Offa 69/70, 2012/13, 147–169. Nigella in the Mirror of Time A Brief Attempt to Draw a Genus’ Ethnohistorical Portrait By Andreas G. Heiss, Hans-Peter Stika, Nicla De Zorzi and Michael Jursa IntrodUction1 Nigella (fennel flower) is one of the smaller gen- vated for thousands of years. At least today it is in- era in the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) family: it com- deed a frequently consumed condiment in North prises only about 15 species if considered in the wid- Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Indian sub- er sense, thus including the sister taxa Garidella and continent while also being the object of intensive Komaroffia (Zohary 1983; Dönmez/Mutlu 2004). pharmacological research and more or less reliable In this study, we also treat the various (sub)species phytomedicine vendors (see below). within the Nigella arvensis complex as one single The evolutionary origins of the genus are most species – a rather strong simplification when consid- probably to be found in its centre of species diver- ering the results obtained by Strid (1970) or Bitt- sity, which occurs in the Aegean (Bittkau/Comes kau/Comes (2005; 2008), but sufficient for our pur- 2008) and the adjacent Western-Irano-Turanian re- pose in this paper. gion (Strid 1970; Zohary 1983), as illustrated in All members of the genus Nigella are therophytes Figure 1. N. sativa may thus have come into exist- (annuals that overwinter as seeds) with a short life ence somewhere in this area, although its alleged cycle, requiring open habitats to flourish. This makes long-term cultivation would raise significant obsta- several of them occur frequently in anthropogenic cles to easily proving this hypothesis: When a crop ecosystems. As an example, the well-known orna- has been propagated by humans and traded across mental species Nigella damascena (love-in-a-mist) long distances for long periods, knowledge of (and can nowadays be observed as a rapid colonizer of data on) its origins tends to be obliterated, and only fallow land around the Mediterranean. Taxa from long-term multidisciplinary studies may bring these the Nigella arvensis complex have played a role in roots back into daylight. However, it is precisely this the segetal vegetation of Europe’s agriculture since presumably long history of use, cultivation and/or at least the Late Iron Age (Caneppele et al. 2010; unintentional spread which makes Nigella a promis- Kohler-Schneider et al. forthcoming), but are ing challenge, and an object of considerable interest nowadays endangered or even extinct in wide areas both for archaeobotany/palaeoethnobotany and bo- due to intensification of agricultural technology, and tanical chorology. Also the great popularity which excessive use of fertilizers and herbicides (in central Nigella (and, again, especially N. sativa) has gained Europe, cf. Ludwig/Schnittler 1996; Niklfeld/ in pharmaceutical literature, particularly well-illus- Schratt-Ehrendorfer 1999). Nigella sativa (black trated in M. A. Anwar’s (2005) bibliometric study, cumin), to mention a third example, is probably the makes this kind of research necessary: The amount best-known species of the genus. Lore has it – and we of published literature on black cumin or “black are going to test this against the available evidence – seed” is immense, generating the impression that the that this condiment has been propagated and culti- plant must be a true panacea. Most of these scientif- 1 Our thanks go to Ursula Thanheiser (VIAS, University of most valuable help in improving an earlier version of the Vienna), Otto Brinkkemper (ROB Amers foort), Marlu Kühn manuscript. – Part of research for this publication was fun- and Patricia Vandorpe (both IPNA/IPAS, Basel University), ded by the Hochschuljubiläumsstiftung der Gemeinde Wien and Marie-Pierre Ruas (Muséum national d’Histoire natu- (HJSt; project number H1888/2008) to which we are greatly relle, Paris) for kindly providing additional information on indebted. Part of the data is from a project (P12049) funded archaeological finds of Nigella species. We thank Cozette by the Austrian Science Fund FWF (Fonds zur Förderung Griffin-Kremer (Université de Bretagne Occidentale) for her der wissenschaftlichen Forschung). 147 Fig. 1. Modern natural distribution of Nigella species in the Old World: 100 % white: 0 species, 100 % dark grey: 9 species. Map source: Spiess 2002; distribution data and species delimitations according to Zohary 1983. ic publications, and even more so the popular “alter- pre-Linnean times (see pp. 158 ff. Table 1–3). Our native” medical literature and “black seed oil” ad- goal is not only to present an “elaborate florilegi- vertisements, frequently refer to historical accounts um”, but to draw a picture of the cultural percep- or “traditional uses” stressing the alleged high med- tions of a group of plants as complete as possible in ical potential of the plant – and usually without dis- these few pages. In addition, the sources we have cit- closing any sources. ed here may prove useful for further research in ar- The current study now aims to compile literature chaeobotany or historical botany, ethnobotany and on Nigella’s possible past uses, by analysing extant ethnomedicine, not only of Nigella but also of oth- data on the genus provided by archaeology and ar- er plant taxa. chaeobotany, with historical written records from SOUrces of information Archaeobotany For the current work, an archaeobotanical bib- 1999; 2000; 2001; 2004), successively adding more liography of the genus was built, starting with the recent publications on archaeological finds. Infor- comprehensive indices by Schultze-Motel (1992; mation on unpublished data was collected via per- 1993; 1994) and Kroll (1995; 1996; 1997; 1998 a; sonal communication (see Tab. 1). Written Sources The second group of sources used in this work was published posthumously), as well as secondary were numerous written documents from all periods literature. available to us, with a strong focus on the eastern The temporal range covered extends from Meso- Mediterranean – the probable centre of origin of the potamian cuneiform tablets of the mid-3rd millen- genus – and on Europe. Although we tried to lim- nium BC to the 17th century AD (Table 2–3). We de- it ourselves to primary literature from the respec- cided to omit later periods as the development of tive periods, these were not always available. So, in botany as a science on its own was already very ad- some cases, later editions had to be used (as in the vanced in the late 17th century, the literature leav- case of the book by Gaspard Bauhin 1671 which ing only a few questions on the proper identification 148 of cultivated plants (see e. g. Pavord 2005). For the in the sense of the ICBN (the International Code of most recent periods included (Early Modern Times), Botanical Nomenclature, see McNeill et al. 2006), not all available books or documented plant names only the latter are printed in italics. In contrast, all of the (putative) Nigella species were considered in historical plant names are put in quotation marks, the evaluation due to the great number and the space even if this does not concur with common practice. restrictions of a brief article. Hence, we limited them Quotation marks are not used in Tables 2–3, col- to those which seemed most important to us, and umn 4, where all plant names are written regularly only discussed some characteristic examples in the without quotes, in order to maintain legibility. Orig- text. inal spellings and transcriptions, if missing in the In order to facilitate discrimination between his- literature consulted, were taken from Katzer (2006 torical plant names and modern botanical names onwards). Plant Identification and Interpretation As this work is mainly intended as a compendi- dental thought, interpretation by the researcher is um and bibliographical work, proper identification always necessary. This interpretation must be based (or its refusal) was one of our main goals. on the plant’s properties, the archaeological context, Archaeological plant remains can exactly indi- and all available information on the contemporary cate the presence of a certain plant taxon in a certain society. Analogies found in written sources and in place and period, provided that their identification ethnographic research often assist in better under- is still possible. They thus serve as a valuable source standing a plant’s role and perception (Hansson/ of information on a plant’s distribution, be it natu- Heiss forthcoming). In the case of Nigella species, ral or anthropogenic. But in order to find out about the oil-rich seeds (e. g. Heiss et al. 2011) often bear- past ways of plant utilisation, their reception by past ing a conspicuous aroma such as in N. sativa and societies, or their relation to symbolic or transcen- in the N. arvensis complex suggest a primary use as condiments. However, all other possible aspects of Nigella utilisation need to be inferred from oth- er sources. While the identification of archaeological re- mains mainly depends on their preservation, writ- ten sources often pose several problems to identifi- cation of the plants mentioned, mainly due to vastly differing concepts of what a plant (and a species) is: In a nutshell, in modern botany a species is referred a to by similarities of individuals to a certain speci- men in a herbarium (the holotype). These similari- ties usually involve a broad range of characters, such as morphology, anatomy, karyology (chromosome counts), embryology, cross-breeding, chemical con- b c Fig. 2. The three Nigella species which currently are document- Fig. 3. Agrostemma githago (corn-cockle) flower and seed. Scale ed in the archaeological record by their seeds. a N. arvensis (field bar length (seed): 1 mm. nigella). b N. damascena (love-in-a-mist). c N. sativa (black cumin). Scale bar length (seed): 1 mm. For a detailed seed iden- tification key of the whole genus, please refer to Heiss et al.