Honey consumption and utilization in Late Antique Egypt | ||
| Journal of the General Union of Arab Archaeologists | ||
| Volume 10, Issue 2, June 2025, Pages 60-81 PDF (2.65 M) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jguaa2.2024.262656.1167 | ||
| Author | ||
| Mona Hassan Ahmed Sawy* | ||
| Assiut University | ||
| Abstract | ||
| Honey bee (Api mellifera) is one of the most cherished and valuable natural items that has been in constant usage since prehistoric times till now. The use of honey has a very long history, in the Dynastic period, it was considered “tears of the sun god,” and has been appreciated due to its nutritional and medicinal properties. Honey has been consumed in a variety of ways, including medicinal purposes, cooking and religious rituals. The same use is still known in Byzantine and Late Antique Egypt through the Coptic texts which mention the honey used in food, drinks, and medical remedies. I endeavour to present here an analysis of the most important types of honey, in comparison with their ancient Egyptian counterparts. This paper aims to highlight the various kinds of honey, receptacles, and measures of honey. Moreover, it presents Coptic titles, professions, and names associated with honey. Further, this paper deals with unpublished texts, which contain information about honey. With this research, I want to investigate how and why the economic scope of apiculture in ancient Egypt has evolved, as well as how this evolution is reflected in beekeeping and bee-related material culture, titles, and trade throughout post-Pharaonic and late Antique Egypt. The behavior and hive type of the Egyptian bee species, as well as the development of predynastic beekeeping until the New Kingdom, will be briefly discussed to set the stage for the main debate. The primary topics of discussion will be the trade, titles, and material culture of bee products in post-Pharaonic and late Antique Egypt. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Honey; honeycomb; wax; Coptic; medicine; pharmacy; ritual; remedy; ostraca | ||
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