Over four thousand years ago, at the height of the Egyptian empire, honey was the sweetest substance around–so, it’s no wonder ancient Egyptians prized it and took great pains in its cultivation. I’m Jim Metzner, and this is the Pulse of the Planet, presented by the American Museum of Natural History.
In 1901, archaeologists working on the banks of the Nile River at the Temple of the Sun came across a group of venerable sculptures depicting an entire history of Egyptian bee keeping. The images suggested that ancient Egyptians had been raising bees and collecting wax and honey for at least hundreds of years. Today, we can only guess at how aware the Egyptians at the time were of honey’s amazing preservative abilities. In one royal tomb, explorers discovered vessels containing honey three thousand years old. The royal corpse had turned to dust, but the honey remained intact– thickened and darkened by time, but still, after three thousand years, recognizable as pure honey.
Beekeepers of ancient Egypt understood that the smell and taste of honey depend on the kinds of flowers that honey producing bees visit and pollinate. Twenty centuries ago, the Roman scholar Pliny reported tales of Egyptian beekeepers fastening their hives to floats and entrusting them to boatmen who would then row the hives down the Nile, allowing the bees to pollinate the whole variety of flowers growing along the banks of the river. When the boatmen returned, beekeepers found their hives full of honey made from Jasmine and Orange blossoms and other flowers growing in distant parts of the empire.
Pulse of the Planet is presented by the American Museum of Natural History. with additional funding for this series provided by the National Science Foundation. I’m Jim Metzner.