Historical Ethnobotanical Documentation by Means of Images

Textual documentation or archaeobotanical remains are often used as sources of evidence in historical ethnobotany. More rarely, graphic information (frescoes, paintings, ceramics, mosaics, plans, or other iconographic representations) is used as ethnobotanical documentation. We demonstrate here the wealth of knowledge hidden in images, despite the difficulties involved in their interpretation and diagnosis. We analyze Persian bas-reliefs; Egyptian tombs and papyrus decorations; Mycenaean, Roman, and Moche ceramics; Amerindian codices, Ottoman carpets and historic garden plans; Renaissance or Flemish paintings. We travel back 3500 years through Persia, Crete, Egypt, the Andes, and Central America. We visit various museums (British, Topkapi, The Louvre, La Plata), archaeological sites in Hieraklion or Cordoba, forgotten cities such as Knossos or Paestum, architectural monuments such as the Alhambra (Spain) or the Taj Mahal (India), remains of Jesuit missions in the Guarani jungles or Egyptian tombs in Thebes, in search of the agricultural, pharmacological, and botanical knowledge of the past. We analyze ancestral crops such as the vine, the palm tree, and the olive tree. We trace the processes of transfer and dispersal of food and medicinal plants between America and Europe or the introduction of ornamentals such as daffodils, tulips, and carnations.