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Wednesday, 5 July, 2006
Session: Archaeobotany and political economy--
Cash crops, perennials and the organization of production
The Image and Camouflage of Pomegranate in ancient Egypt: Continuity and Disruption
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Rim S.Hamdy & Ahmed M. Soliman
In the cradle of the intercultural ancient Near East, the
question of when the non-indigenous pomegranate, Punica granatum L.
Lytheraceae J.St-Hil. (= Punicaceae Horan.), was first introduced into the
cultivation of Egypt remains blurred. Whether Egyptian neutralization or
alien invasion; commercial mercantile or military imperialism; whatever was
the reason behind its introduction into culture, the finding,
representation and significance of the pomegranate fruit has elaborated
straightforward with different degrees of sophistication from its first
archaeological evidence in the Middle Kingdom, through its adoption by the
aristocracy of the New Kingdom, and up to its scared symbolism in the
Graeco-Roman period and early Christianity. This work traces the historic
pathway of the cultivated pomegranate and its stereotypical image in
ancient Egypt drawing upon its unusual representations on the walls of the
“Botanical Chamber” of Thutmosis III at Karnak, where
the "so-called" P. granatum was first pictorially exposed.
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