History of saffron
Encyclopedia
Human cultivation and use of saffron
spans more than 3,500 years and spans cultures, continents, and civilizations. Saffron, a spice derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), has through history remained among the world's most costly substances. With its bitter taste, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes, the apocarotenoid
-rich saffron has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine. Saffron is a genetically monomorphic clone native to Southwest Asia; it was first cultivated in Greece.
The wild precursor of domesticated saffron crocus was likely Crocus cartwrightianus
, which originated in Crete or Central Asia; C. thomasii and C. pallasii are other possible sources. The saffron crocus is now a triploid that is "self-incompatible" and male sterile; it undergoes aberrant meiosis and is hence incapable of independent sexual reproduction—all propagation is by vegetative multiplication via manual "divide-and-set" of a starter clone or by interspecific hybridisation. If C. sativus is a mutant form of C. cartwrightianus, then it may have emerged in late Bronze Age Crete.
Humans may have bred
C. cartwrightianus specimens by screening for specimens with abnormally long stigmas. The resulting saffron crocus was documented in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical reference compiled under Ashurbanipal
, and it has since been traded and used
over the course of four millennia and has been used as treatment for some ninety disorders. The C. sativus clone was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia, later reaching parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania. Global production on a by-mass basis is now dominated by Iran, which accounts for some nine-tenths of the annual harvest.
Others give an alternative derivation: that زَعْفَرَان (za'farān) is the arabicised form of the Persian word زرپران (zarparān)—"having yellow leaves". The Latin form is also the source of the Catalan safrà, Italian zafferano, Portuguese açafrão, and Spanish azafrán. The Latin term crocum is certainly a Semitic loan word. It is adapted from the Aramaic form kurkema via the Arabic term kurkum and the Greek intermediates krokos or karkum, which once again signify "yellowish".
Saffron played a significant role in the Greco-Roman pre-classical period bracketed by the 8th century BC and the 3rd century AD. The first known image of saffron in pre-Greek culture is much older and stems from the Bronze Age
. A saffron harvest is shown in the Knossos
palace frescoes of Minoan Crete
, which depict the flowers being picked by young girls and monkeys. One of these fresco sites is located in the "Xeste 3" building at Akrotiri
, on the Aegean island of Santorini
—the ancient Greeks knew it as "Thera". These frescoes date from 1600–1500 BC, but various other dates have been given: 3000–1100 BC or the 17th century BC. They portray a Minoan goddess supervising the plucking of flowers and the gleaning of stigmas for use in the manufacture of what is possibly a therapeutic drug. A fresco from the same site also depicts a woman using saffron to treat her bleeding foot. These "Theran" frescoes are the first botanically accurate visual representations of saffron's use as an herbal remedy. This saffron-growing Minoan settlement was ultimately destroyed by a powerful earthquake and subsequent volcanic eruption sometime between 1645 and 1500 BC. The volcanic ash from the destruction entombed and helped preserve these key herbal frescoes.
Ancient Greek legends tell of brazen sailors embarking on long and perilous voyages to the remote land of Cilicia
, where they traveled to procure what they believed was the world's most valuable saffron. The best-known Hellenic saffron legend is that of Crocus and Smilax: The handsome youth Crocus sets out in pursuit of the nymph Smilax in the woods near Athens; in a brief dallying interlude of idyllic love Smilax is flattered by his amorous advances, but all too soon tires of his attentions. He continues his pursuit; she resists. She bewitches Crocus: he is transformed—into a saffron crocus. Its radiant orange stigmas were held as a relict glow of an undying and unrequited passion. The tragedy and the spice would be recalled later:
For the ancient Mediterraneans, saffron gathered around the Cilician coastal town of Soli
was of top value, particularly for use in perfumes and ointments. Herodotus
and Pliny the Elder
, however, rated rival Assyria
n and Babylonia
n saffron from the Fertile Crescent as best—to treat gastrointestinal or renal upsets. Greek saffron from the Corycian Cave
of Mount Parnassus
was also of note: the color offered by the Corycian crocus is used as a benchmark in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius and similarly with its fragrance in the epigrams of Martial
.
Cleopatra of late Ptolemaic Egypt
used a quarter-cup of saffron in her warm baths, as she prized its colouring and cosmetic properties. She used it before encounters with men, trusting that saffron would render lovemaking yet more pleasurable. Egyptian healers used saffron as a treatment for all varieties of gastrointestinal ailments: when stomach pains progressed to internal hemorrhaging, an Egyptian treatment consisted of saffron crocus seeds mixed and crushed together with aager-tree remnants, ox fat, coriander
, and myrrh
. This ointment or poultice
was applied to the body. The physicians expected it to "[expel] blood through the mouth or rectum which resembles hog's blood when it is cooked". Urinary tract conditions were also treated with an oil-based emulsion of premature saffron flowers mixed with roasted beans; this was used topically on men. Women ingested a more complex preparation.
In Greco-Roman times saffron was widely traded across the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. Their customers ranged from the perfumers of Rosetta
, in Egypt, to physicians in Gaza to townsfolk in Rhodes, who wore pouches of saffron in order to mask the presence of malodorous fellow citizens during outings to the theatre. For the Greeks, saffron was widely associated with professional courtesans and retainers known as the hetaera
e. Large dye works operating in Sidon
and Tyre used saffron baths as a substitute; there, royal robes were triple-dipped in deep purple dyes; for the robes of royal pretenders and commoners, the last two dips were replaced with a saffron dip, which gave a less intense purple hue.
The ancient Greeks and Romans prized saffron as a perfume or deodoriser and scattered it about their public spaces: royal halls, courts, and amphitheatres alike. When Nero
entered Rome they spread saffron along the streets; wealthy Romans partook of daily saffron baths. They used it as mascara
, stirred saffron threads into their wines, cast it aloft in their halls and streets as a potpourri
, and offered it to their deities. Roman colonists took saffron with them when they settled in southern Roman Gaul, where it was extensively cultivated until the AD 271 barbarian invasion of Italy
. Competing theories state that saffron only returned to France with 8th-century Moors or with the Avignon Papacy
in the 14th century.
:
In ancient Persia, saffron (Crocus sativus 'Hausknechtii') was cultivated at Derbena
and Isfahan
in the 10th century BC. There, Persian saffron threads have been found interwoven into ancient Persian royal carpets and funeral shrouds. Saffron was used by ancient Persian worshipers as a ritual offering to their deities, and as a brilliant yellow dye, perfume, and a medicine. Thus, saffron threads would be scattered across beds and mixed into hot teas as a curative for bouts of melancholy. Indeed, Persian saffron threads, used to spice foods and teas, were widely suspected by foreigners of being a drugging agent and an aphrodisiac
. These fears grew to forewarn travelers to abstain from eating saffron-laced Persian cuisine. In addition, Persian saffron was dissolved in water with sandalwood
to use as a body wash after heavy work and perspiration under the hot Persian sun. Later, Persian saffron was heavily used by Alexander the Great and his forces during their Asian campaigns. They mixed saffron into teas and dined on saffron rice. Alexander personally used saffron sprinkled in warm bath water. He believed it would heal his many wounds, and his faith in saffron grew with each treatment. He even recommended saffron baths for the ordinary men under him. The Greek soldiers, taken with saffron's perceived curative properties, continued the practice after they returned to Macedonia. Saffron cultivation also reached what is now Turkey, with harvesting concentrated around the northern town of Safranbolu
; the area still known for its annual saffron harvest festivals.
Various conflicting accounts exist that describe saffron's first arrival in South and East Asia. The first of these rely on historical accounts gleaned from Persian records. These suggest to many experts that saffron, among other spices, was first spread to India via Persian rulers' efforts to stock their newly built gardens and parks. They accomplished this by transplanting the desired cultivars across the Persian empire. Another variant of this theory states that, after ancient Persia conquered Kashmir, Persian saffron crocus corms
were transplanted to Kashmiri soil. The first harvest then occurred prior to 500 BC. Phoenicians then began in the 6th century BC to market the new Kashmiri saffron by utilising their extensive trade routes. Once sold, Kashmiri saffron was used in the treatment of melancholy and as a fabric dye.
On the other hand, traditional Kashmiri legend states that saffron first arrived in the 11th or 12th century AD, when two foreign and itinerant Sufi
ascetics, Khwaja Masood Wali and Hazrat Sheikh Shariffudin, wandered into Kashmir. The foreigners, having fallen sick, beseeched a cure for illness from a local tribal chieftain. When the chieftain obliged, the two holy men reputedly gave them a saffron crocus bulb as payment and thanks. To this day, grateful prayers are offered to the two saints during the saffron harvesting season in late autumn. The saints, indeed, have a golden-domed shrine and tomb dedicated to them in the saffron-trading village of Pampore
, India. However, the Kashmiri poet and scholar Mohammed Yusuf Teng disputes this. He states that Kashmiris had cultivated saffron for more than two millennia. Indeed, such ancient indigenous cultivation is alluded to in Kashmiri Tantric Hindu
epics of that time.
Ancient Chinese Buddhist accounts from the mula-sarvastivadin monastic order (or vinaya
) present yet another account of saffron's arrival in India. According to legend, an arhat Indian Buddhist missionary by the name of Madhyântika (or Majjhantika) was sent to Kashmir in the 5th century BC. Upon his arrival he seemingly sowed the first Kashmiri saffron crop. From there, saffron use spread throughout the Indian subcontinent. In addition to use in foods, saffron stigmas were also soaked in water to yield a golden-yellow solution that was used as a fabric dye. Such was the love of the resulting fabric that, immediately after the Gautama Buddha
's death, his attendant monks decreed saffron as the official colour for Buddhist robes and mantles.
Some historians believe that saffron first came to China with Mongol invaders by way of Persia. Saffron is mentioned in ancient Chinese medical texts, including the vast Bencao Gangmu ("Great Herbal") pharmacopoeia, a tome dating from around 1600 BC (and attributed to Emperor Shen-Ung
) which documents thousands of phytochemical-based medical treatments for various disorders. Yet around the 3rd century AD, the Chinese were referring to saffron as having a Kashmiri provenance. The Chinese medical expert Wan Zhen wrote that "[t]he habitat of saffron is in Kashmir, where people grow it principally to offer it to the Buddha". Wan reflected on how saffron was used in his time: "The [saffron crocus] flower withers after a few days, and then the saffron is obtained. It is valued for its uniform yellow colour. It can be used to aromatise wine."
In modern times saffron cultivation has spread to Afghanistan due to the efforts of the European Union and the United Kingdom. Together they promote saffron cultivation among impoverished and cash-strapped Afghan farmers as an ideal alternative to lucrative—and illicit—opium
production. They stress Afghanistan's sunny and semi-arid climate as ideal for saffron crocus growth.
as well as parts of France and southern Italy. One theory states that Moors reintroduced saffron corms to the region around Poitiers
after they lost the Battle of Tours
to Charles Martel
in AD 732. Two centuries after their conquest of Spain, Moors planted saffron throughout the southern provinces of Andalucia, Castile
, La Mancha, and Valencia.
Saffron demand skyrocketed when the Black Death of 1347–1350 struck Europe. It was coveted by plague victims for medicinal purposes, and yet many of the farmers capable of growing it had died off. Large quantities of non-European saffron thus was imported. The finest saffron threads from Muslim lands were unavailable to Europeans because of hostilities stoked by the Crusades, so Rhodes and other places were key suppliers to central and northern Europe. Saffron was one of the contested points of hostility that flared between the declining landed gentry and upstart and increasingly wealthy merchants. The fourteen-week-long "Saffron War" was ignited when one 800 lb (363 kg) shipment of saffron was hijacked and stolen by nobles. The load, which was en route to the town of Basel
, would at today's market prices be valued at more than 500,000. That shipment was eventually returned, but the wider 13th–century trade was subject to mass piracy. Thieves plying Mediterranean waters would often ignore gold stores and instead steal Venetian- and Genoan-marketed saffron bound for Europe. Wary of such unpleasantness, Basel planted its own corms. Several years of large and lucrative saffron harvests made Basel extremely prosperous compared to other European towns. Citizens sought to protect their status by outlawing the transport of corms out of the town; guards were posted to prevent thieves from picking flowers or digging up corms. Yet ten years later the saffron harvest had waned. Basel abandoned the crop.
The pivot of central European saffron trade moved to Nuremberg. The merchants of Venice continued their rule of the Mediterranean sea trade, trafficking varieties from Sicily, France and Spain, Austria, Crete and Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. Adulterated goods also made the rounds: those soaked in honey, mixed with marigold petals, or kept in damp cellars—all to add quick and cheap bulk. Irritated Nuremberg authorities passed the Safranschou code to de-louse the saffron trade. Adulterators were thus fined, imprisoned, and executed—by immolation. England was next to have its turn as a major producer. One theory has it that the crop spread to the coastal regions of eastern England in the 14th century AD during the reign of Edward III. In subsequent years saffron was fleetingly cultivated throughout England. Norfolk, Suffolk, and south Cambridgeshire
were especially affected with corms. Rowland Parker provides an account of its cultivation in the village of Foxton
during the 16th and 17th centuries, "usually by people holding a small amount of land"; an acre planted in saffron could yield a crop worth a kingly 6, making it "a very profitable crop, provided that plenty of unpaid labor was available; unpaid labor was one of the basic features of farming then and for another two centuries."
Cultivation persisted only in the light, well-drained, and chalk-based soils of the north Essex countryside. The Essex town of Saffron Walden
got its name as a saffron growing and trading centre; its name was originally Cheppinge Walden, and the culinary name change was effected to punctuate the importance of the crop to the townsfolk; the town's arms still feature blooms from the eponymous crocus. Yet as England emerged from the Middle Ages, rising puritanical sentiments and new conquests abroad endangered English saffron's use and cultivation. Puritanical partisans favoured increasingly austere, unadorned, and unspiced foods. Saffron was also a labor-intensive crop, which became an increasing disadvantage as wages and time opportunity costs rose. And finally, an influx of more exotic spices from the far East due to the resurgent spice trade
meant that the English, as well as other Europeans, had many more—and cheaper—seasonings to dally over.
This trend was documented by the Dean of Manchester
, a Reverend William Herbert. He collected samples and compiled information on many aspects of the saffron crocus. He was concerned about the steady decline in saffron cultivation over the course of the 17th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution; the introduction in Europe of easily grown maize
and potato
es, which steadily took over lands formerly flush with corms, did not help. In addition, the elite who traditionally comprised the bulk of the saffron market were now growing increasingly interested in such intriguing new arrivals as chocolate
, coffee
, tea
, and vanilla
. Only in the south of France or in Italy and Spain, where the saffron harvest was culturally primal, did significant cultivation prevail.
s, Dunkards
, and others fled religious persecution in Europe. They settled mainly in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Susquehanna River
valley. These settlers, who became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch
, were by 1730 widely cultivating saffron after corms were first brought to America—in a trunk. It was owned by German adherents of a Protestant sect known as the Schwenkfelder Church
. Schwenkfelders, as members were known, were great lovers of saffron, and had grown it back in Germany. Pennsylvania Dutch saffron was soon being successfully marketed to Spanish colonists in the Caribbean, while healthy demand elsewhere ensured that its listed price on the Philadelphia commodities exchange was set equal to that of gold.
However the War of 1812
destroyed many of the merchantmen that ferried American saffron abroad. Pennsylvanian saffron growers were afterwards left with surplus inventory, and trade with the Caribbean markets never recovered. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania Dutch growers developed many uses for the now abundant saffron in their own home cooking—cakes, noodles, and chicken or trout dishes. Saffron cultivation survived into modern times principally in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
.
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Saffron
Saffron is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the saffron crocus. Crocus is a genus in the family Iridaceae. Each saffron crocus grows to and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are each the distal end of a carpel...
spans more than 3,500 years and spans cultures, continents, and civilizations. Saffron, a spice derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus), has through history remained among the world's most costly substances. With its bitter taste, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes, the apocarotenoid
Carotenoid
Carotenoids are tetraterpenoid organic pigments that are naturally occurring in the chloroplasts and chromoplasts of plants and some other photosynthetic organisms like algae, some bacteria, and some types of fungus. Carotenoids can be synthesized fats and other basic organic metabolic building...
-rich saffron has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine. Saffron is a genetically monomorphic clone native to Southwest Asia; it was first cultivated in Greece.
The wild precursor of domesticated saffron crocus was likely Crocus cartwrightianus
Crocus cartwrightianus
Crocus cartwrightianus is an eastern Mediterranean autumn-flowering species of crocus, and is of the family Iridaceae . C. cartwrightianus is the presumed wild precursor of the domesticated and now widely cultivated triploid Crocus sativus — the saffron crocus flower , .This species is...
, which originated in Crete or Central Asia; C. thomasii and C. pallasii are other possible sources. The saffron crocus is now a triploid that is "self-incompatible" and male sterile; it undergoes aberrant meiosis and is hence incapable of independent sexual reproduction—all propagation is by vegetative multiplication via manual "divide-and-set" of a starter clone or by interspecific hybridisation. If C. sativus is a mutant form of C. cartwrightianus, then it may have emerged in late Bronze Age Crete.
Humans may have bred
Plant breeding
Plant breeding is the art and science of changing the genetics of plants in order to produce desired characteristics. Plant breeding can be accomplished through many different techniques ranging from simply selecting plants with desirable characteristics for propagation, to more complex molecular...
C. cartwrightianus specimens by screening for specimens with abnormally long stigmas. The resulting saffron crocus was documented in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical reference compiled under Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal
Ashurbanipal |Ashur]] is creator of an heir"; 685 BC – c. 627 BC), also spelled Assurbanipal or Ashshurbanipal, was an Assyrian king, the son of Esarhaddon and the last great king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire...
, and it has since been traded and used
Trade and use of saffron
Saffron has been a key seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine for over three millennia. One of the world's most expensive spice by weight, saffron consists of stigmas plucked from the vegetatively propagated and sterile Crocus sativus, known popularly as the saffron crocus...
over the course of four millennia and has been used as treatment for some ninety disorders. The C. sativus clone was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia, later reaching parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania. Global production on a by-mass basis is now dominated by Iran, which accounts for some nine-tenths of the annual harvest.
Etymology
The ultimate origin of the English word saffron is, like that of the cultivated saffron clone itself, of somewhat uncertain origin. It immediately stems from the Latin word via the 12th-century Old French term safran. Etymology beyond that point is conflicted. Safranum may derive via the Persian intercessor زعفران, or za'ferân. But some disputants argue that it instead ultimately came from the Arabic word زَعْفَرَان, or za'farān. The latter comes from the adjective أَصْفَر: aṣfar, meaning "yellow". It could also derive from the Hebrew word for "thread", or sahafaran.Others give an alternative derivation: that زَعْفَرَان (za'farān) is the arabicised form of the Persian word زرپران (zarparān)—"having yellow leaves". The Latin form is also the source of the Catalan safrà, Italian zafferano, Portuguese açafrão, and Spanish azafrán. The Latin term crocum is certainly a Semitic loan word. It is adapted from the Aramaic form kurkema via the Arabic term kurkum and the Greek intermediates krokos or karkum, which once again signify "yellowish".
Minoan and Greco-Roman
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...
. A saffron harvest is shown in the Knossos
Knossos
Knossos , also known as Labyrinth, or Knossos Palace, is the largest Bronze Age archaeological site on Crete and probably the ceremonial and political centre of the Minoan civilization and culture. The palace appears as a maze of workrooms, living spaces, and store rooms close to a central square...
palace frescoes of Minoan Crete
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
, which depict the flowers being picked by young girls and monkeys. One of these fresco sites is located in the "Xeste 3" building at Akrotiri
Akrotiri (Santorini)
Akrotiri is the name of an excavation site of a Minoan Bronze Age settlement on the Greek island of Santorini, associated with the Minoan civilization due to inscriptions in Linear A, and close similarities in artifact and fresco styles. The excavation is named for a modern Greek village situated...
, on the Aegean island of Santorini
Santorini
Santorini , officially Thira , is an island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera...
—the ancient Greeks knew it as "Thera". These frescoes date from 1600–1500 BC, but various other dates have been given: 3000–1100 BC or the 17th century BC. They portray a Minoan goddess supervising the plucking of flowers and the gleaning of stigmas for use in the manufacture of what is possibly a therapeutic drug. A fresco from the same site also depicts a woman using saffron to treat her bleeding foot. These "Theran" frescoes are the first botanically accurate visual representations of saffron's use as an herbal remedy. This saffron-growing Minoan settlement was ultimately destroyed by a powerful earthquake and subsequent volcanic eruption sometime between 1645 and 1500 BC. The volcanic ash from the destruction entombed and helped preserve these key herbal frescoes.
Ancient Greek legends tell of brazen sailors embarking on long and perilous voyages to the remote land of Cilicia
Cilicia
In antiquity, Cilicia was the south coastal region of Asia Minor, south of the central Anatolian plateau. It existed as a political entity from Hittite times into the Byzantine empire...
, where they traveled to procure what they believed was the world's most valuable saffron. The best-known Hellenic saffron legend is that of Crocus and Smilax: The handsome youth Crocus sets out in pursuit of the nymph Smilax in the woods near Athens; in a brief dallying interlude of idyllic love Smilax is flattered by his amorous advances, but all too soon tires of his attentions. He continues his pursuit; she resists. She bewitches Crocus: he is transformed—into a saffron crocus. Its radiant orange stigmas were held as a relict glow of an undying and unrequited passion. The tragedy and the spice would be recalled later:
For the ancient Mediterraneans, saffron gathered around the Cilician coastal town of Soli
Soli, Cilicia
Soli was an ancient city and port in Cilicia, in present day Turkey, a part of Mezitli municipality which in turn is a part of Greater Mersin. It was a colony of Rhodes, founded c. 700 BC. Soli was destroyed in the 1st century BC, and rebuilt by Pompey the Great. Thereafter, it was called...
was of top value, particularly for use in perfumes and ointments. Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
and Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
, however, rated rival Assyria
Assyria
Assyria was a Semitic Akkadian kingdom, extant as a nation state from the mid–23rd century BC to 608 BC centred on the Upper Tigris river, in northern Mesopotamia , that came to rule regional empires a number of times through history. It was named for its original capital, the ancient city of Assur...
n and Babylonia
Babylonia
Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia , with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as a major power when Hammurabi Babylonia was an ancient cultural region in central-southern Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), with Babylon as its capital. Babylonia emerged as...
n saffron from the Fertile Crescent as best—to treat gastrointestinal or renal upsets. Greek saffron from the Corycian Cave
Corycian Cave
The Corycian Cave is located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, in Greece. In the mythology of the area, it is named after the nymph Corycia; however, its name etymologically derives from korykos, "knapsack". A modern name for the cave in some references is Sarantavli, meaning "forty rooms"...
of Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus
Mount Parnassus, also Parnassos , is a mountain of limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi, north of the Gulf of Corinth, and offers scenic views of the surrounding olive groves and countryside. According to Greek mythology, this mountain was sacred to Apollo and the Corycian nymphs,...
was also of note: the color offered by the Corycian crocus is used as a benchmark in the Argonautica of Apollonius Rhodius and similarly with its fragrance in the epigrams of Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
.
Cleopatra of late Ptolemaic Egypt
Ptolemaic Egypt
Ptolemaic Egypt began when Ptolemy I Soter invaded Egypt and declared himself Pharaoh of Egypt in 305 BC and ended with the death of queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman conquest in 30 BC. The Ptolemaic Kingdom was a powerful Hellenistic state, extending from southern Syria in the east, to...
used a quarter-cup of saffron in her warm baths, as she prized its colouring and cosmetic properties. She used it before encounters with men, trusting that saffron would render lovemaking yet more pleasurable. Egyptian healers used saffron as a treatment for all varieties of gastrointestinal ailments: when stomach pains progressed to internal hemorrhaging, an Egyptian treatment consisted of saffron crocus seeds mixed and crushed together with aager-tree remnants, ox fat, coriander
Coriander
Coriander is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. Coriander is native to southern Europe and North Africa to southwestern Asia. It is a soft, hairless plant growing to tall. The leaves are variable in shape, broadly lobed at the base of the plant, and slender and feathery higher on the...
, and myrrh
Myrrh
Myrrh is the aromatic oleoresin of a number of small, thorny tree species of the genus Commiphora, which grow in dry, stony soil. An oleoresin is a natural blend of an essential oil and a resin. Myrrh resin is a natural gum....
. This ointment or poultice
Poultice
A poultice, also called cataplasm, is a soft moist mass, often heated and medicated, that is spread on cloth over the skin to treat an aching, inflamed, or painful part of the body. It can be used on wounds such as cuts...
was applied to the body. The physicians expected it to "[expel] blood through the mouth or rectum which resembles hog's blood when it is cooked". Urinary tract conditions were also treated with an oil-based emulsion of premature saffron flowers mixed with roasted beans; this was used topically on men. Women ingested a more complex preparation.
In Greco-Roman times saffron was widely traded across the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. Their customers ranged from the perfumers of Rosetta
Rosetta
Rosetta is a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. It is located east of Alexandria, in Beheira governorate. It was founded around AD 800....
, in Egypt, to physicians in Gaza to townsfolk in Rhodes, who wore pouches of saffron in order to mask the presence of malodorous fellow citizens during outings to the theatre. For the Greeks, saffron was widely associated with professional courtesans and retainers known as the hetaera
Hetaera
In ancient Greece, hetaerae were courtesans, that is to say, highly educated, sophisticated companions...
e. Large dye works operating in Sidon
Sidon
Sidon or Saïda is the third-largest city in Lebanon. It is located in the South Governorate of Lebanon, on the Mediterranean coast, about 40 km north of Tyre and 40 km south of the capital Beirut. In Genesis, Sidon is the son of Canaan the grandson of Noah...
and Tyre used saffron baths as a substitute; there, royal robes were triple-dipped in deep purple dyes; for the robes of royal pretenders and commoners, the last two dips were replaced with a saffron dip, which gave a less intense purple hue.
The ancient Greeks and Romans prized saffron as a perfume or deodoriser and scattered it about their public spaces: royal halls, courts, and amphitheatres alike. When Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
entered Rome they spread saffron along the streets; wealthy Romans partook of daily saffron baths. They used it as mascara
Mascara
Mascara is a cosmetic commonly used to enhance the eyes. It may darken, thicken, lengthen, and/or define the eyelashes. Normally in one of three forms—liquid, cake, or cream—the modern mascara product has various formulas; however, all contain the same basic components of pigments, oils, waxes, and...
, stirred saffron threads into their wines, cast it aloft in their halls and streets as a potpourri
Potpourri
Potpourri is a mixture of dried, naturally fragrant plant material, used to provide a gentle natural scent in houses. It is usually placed in a decorative wooden bowl, or tied in small sachet made from sheer fabric....
, and offered it to their deities. Roman colonists took saffron with them when they settled in southern Roman Gaul, where it was extensively cultivated until the AD 271 barbarian invasion of Italy
Crisis of the Third Century
The Crisis of the Third Century was a period in which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressures of invasion, civil war, plague, and economic depression...
. Competing theories state that saffron only returned to France with 8th-century Moors or with the Avignon Papacy
Avignon Papacy
The Avignon Papacy was the period from 1309 to 1376 during which seven Popes resided in Avignon, in modern-day France. This arose from the conflict between the Papacy and the French crown....
in the 14th century.
Middle Eastern and Persian
Saffron-based pigments have been found in the prehistoric paints used to illustrate beasts in 50,000 year-old cave art found in modern-day Iraq, which was even then northwest of Persian empire. The Sumerians used saffron as an ingredient in their remedies and magical potions. Sumerians did not cultivate saffron. They gathered their stores from wild flowers, believing that divine intervention alone enables saffron's medicinal properties. Such evidence provides evidence that saffron was an article of long-distance trade before Crete's Minoan palace culture reached a peak in the 2nd millennium BC. Saffron was also honoured as a sweet-smelling spice over three millennia ago in the Hebrew TanakhTanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
:
In ancient Persia, saffron (Crocus sativus 'Hausknechtii') was cultivated at Derbena
Derbent
Derbent |Lak]]: Чурул, Churul; Persian: دربند; Judæo-Tat: דארבּאנד/Дэрбэнд/Dərbənd) is a city in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, close to the Azerbaijani border. It is the southernmost city in Russia, and it is the second most important city of Dagestan...
and Isfahan
Isfahan (city)
Isfahan , historically also rendered in English as Ispahan, Sepahan or Hispahan, is the capital of Isfahan Province in Iran, located about 340 km south of Tehran. It has a population of 1,583,609, Iran's third largest city after Tehran and Mashhad...
in the 10th century BC. There, Persian saffron threads have been found interwoven into ancient Persian royal carpets and funeral shrouds. Saffron was used by ancient Persian worshipers as a ritual offering to their deities, and as a brilliant yellow dye, perfume, and a medicine. Thus, saffron threads would be scattered across beds and mixed into hot teas as a curative for bouts of melancholy. Indeed, Persian saffron threads, used to spice foods and teas, were widely suspected by foreigners of being a drugging agent and an aphrodisiac
Aphrodisiac
An aphrodisiac is a substance that increases sexual desire. The name comes from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love. Throughout history, many foods, drinks, and behaviors have had a reputation for making sex more attainable and/or pleasurable...
. These fears grew to forewarn travelers to abstain from eating saffron-laced Persian cuisine. In addition, Persian saffron was dissolved in water with sandalwood
Sandalwood
Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted...
to use as a body wash after heavy work and perspiration under the hot Persian sun. Later, Persian saffron was heavily used by Alexander the Great and his forces during their Asian campaigns. They mixed saffron into teas and dined on saffron rice. Alexander personally used saffron sprinkled in warm bath water. He believed it would heal his many wounds, and his faith in saffron grew with each treatment. He even recommended saffron baths for the ordinary men under him. The Greek soldiers, taken with saffron's perceived curative properties, continued the practice after they returned to Macedonia. Saffron cultivation also reached what is now Turkey, with harvesting concentrated around the northern town of Safranbolu
Safranbolu
Safranbolu is a town and district of Karabük Province in the Black Sea region of Turkey. It is about two hundred kilometers north of Ankara and about a hundred kilometers south of the Black Sea coast, or more precisely about 9 kilometers north of the city of Karabük...
; the area still known for its annual saffron harvest festivals.
East and South Asian
Corm
A corm is a short, vertical, swollen underground plant stem that serves as a storage organ used by some plants to survive winter or other adverse conditions such as summer drought and heat ....
were transplanted to Kashmiri soil. The first harvest then occurred prior to 500 BC. Phoenicians then began in the 6th century BC to market the new Kashmiri saffron by utilising their extensive trade routes. Once sold, Kashmiri saffron was used in the treatment of melancholy and as a fabric dye.
On the other hand, traditional Kashmiri legend states that saffron first arrived in the 11th or 12th century AD, when two foreign and itinerant Sufi
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
ascetics, Khwaja Masood Wali and Hazrat Sheikh Shariffudin, wandered into Kashmir. The foreigners, having fallen sick, beseeched a cure for illness from a local tribal chieftain. When the chieftain obliged, the two holy men reputedly gave them a saffron crocus bulb as payment and thanks. To this day, grateful prayers are offered to the two saints during the saffron harvesting season in late autumn. The saints, indeed, have a golden-domed shrine and tomb dedicated to them in the saffron-trading village of Pampore
Pampore
Pampore or Pampur is a town and a notified area committee in Pulwama district in the Indian administered part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir.-Geography:Pampore is located at . It has an average elevation of 1,574 metres...
, India. However, the Kashmiri poet and scholar Mohammed Yusuf Teng disputes this. He states that Kashmiris had cultivated saffron for more than two millennia. Indeed, such ancient indigenous cultivation is alluded to in Kashmiri Tantric Hindu
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
epics of that time.
Ancient Chinese Buddhist accounts from the mula-sarvastivadin monastic order (or vinaya
Vinaya
The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
) present yet another account of saffron's arrival in India. According to legend, an arhat Indian Buddhist missionary by the name of Madhyântika (or Majjhantika) was sent to Kashmir in the 5th century BC. Upon his arrival he seemingly sowed the first Kashmiri saffron crop. From there, saffron use spread throughout the Indian subcontinent. In addition to use in foods, saffron stigmas were also soaked in water to yield a golden-yellow solution that was used as a fabric dye. Such was the love of the resulting fabric that, immediately after the Gautama Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
's death, his attendant monks decreed saffron as the official colour for Buddhist robes and mantles.
Some historians believe that saffron first came to China with Mongol invaders by way of Persia. Saffron is mentioned in ancient Chinese medical texts, including the vast Bencao Gangmu ("Great Herbal") pharmacopoeia, a tome dating from around 1600 BC (and attributed to Emperor Shen-Ung
Shang Dynasty
The Shang Dynasty or Yin Dynasty was, according to traditional sources, the second Chinese dynasty, after the Xia. They ruled in the northeastern regions of the area known as "China proper" in the Yellow River valley...
) which documents thousands of phytochemical-based medical treatments for various disorders. Yet around the 3rd century AD, the Chinese were referring to saffron as having a Kashmiri provenance. The Chinese medical expert Wan Zhen wrote that "[t]he habitat of saffron is in Kashmir, where people grow it principally to offer it to the Buddha". Wan reflected on how saffron was used in his time: "The [saffron crocus] flower withers after a few days, and then the saffron is obtained. It is valued for its uniform yellow colour. It can be used to aromatise wine."
In modern times saffron cultivation has spread to Afghanistan due to the efforts of the European Union and the United Kingdom. Together they promote saffron cultivation among impoverished and cash-strapped Afghan farmers as an ideal alternative to lucrative—and illicit—opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
production. They stress Afghanistan's sunny and semi-arid climate as ideal for saffron crocus growth.
Post-Classical European
Saffron cultivation in Europe declined steeply following the fall of the Roman Empire. For several centuries thereafter, saffron cultivation was rare or non-existent throughout Europe. This was reversed when Moorish civilisation spread from North Africa to settle most of SpainAl-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
as well as parts of France and southern Italy. One theory states that Moors reintroduced saffron corms to the region around Poitiers
Poitiers
Poitiers is a city on the Clain river in west central France. It is a commune and the capital of the Vienne department and of the Poitou-Charentes region. The centre is picturesque and its streets are interesting for predominant remains of historical architecture, especially from the Romanesque...
after they lost the Battle of Tours
Battle of Tours
The Battle of Tours , also called the Battle of Poitiers and in Battle of the Court of the Martyrs, was fought in an area between the cities of Poitiers and Tours, located in north-central France, near the village of Moussais-la-Bataille, about northeast of Poitiers...
to Charles Martel
Charles Martel
Charles Martel , also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the...
in AD 732. Two centuries after their conquest of Spain, Moors planted saffron throughout the southern provinces of Andalucia, Castile
Castile (historical region)
A former kingdom, Castile gradually merged with its neighbours to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain when united with the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre...
, La Mancha, and Valencia.
Saffron demand skyrocketed when the Black Death of 1347–1350 struck Europe. It was coveted by plague victims for medicinal purposes, and yet many of the farmers capable of growing it had died off. Large quantities of non-European saffron thus was imported. The finest saffron threads from Muslim lands were unavailable to Europeans because of hostilities stoked by the Crusades, so Rhodes and other places were key suppliers to central and northern Europe. Saffron was one of the contested points of hostility that flared between the declining landed gentry and upstart and increasingly wealthy merchants. The fourteen-week-long "Saffron War" was ignited when one 800 lb (363 kg) shipment of saffron was hijacked and stolen by nobles. The load, which was en route to the town of Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, would at today's market prices be valued at more than 500,000. That shipment was eventually returned, but the wider 13th–century trade was subject to mass piracy. Thieves plying Mediterranean waters would often ignore gold stores and instead steal Venetian- and Genoan-marketed saffron bound for Europe. Wary of such unpleasantness, Basel planted its own corms. Several years of large and lucrative saffron harvests made Basel extremely prosperous compared to other European towns. Citizens sought to protect their status by outlawing the transport of corms out of the town; guards were posted to prevent thieves from picking flowers or digging up corms. Yet ten years later the saffron harvest had waned. Basel abandoned the crop.
The pivot of central European saffron trade moved to Nuremberg. The merchants of Venice continued their rule of the Mediterranean sea trade, trafficking varieties from Sicily, France and Spain, Austria, Crete and Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. Adulterated goods also made the rounds: those soaked in honey, mixed with marigold petals, or kept in damp cellars—all to add quick and cheap bulk. Irritated Nuremberg authorities passed the Safranschou code to de-louse the saffron trade. Adulterators were thus fined, imprisoned, and executed—by immolation. England was next to have its turn as a major producer. One theory has it that the crop spread to the coastal regions of eastern England in the 14th century AD during the reign of Edward III. In subsequent years saffron was fleetingly cultivated throughout England. Norfolk, Suffolk, and south Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
were especially affected with corms. Rowland Parker provides an account of its cultivation in the village of Foxton
Foxton, Cambridgeshire
Foxton is a small village in South Cambridgeshire, England. It has a number of well-preserved fifteenth and sixteenth century houses, and a thirteenth century church dedicated to St Lawrence.-History:...
during the 16th and 17th centuries, "usually by people holding a small amount of land"; an acre planted in saffron could yield a crop worth a kingly 6, making it "a very profitable crop, provided that plenty of unpaid labor was available; unpaid labor was one of the basic features of farming then and for another two centuries."
Cultivation persisted only in the light, well-drained, and chalk-based soils of the north Essex countryside. The Essex town of Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
got its name as a saffron growing and trading centre; its name was originally Cheppinge Walden, and the culinary name change was effected to punctuate the importance of the crop to the townsfolk; the town's arms still feature blooms from the eponymous crocus. Yet as England emerged from the Middle Ages, rising puritanical sentiments and new conquests abroad endangered English saffron's use and cultivation. Puritanical partisans favoured increasingly austere, unadorned, and unspiced foods. Saffron was also a labor-intensive crop, which became an increasing disadvantage as wages and time opportunity costs rose. And finally, an influx of more exotic spices from the far East due to the resurgent spice trade
Spice trade
Civilizations of Asia were involved in spice trade from the ancient times, and the Greco-Roman world soon followed by trading along the Incense route and the Roman-India routes...
meant that the English, as well as other Europeans, had many more—and cheaper—seasonings to dally over.
This trend was documented by the Dean of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, a Reverend William Herbert. He collected samples and compiled information on many aspects of the saffron crocus. He was concerned about the steady decline in saffron cultivation over the course of the 17th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution; the introduction in Europe of easily grown maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
and potato
Potato
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial Solanum tuberosum of the Solanaceae family . The word potato may refer to the plant itself as well as the edible tuber. In the region of the Andes, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species...
es, which steadily took over lands formerly flush with corms, did not help. In addition, the elite who traditionally comprised the bulk of the saffron market were now growing increasingly interested in such intriguing new arrivals as chocolate
Chocolate
Chocolate is a raw or processed food produced from the seed of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree. Cacao has been cultivated for at least three millennia in Mexico, Central and South America. Its earliest documented use is around 1100 BC...
, coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
, and vanilla
Vanilla
Vanilla is a flavoring derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, Flat-leaved Vanilla . The word vanilla derives from the Spanish word "", little pod...
. Only in the south of France or in Italy and Spain, where the saffron harvest was culturally primal, did significant cultivation prevail.
North American
Saffron made its way to the New World when thousands of Alsatian, German, and Swiss AnabaptistAnabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
s, Dunkards
Schwarzenau Brethren
The Schwarzenau Brethren, originated in Germany, the outcome of the Radical Pietist ferment of the late 17th and early 18th century. Hopeful of the imminent return of Christ, the founding Brethren abandoned the established Reformed and Lutheran churches, forming a new church in 1708 when their...
, and others fled religious persecution in Europe. They settled mainly in eastern Pennsylvania, in the Susquehanna River
Susquehanna River
The Susquehanna River is a river located in the northeastern United States. At long, it is the longest river on the American east coast that drains into the Atlantic Ocean, and with its watershed it is the 16th largest river in the United States, and the longest river in the continental United...
valley. These settlers, who became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch
Pennsylvania Dutch refers to immigrants and their descendants from southwestern Germany and Switzerland who settled in Pennsylvania in the 17th and 18th centuries...
, were by 1730 widely cultivating saffron after corms were first brought to America—in a trunk. It was owned by German adherents of a Protestant sect known as the Schwenkfelder Church
Schwenkfelder Church
The Schwenkfelder Church is a small American Christian body rooted in the 16th century Protestant Reformation teachings of Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig .-History:...
. Schwenkfelders, as members were known, were great lovers of saffron, and had grown it back in Germany. Pennsylvania Dutch saffron was soon being successfully marketed to Spanish colonists in the Caribbean, while healthy demand elsewhere ensured that its listed price on the Philadelphia commodities exchange was set equal to that of gold.
However the War of 1812
War of 1812
The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
destroyed many of the merchantmen that ferried American saffron abroad. Pennsylvanian saffron growers were afterwards left with surplus inventory, and trade with the Caribbean markets never recovered. Nevertheless, Pennsylvania Dutch growers developed many uses for the now abundant saffron in their own home cooking—cakes, noodles, and chicken or trout dishes. Saffron cultivation survived into modern times principally in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster County, Pennsylvania
Lancaster County, known as the Garden Spot of America or Pennsylvania Dutch Country, is a county located in the southeastern part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of 2010 the population was 519,445. Lancaster County forms the Lancaster Metropolitan Statistical Area, the...
.
Further reading
|first=K.|last2=|first2=C.|last3=|first3=V.|author-link=Katerina Lemmel|publication-date=31 July 2009|year=2009|title=Katerina's Windows: Donation and Devotion, Art and Music, as Heard and Seen Through the Writings of a Birgittine Nun|edition=1st|publisher=Pennsylvania State University Press|isbn=978-0271033693|url=http://books.google.com/?id=wzXs2f4YA9kC}}|first=V.|publication-date=2010|year=March 2010|title=Probing the Mystery of the Use of Saffron in Medieval Nunneries|volume=5|issue=1|periodical=The Senses and Society|pages=57–72|url=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/berg/tsas/2010/00000005/00000001/art00005|accessdate=13 September 2011|doi=10.2752/174589310X12549020528176}}----