Plant lore in cuneiform

Roughly 3.500 years ago, scribes in Hattuša — the Hittite capital in central Anatolia — pressed plant knowledge into clay. They named Kamrusepa the goddess who healed through herbs, and they recorded which plant for which complaint with the precision of an apothecary.

The tablets survived. The plants survived. The cultivation of sage, calendula, lavender and rose on Anatolian soil has not broken since — it has been carried, layer over layer, by Hittites, Phrygians, Lydians, Romans, Byzantines, Seljuks, Ottomans, and us.

Bithyné does not claim a unique recipe. It carries a long-running one.

Full editorial follows in the Journal.