the Bay of Naples near the ruins of Pompeii, along with some Roman-era jewelry and regalia. As Pliny was killed in the 79 CE eruption of Mount Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii, and was said to have met his death on that fabled shoreline, there was inevitably speculation.\u00a0<\/p>\n The landowner who discovered the skull seems to have leveraged it for personal notoriety as the man who found the remains of Pliny. After changing hands a few times, it wound up in the museum some 70 years ago, It was first plugged as \u201cPliny the Elder\u2019s skull,\u201d then, less ambitiously, as \u201cskull from the excavations of Pompeii and attributed to Pliny.\u201d<\/p>\n The forensic study, which was launched in 2017, used DNA sequencing and an analysis of cranial shape to determine that the skull fits what we know from history about Pliny\u2019s general profile. Andrea Cionci, leader of the study, dubbed Project Pliny, told the Times: \u201cIt is very likely that the skull is Pliny, but we cannot have 100% security. We have many coincidences in favor, and no contrary data.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The identity of the skull remains a matter of some controversy. The Times ironically quoted a line from Pliny himself: \u201cIn these matters, the only certainty is that nothing is certain.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There is, however, a greater degree of certainty about Pliny\u2019s role as one of history\u2019s first scholars to document the medicinal properties of the cannabis plant.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gaius Plinius Secundus, born around 23 CE, led military campaigns for Imperial Rome in Germany before being assigned as a naval admiral in the Bay of Naples to fight piracy. In between such adventures he wrote his classic work, \u201cNaturalis Historia<\/a>,\u201d or Natural History (sometimes rendered in the plural as \u201cNaturae Historiae<\/a>\u201d).\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNatural History\u201d was, in the words of\u00a0one historian<\/a>, a \u201ccompendium of ancient knowledge and misinformation.\u201d Amid a massive 37-volume review of flora and fauna from across what was for Rome the known world are such fanciful creations as griffins and cyclopes. But it was the first such compendium of its kind in the Western world and became the standard reference work throughout the Middle Ages.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n And his intellectual curiosity seems to have played a role in his demise. This episode was recorded in letters by his nephew and adopted son, who witnessed it and survived. This was Pliny the Younger, then 17, who would go on to become a statesman, serving as governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor (contemporary Turkey).\u00a0<\/p>\n From his command post on the Bay of Naples, he witnessed a giant cloud rising from Mount Vesuvius.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHaving seen the cloud, Pliny the Elder decided he wanted to get closer to it to investigate,\u201d Daisy Dunn, author of the Pliny biography \u201cThe Shadow of Vesuvius<\/a>,\u201d told the New York Times. \u201cHe was, after all, author of a 37-volume book of natural history.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But as his ship crossed the bay toward Pompeii, it became clear that many were trapped on the shore as lava descended on the city from the volcano and ash rained down from the sky. According to another work on Pliny \u2014 \u201cIndagine sulla Scomparsa di un Ammiraglio<\/a>,\u201d or \u201cInquiry on the Death of an Admiral,\u201d by military historian Flavio Russo \u2014 what began as a personal investigation of a natural phenomenon became \u201cthe oldest natural disaster relief operation.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It was, alas, in vain. By the time his craft had reached the stricken shore, Pliny the Elder had asphyxiated to death on the toxic fumes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite the dubious or fantastical elements of his work, Pliny has had a huge influence. As\u00a0Daily Beast<\/a>\u00a0notes, some have speculated that he even helped inspire Charles Darwin, a member of the\u00a0Plinian Society<\/a>, to develop Darwin\u2019s theory of inheritable traits.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pliney\u2019s influence on the pharmacopeia of cannabis has only recently come to be recognized, and may also be considerable.\u00a0<\/p>\n There are numerous references in \u201cNatural History\u201d to what English translators have rendered as \u201chemp.\u201d Pliny clearly makes note of its industrial applications, calling it \u201ca plant remarkably useful for making ropes.\u201d<\/p>\n The footnotes for the hemp references in the\u00a0most authoritative translation<\/a>\u00a0by British scholar John Bostock, published in 1856, read: \u201cThe Cannabis sativa of Linn\u00e6us.\u201d This is a reference to Carl Linnaeus, the 18th century Swedish botanist known as the\u00a0father of modern taxonomy<\/a>, who invented the system of plant classification still in use today.<\/p>\n Given that the Latin word for hemp is cannabis, there is little controversy here.\u00a0<\/p>\n The likely references to medicinal and ecstasy-inducing (\u201crecreational,\u201d in contemporary parlance) use of the plant are somewhat more ambiguous.\u00a0<\/p>\n In his book \u201cCannabis and the Soma Solution<\/a>,\u201d the Canadian\u00a0chronicler of ancient cannabis use<\/a>\u00a0Chris Bennett notes that Pliny cited references in an earlier work by the Greek philosopher Democritus (c. 460 \u2013 c. 370 BCE), himself the\u00a0central figure in development of the atomic theory of the universe<\/a>\u00a0(dramatically vindicated by science in the 20th century).\u00a0<\/p>\n The lost earlier work by Democritus made note of an herb called theangelis that \u201cgrows upon Mount Libanus in Syria\u201d (contemporary Lebanon), and \u201cat Babylon and Susa in Persia.\u201d Democritus, in a passage quoted by Pliny, wrote: \u201cAn infusion of it imparts powers of divination to the Magi.\u201d The Magi, of course, were the\u00a0sages and priests<\/a>\u00a0of the ancient Persian religion, Zoroastrianism.<\/p>\n Pliny also noted Democritus\u2019 reference to geolotophyllis, \u201ca plant found in Bactriana\u201d (contemporary Afghanistan) and \u201con the banks of the Borysthenes\u201d (the Dnieper River, in contemporary Russia and Ukraine). \u201cTaken internally with myrrh and wine, all sorts of visionary forms present themselves, excite the most immoderate laughter.\u201d<\/p>\n As Bennett notes, Bostock\u2019s footnotes for both these esoteric terms identified them as \u201cIndian hemp, cannabis sativa.\u201d<\/p>\n Christian R\u00e4tsch in his \u201cEncyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants<\/a>\u201d lists theangelis and geolotophyllis in his section \u201cPsychoactive Plants That Have Not Yet Been Identified<\/a>.\u201d However, Pliny\u2019s geographic references are in line with what we know about the origin of the cannabis plant in Central Asia (the\u00a0Tibetan plateau<\/a>, by the most recent research), and its diffusion from there across the steppes to Europe and the Middle East.<\/p>\n This makes Pliny one of the earliest writers to mention cannabis use. Earlier ones include the Greek historian Herodotus, who\u00a0noted<\/a>\u00a0its\u00a0use by the Scythians<\/a>, and the herbal compendiums in India\u2019s\u00a0Athrava Veda<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Pen Ts\u2019ao<\/a>\u00a0of the legendary Chinese emperor\u00a0Shen Nung<\/a>\u00a0(c. 2800 BCE).<\/p>\n On a less esoteric tip, Pliny also noted that an infusion of cannabis root boiled in water \u201ceases cramped joints, gout too, and similar violent pain.\u201d He also recommended hemp seed oil as a treatment for ear infections (\u201cworms\u201d). This was noted in the December 2017 edition of the peer-reviewed quarterly journal\u00a0Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research<\/a>, in an article entitled \u201cCannabis Roots: A Traditional Therapy with Future Potential for Treating Inflammation and Pain<\/a>.\u201d The article, written by a team led by Vancouver physician and cannabis therapeutics practitioner Natasha R. Ryz, stated: \u201cIn the first century, Pliny the Elder described in \u2018Natural Histories\u2019 that a decoction of the root in water could be used to relieve stiffness in the joints, gout and related conditions. By the 17th century, various herbalists were recommending cannabis root to treat inflammation, joint pain, gout, and other conditions.\u201dAlthough the plant\u2019s root contains few cannabinoids, this points to a link between Pliny and the later medicinal use of\u00a0cannabis tinctures<\/a>\u00a0and the like in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This tradition came to an abrupt halt in the United States with federal prohibition in 1937, and has only been rediscovered since the emergence of the medical marijuana movement a little more than a generation ago.<\/p>\n The works of Pliny the Elder certainly demonstrate that cannabis use is not some recent innovation, but deeply rooted in human culture.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, are you surprised that cannabis was used in ancient times?<\/p>\n The post Pliny the Elder: Ancient Pioneer of Medical Marijuana<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare when news headlines concern someone who died nearly 2,000 years ago, but that\u2019s what happened last month, when a scientific team in Italy reported results of their study finding that the skull in a Rome museum really is that of Pliny the Elder, the immortal naturalist of theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,149,53,139],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41619,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41618\/revisions\/41619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Admiral, Adventurer, Naturalist<\/h4>\n
The Pharmacopeia of Cannabis\u00a0<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Pliny the Elder: Ancient Pioneer of Medical Marijuana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"