Ancient Cannabis 'Burial Shroud' Discovered in Desert Oasis

There once was a time this plant was used widely as medicine and food, that's untill someone decided to make it illegal to the public for no apparent reason.

SOURCE

Archaeologists are hailing the discovery of an "extraordinary cache" of cannabis found in an ancient burial in northwest China, saying that the unique find adds considerably to our understanding of how ancient Eurasian cultures used the plant for ritual and medicinal purposes.
In a report in the journal Economic Botany, archaeologist Hongen Jiang and his colleagues describe the burial of an approximately 35-year-old adult man with Caucasian features in China's Turpan Basin. The man had been laid out on a wooden bed with a reed pillow beneath his head.

Thirteen cannabis plants, each up to almost three feet long, were placed diagonally across the man's chest, with the roots oriented beneath his pelvis and the tops of the plants extending from just under his chin, up and alongside the left side of his face.

a reply to: Mianeye

Dude got buried with his stash ... Respec !

a reply to: Mianeye

Were there any seeds? Wondering what strain it was...

Upon my call to return home I will encourage my friends and family to blaze up at my ceremony and I hope someone knows and loves me enough to place some fresh green in my casket.

I hope that you feel better.

a reply to: eisegesis

Not my best thread, i admit, i'm a little lazy because of an annoying cold with high fever...

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Mianeye

Were there any seeds? Wondering what strain it was...

lol... I've always had a theory that cannabis in its original wild form was not psychoactive at all... I think it was just one of the first plants cultivated by Homo Sapiens for food and fibre.... Its psychoactive & medical properties were probably a result of many years of selected breeding.

With enough time and determination, just about any plant could probably be breed to produce a sufficient amount of cannabiboids.

Just a personal theory of mine...

originally posted by: Mianeye
a reply to: eisegesis

Not my best thread, i admit, i'm a little lazy because of an annoying cold with high fever...

I see.

In that case,

Take your medicine.

a reply to: eisegesis

i can't comment because of T&C

Well least that dude died mellow and happy :-)

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Mianeye

Were there any seeds? Wondering what strain it was...

lol... I've always had a theory that cannabis in its original wild form was not psychoactive at all... I think it was just one of the first plants cultivated by Homo Sapiens for food and fibre.... Its psychoactive & medical properties were probably a result of many years of selected breeding.

With enough time and determination, just about any plant could probably be breed to produce a sufficient amount of cannabiboids.

Just a personal theory of mine...

I think both kinds have been around for some time. Your thinking of Hemp, the rope making, clothing kind of cannabis. Was there any rope or textiles in his grave?

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Mianeye

Were there any seeds? Wondering what strain it was...

lol... I've always had a theory that cannabis in its original wild form was not psychoactive at all... I think it was just one of the first plants cultivated by Homo Sapiens for food and fibre.... Its psychoactive & medical properties were probably a result of many years of selected breeding.

With enough time and determination, just about any plant could probably be breed to produce a sufficient amount of cannabiboids.

Just a personal theory of mine...

The oldest cannabis found anywhere in the world was tested for and contained, psychoactive properties. Ironically, it too was found in present day China and is a couple of hundred years older than the find mentioned in the OP at ~2700 years old.

www.nbcnews.com...

originally posted by: Mianeye
There once was a time this plant was used widely as medicine and food, that's untill someone decided to make it illegal to the public for no apparent reason.[

According to some, there WAS a reason it was made illegal- I tend to believe that this was the case.

Harry Anslinger, the father of the war on weed, fully embraced racism as a tool to demonize marijuana.

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.” “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.”

SOURCE

So, Cannabis was criminalized by the government (at least in the US) to fight immigration by means of racism, as well as to target those deemed to be "troublemakers"- basically, anybody that wasn't white, or those that fraternized with the "troublemakers".

a reply to: intrptr

I think they said Purple Sphynx.

a reply to: peter vlar

That's my whole point, Cannabis Sativa didn't just pop out of the ground 3000 years ago as the perfect plant to cultivate for food, textiles, medicine, spirituality and recreation.

I personally think we have a deep symbolic relationship with the cannabis plant and have evolved side by side... 3000 years ago was probably just when the plant started to become the species we now recognize as 'Cannabis Sativa'.

a reply to: Subaeruginosa

I would say that it would take a little more than 300 years for an instance of coevolution aided by human selection to go from hemp to a nice Sativa. I certainly don't disagree with the notion that original strains were probably closer to what we know today as C. Ruderalis in terms of psychoactive effects though. I was just pointing out that the earliest known strains were already fairly potent in terms of psychoactive properties. Though all that really tells us is that it wasn't quite as important as a source of fiber as it was when it became a medicine. It wouold be an interesting study to look long and hard at the modern genetics of Sativa and Indica strains and try to determine when they all diverged and what the original batch would have been like.

originally posted by: peter vlar
a reply to: Subaeruginosa

It wouold be an interesting study to look long and hard at the modern genetics of Sativa and Indica strains and try to determine when they all diverged and what the original batch would have been like.

C.Indica is just a mutant Sativa strain that was originally breed and cultivated in Afghanistan.

The original Sativa strains cultivated for medical purposes were tall lanky and crap. They still grow wild in some south Asian countries.

But all that isn't nearly as interesting as to how it became such a useful plant for civilization in the first place.

Nice find. As more discoveries emerge of the ancient world am sure many finds will be that cannabis use did span the globe then. After all the "outlawing of it" has been more recent in history's timeline.

originally posted by: Subaeruginosa
I personally think we have a deep symbolic relationship with the cannabis plant and have evolved side by side... 3000 years ago was probably just when the plant started to become the species we now recognize as 'Cannabis Sativa'.

The Sumerian name for Cannabis was Azalla
azalla [PLANT] wr. a-zal-la2 "a medicinal plant" Akk. azallû
its found in lists for medicinal plants from around 3000BCE
So it has those properties 5000 years ago


I think your idea is dead in the water

a reply to: peter vlar

Morning PeterV,
By cannabis, are talking strictly plant material, or do fibers count for the oldest example?
Because, in the late '90's a exceptionaly rich burial was excavated in the Tulomne Co. foothills , in central cal, and the two bodies were wrapped in hemp fiber mats, and were dated to 8kya. Unfortunately since the site was on federal land, all the items found were re interred with little study beyond catalogueing. There was a brief report published and mentioned that culturally these people were related to the people on the other side of the sierras in nevada, like wizards beach and spirit cave.
So, the thing is cannabis has never been native to california, AFAIK, where did it come from.

As to the psycoactive use of cannabis, it likely goes back to neanderthals at least, their horticultural knowledge was extremely extensive, the use of tobbaco goes back 13k years now, in the new world.