I have started to take an interest in Honey after hearing a lot about its medicinal properties and the historical context behind it. I would like to start a short series entitled "Honey: The Liquid Gold" which showcases the historical, scientific and medicinal context of honey.
What is Honey?
To those who are not familiar, though I doubt it, honey is this sweet, golden, viscous substance produced by bees through enzymatic activity in the bee's stomachs. I will go over this one in the next article. Honey is usually stored in waxy structures called honeycomb which houses the honey for the bees.
History
Honey has been around the world since time immemorial as delectable byproducts of bee metabolism. It wasn't until around 10,000 to 8,000 years ago that humans started to collect honey from bee nectar for our own personal consumption (Danovich, 2013). Humans started to take an interest in this golden liquid for the first time after seeing it in wild bee's nest. And who wouldn't? Considering its appetizing consistency and golden appearance, any person who thinks of honey as one foreign substance would surely take an interest in it. The first recording of honey and beekeeping was found in Valencia Spain, evidenced in cave paintings (The Honey Association, n.d.)
I guess even ancestral men found immediately that honey could be used for the purpose of making life a lot more "sweeter" for mankind. Since then, it has been collected by ancient humans for food, medicine and other uses which they will soon discover.
The oldest known honey remains were found in jars in Gerogia at around 4,700-5,000 years ago. Some jars were even buried with a person. Ancient beliefs dictate that a person must take something valuable to him/her to the afterlife, implying the valuable nature of honey during their time. As far as I know, honey was sought after in the olden days believing that it was the cure to death, the syrup to afterlife (Kvavadze, Eliso, 2006).
Now the ancient Egyptians were a lot more creative and used honey not only for food, although they did use it to sweeten their cakes and biscuits (Wikipedia). Archaeologists also found evidences of honey in tombs as a means for embalming the dead and for mummification/preservation (National Geographic, 2015). This was the time where the secret of its long shelf life was discovered.
The Romans were among the civilization who discovered the medicinal and healing properties of honey. Hannibal, a great roman warrior, was said to even give out honey to his soldiers in battle to heal their wounds once the war has ended (HeathmontHoney, n.d.).
In religious context, honey is also mentioned as "A Gift of God". In Exodus 3:6-8, Israel was thought to be the promised land because of its abundance and prophecy of peace and prosperity in the area. I quote "It is a land flowing with milk and honey", and was used as a reference to bring out the children of god from the Egyptians (source). After the establishment of the Catholic Religion, the demand for honey and beeswax plummeted greatly in order to meet the demand for church candles in ceremonial and ritual usage (HeathmontHoney, n.d.).
Thank you Steemit users! I hope you gained a little more insight of the versatility of honey. We will talk more about it on the next parts of the series.
