Re: Cannabis sativa in Ancient Egypt
Dec. 19th, 2004 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
niankhsekhmetThe debate has raged for years about whether or not Cannabis sativa or marjuanna was used in ancient Egypt as either rope or medicine. In a recent discussion on an email list that I am on, I am debating whether or not it is obvious to have used the plant as a beverage. Of course, I am writing as an herbalist, and as someone who is in tune to the way that most indigenous groups would use herbs, or at least look at doing them.
Of course the scholarly hubbaloo comes out from one professor who insists that Hemp or Cannabis sativa was not used at all in Ancient Egypt, not for rope, not for medicine, nothing. They are basing this on his own research which was done at the latest, in 1985. DNA testing and flotation archaeology has made it so that we pretty definitively know, or are beginning to know what extant plant materials we are looking at. Maybe this guy doesn't want to hear that because it pretty much refutes what he is saying that there was NO hemp or Cannabis sativa use at all in ancient Egypt. The scholarly community, I am convinced, simply does not want to hear the ruminations of a "simple herbalist" who just happens to fancy reading about the Ancient Egyptians. To them, I know nothing. I have no advanced degree, I have no doctorate and no work for them to dissassemble and take apart. I am not afraid to know nothing, but I will learn and I will show you that through your own standards of proof and refutation, I do know a little something about this business of healing, and how the Ancient Egyptians very well might have used something, if not show the outright probability of the same. My resourcesare no less impeccable than their own, and I have learned by hands on experience and by the mongraphs of countless herbalists thoughout history, not to mention my own monographs which the experience MUST be written for. Some of the books that I use are at the highest levels. There is King's American Dispensatory, Felter's Ecclectic Materia Medica, and Ellingwood's AMerican Materia Medica, as well as Native American Ethnobotany, which has albiet a BRIEF mention of Cannabis sativa as it is used medicinally. Time will tell.
As an infusion in water, Cannabis sativa serves to calm the agitated patient and helps the reduction of pain. Cannabis Sativa is considered an anodyne, a hypnotic, an antispasmodic. THis herb will assist in helping a patient to sleep when other things have failed, especially Papaver somniferum, otherwise known as "opium poppy". Cannabis sativa also does not cause the same sort of constipation than opiate like Papaver somniferum would do. The sleep it causes is considered more "natural" and it has fewer adverse side effects on the internal organs. These are among the things that most cultures that had access to this plant would have most probably discerned just by the way that most indigenous cultures use the various plants within their environments. I have yet to see any specifics on how the preparation was done in Ancient Egypt as a beverage, but my inclination is that it was most likely a simple infusion.
As far as it being smoked or used as an incense considered pleasing to the gods or used to dispel melancholia, that use was introduced at least by the Assyrians according to Dr. Lise Manniche. I personally doubt it, but who knows? Anything is possible.
Can I prove absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was used a specific way in antiquity? No, I cannot. No more than they can prove that it was not. I do know that the active consituents of Cannabinoids are not water soluable for the most part, and must be liposoluable (soluable in fat or oil) or soluable in alcohol. I had one scholar tear apart that argment, saying well if THC is water insoluable, then other than rope, what other thing could it possibly be used for, unless it is to get a buzz? *sigh* Why is it that scientists only think of one way to use a plant? Did George Washington Carver think of only one way to use the peanut, or did he come of with several others that people hadn't even considered yet? Is it limited to one person in all of creation that can think up a way to use something, or do we trust that our Akhu, like us, were a bit more astute and tried various things to see if they would work? After a history of several thousand years, why would we dare assume that something is an either or proposition?
To make matters worse, in the middle of my coming at this particular herb as an herbalist and healer, rather than as an Egyptologist only, the moderator of the list shut the thread down. *long sigh* This is only some of what I know I will have to contend with when I really set this materia medica that I have been working on these years out there. I know that these people are going to take it apart. No - they will most likely shred what I've done, but I had to come at this as our akhu would have done. I have to look at it as using the raw materials around me, and trying to affect change in the body.
It's just like the endless debate on whether blue "lotus" or more accurately water lily, Nymphaea caerulea was an "hallucinogen". I can tell you from hands on experience of having extracted the herb myself, it most certainly is NOT. It gets you very relaxed and mellow and that is about it. Sorry, buzz seekers, seeing Lucy-in-the-Sky-type of effects are just not gonna happen. That is it is definitely not going to with this herb. How do I know this? I know it because I got the herb material, and I got my butt out there and tinctured the damned thing. That is how we learn as herbalists: hands on experience. Sure, you can fill your head with book knowledge, but until you do something more strenuous than turning pages, and actually get to KNOW these plants, you are just notbeing at all effective in this area. Sorry. There is something more to it than book learnin', baby. If you don't have a schwing with the plants, then it don't mean a thing! ;)
Maybe I have been doing this too long. Maybe I am too close to the plants and what I do with such passion, that I am the one who cannot step back and let go. Something inside of me drives me, and I feel the hand of Netjer every time I delve deeper into this stuff. Sekhmet wanted me to reassemble Her books of healing and such. Books, of course, that no Egyptologist or no sane person that calls themselves a "scholar" would admit that even existed. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, and yet, there are those who inisist without proof, other than your gut, you are essentially talking out of your gluteous maximus.
Of course the scholarly hubbaloo comes out from one professor who insists that Hemp or Cannabis sativa was not used at all in Ancient Egypt, not for rope, not for medicine, nothing. They are basing this on his own research which was done at the latest, in 1985. DNA testing and flotation archaeology has made it so that we pretty definitively know, or are beginning to know what extant plant materials we are looking at. Maybe this guy doesn't want to hear that because it pretty much refutes what he is saying that there was NO hemp or Cannabis sativa use at all in ancient Egypt. The scholarly community, I am convinced, simply does not want to hear the ruminations of a "simple herbalist" who just happens to fancy reading about the Ancient Egyptians. To them, I know nothing. I have no advanced degree, I have no doctorate and no work for them to dissassemble and take apart. I am not afraid to know nothing, but I will learn and I will show you that through your own standards of proof and refutation, I do know a little something about this business of healing, and how the Ancient Egyptians very well might have used something, if not show the outright probability of the same. My resourcesare no less impeccable than their own, and I have learned by hands on experience and by the mongraphs of countless herbalists thoughout history, not to mention my own monographs which the experience MUST be written for. Some of the books that I use are at the highest levels. There is King's American Dispensatory, Felter's Ecclectic Materia Medica, and Ellingwood's AMerican Materia Medica, as well as Native American Ethnobotany, which has albiet a BRIEF mention of Cannabis sativa as it is used medicinally. Time will tell.
As an infusion in water, Cannabis sativa serves to calm the agitated patient and helps the reduction of pain. Cannabis Sativa is considered an anodyne, a hypnotic, an antispasmodic. THis herb will assist in helping a patient to sleep when other things have failed, especially Papaver somniferum, otherwise known as "opium poppy". Cannabis sativa also does not cause the same sort of constipation than opiate like Papaver somniferum would do. The sleep it causes is considered more "natural" and it has fewer adverse side effects on the internal organs. These are among the things that most cultures that had access to this plant would have most probably discerned just by the way that most indigenous cultures use the various plants within their environments. I have yet to see any specifics on how the preparation was done in Ancient Egypt as a beverage, but my inclination is that it was most likely a simple infusion.
As far as it being smoked or used as an incense considered pleasing to the gods or used to dispel melancholia, that use was introduced at least by the Assyrians according to Dr. Lise Manniche. I personally doubt it, but who knows? Anything is possible.
Can I prove absolutely beyond a shadow of a doubt that something was used a specific way in antiquity? No, I cannot. No more than they can prove that it was not. I do know that the active consituents of Cannabinoids are not water soluable for the most part, and must be liposoluable (soluable in fat or oil) or soluable in alcohol. I had one scholar tear apart that argment, saying well if THC is water insoluable, then other than rope, what other thing could it possibly be used for, unless it is to get a buzz? *sigh* Why is it that scientists only think of one way to use a plant? Did George Washington Carver think of only one way to use the peanut, or did he come of with several others that people hadn't even considered yet? Is it limited to one person in all of creation that can think up a way to use something, or do we trust that our Akhu, like us, were a bit more astute and tried various things to see if they would work? After a history of several thousand years, why would we dare assume that something is an either or proposition?
To make matters worse, in the middle of my coming at this particular herb as an herbalist and healer, rather than as an Egyptologist only, the moderator of the list shut the thread down. *long sigh* This is only some of what I know I will have to contend with when I really set this materia medica that I have been working on these years out there. I know that these people are going to take it apart. No - they will most likely shred what I've done, but I had to come at this as our akhu would have done. I have to look at it as using the raw materials around me, and trying to affect change in the body.
It's just like the endless debate on whether blue "lotus" or more accurately water lily, Nymphaea caerulea was an "hallucinogen". I can tell you from hands on experience of having extracted the herb myself, it most certainly is NOT. It gets you very relaxed and mellow and that is about it. Sorry, buzz seekers, seeing Lucy-in-the-Sky-type of effects are just not gonna happen. That is it is definitely not going to with this herb. How do I know this? I know it because I got the herb material, and I got my butt out there and tinctured the damned thing. That is how we learn as herbalists: hands on experience. Sure, you can fill your head with book knowledge, but until you do something more strenuous than turning pages, and actually get to KNOW these plants, you are just notbeing at all effective in this area. Sorry. There is something more to it than book learnin', baby. If you don't have a schwing with the plants, then it don't mean a thing! ;)
Maybe I have been doing this too long. Maybe I am too close to the plants and what I do with such passion, that I am the one who cannot step back and let go. Something inside of me drives me, and I feel the hand of Netjer every time I delve deeper into this stuff. Sekhmet wanted me to reassemble Her books of healing and such. Books, of course, that no Egyptologist or no sane person that calls themselves a "scholar" would admit that even existed. Absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, and yet, there are those who inisist without proof, other than your gut, you are essentially talking out of your gluteous maximus.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 01:26 am (UTC)Sekhmet, in her conversations with me, has mentioned the Blue Lotus, but more as a symbolic thing, than a herb- there is a priest/ess desigated as the 'holder of the Blue Lotus' or simply titled 'Blue Lotus'. But if it does have a calmative effect, its connection with her healing side may have some basis in truth.
Sunfell
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 01:50 am (UTC)And to answer your first question, there is definitely a connection between Ma'at, Sekhmet and Aset (Isis). Sekhmet defends Ma'at, and sees to the upholding of Ma'at. Aset is the Mistress of All Heka, and Heka is defnitely needed if one is a healer priest. :)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 01:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-20 01:42 am (UTC)calls themselves a "scholar"
Date: 2004-12-20 01:40 am (UTC)But not actual scholars in the truest sense of the term, not hardly
You however, are mastering the fine art, and I if I may say, I appreciate it, much
Commentary in 2 parts. Sorry
Date: 2004-12-20 03:48 am (UTC)Sorry Live journal keeps cutting it off.
Ok what I am going to write is my personal perspective but it comes from dealing with the medical profession for a time that spans 45 to 50 years.
This includes dealing with various branches of allopathic, osteopathic and ciropathic medicine. I have had dealings with quite a few OMDs and physicians of ayurvedic medicine as well. I should also include
naturopaths and homeopaths to this group.
What I write next deals with allopathic medicine for the most part. It includes Osteopathic medicine as well
become their model is starting to become a duplication of the allopathic model. Yes there will be generalities.
No it does not mean that All partitioners of allopathic/osteropathic medicine hold this perspective. Many do.
That is the problem.
Both practice "standardized medicine." to a large degree. Doses are not made individually except in certain
cases and these are sent to a "compounding pharmacy". Not every pharmacy is one. Doctors as a rule use standardized doses of medicines in the treatment of their patients.
Specific items that cannot be patented are being discouraged by the medical profession (in general) from consumption.
One of these is DHEA. DHEA is manufactured by the body. It therefore cannot be patented. That is what is. You can get it in a healthfood store, a nurtition centre and even over the counter in a standard pharmacy.
The FDA is seeking to have stop DHEA from being manufactured and sold in this country.
Many doctors do discourage its use because it is not manufactured by the recognized pharmaceutical houses
so they question the purety of the product. Others feel that Americans as a rule are to stupid to take anything
by mouth (not prescribed by them) responsibly. While some things cannot be patented or trademarked, isolates taken from them can be. The process that isolates compounds can be. That is what both doctors
and pharmaceutical houses focus upon.
Specific isolates (from marajuana) are being manufactured by given pharmaceutical houses. These products do not work well as a rule and because they don't, they are not used very often by many doctors.
The statement why use "" when we have a more effective drug in compazine is a common statement on among many doctors.
The trouble is the isolates are just that. Isolates. They are not the whole plant and it is more than one isolate
of one compound that makes Cannabis Sativa such a powerful remedy in the treatment of many conditions
and disease states.
It is my understanding that the entire plant itself cannot be patented. It is a wild weed or botanical - depending how you preceive it. Isolates can be patented. And it is patented that pharmaceuticals desire.
It makes their share holders very happy because it keeps their profit margins high.
That sounds mercenary but its true. I realize that going through the fda approval process is difficult and expensive but the orphen drug act has made that easier and less expensive. Apparently not enough for the
houses.
Unfortuaneately what cannot be patented will be discouraged from use.
Re: Commentary in 2 parts. Sorry
Date: 2004-12-20 03:50 am (UTC)Cannabis Sativa is one item. Another is Deprenyl Citrate. It occurs naturally in the human body. It cannot be
patented. Deprenyl Chloride is not. It is patented and trade marked as Eldypril.
The two are not the same yet the pharmaceutical house that manufactures Eldypril would have everyone believe they are.
Citrates are organic where as chlorides are not. In Europe, Deprenyl Citrate has been used for the treatment of early stage Alzheimers with great success for years. Deprenyl Chloride has no effect on the disease even
in the early stages. The problem is once the drug has been discontinued for longer than 6 weeks for whatever
the reason, all benefits lost won't be regained should it be started again as a medication.
http://www.smart-publications.com/articles/deprenyl_liquid_spu102.html
is an interesting article.
Like MaryJane, Deprenyl Citrate is now outlawed in this country although you can still purchase it in Mexico. The US is actively discouraging people from buying it there because the claim is that pharmaceutical companies in Mexico are unregulated and their products could be dangerous to the health
of Americans everywhere.
No Comment.
That is my take.
Kai Imakhu Niankh. Keep doing what you have to do and one day the evidence will manifest. Of that I am
certain.
Mind if I borrow the saying : an absence of evidence does not mean the evidence of absence. It's a gem.
I will ofcourse credit you whenever I use it.
Nemtetsemnewty
Cannabis Sativa
Date: 2022-03-29 12:05 am (UTC)