Arch-Tech: Slumbering Dreams: Testing for Ancient Opium

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Organic chemistry has opened a new range of research opportunities for archaeology. Among the latest approaches is Organic Residue Analysis (ORA), which examines organic remains. This method has grown from occasional experimental projects to a key part of scientific archaeological investigation. When integrated with archaeological, botanical, chemical, and anthropological histories, ORA can significantly improve our knowledge of the past. To see how ORA contributes to a holistic understanding of historical uses of psychoactive substances, we will look back at more than 15 years of research on the opium poppy. Humans have a long relationship with the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum […]

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Footnotes

1. Robert S. Merrillees, “Opium for the Masses: How the Ancients Got High,” Archaeology Odyssey, Winter 1999.

Endnotes

1. See Zuzana Chovanec, “Examining the History of the Opium Poppy in the Eastern Mediterranean and Central Europe,” Full Spectrum, April 7, 2019; openarchem.com/2019/04/07.

2. For a detailed technical description of the process, see Zuzana Chovanec, Shlomo Bunimovitz, and Zvi Lederman, “Is There Opium Here? Analysis of Cypriot Base Ring Juglets from Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel,” Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 15.2 (2015), pp. 175–189.