The hemp plant would have been native to Central Asia, although it was domesticated in China and India more than 10,000 years ago, hemp seeds having been found in archaeological excavations in Japan dating from that date.
Very old hemp remains have also been found in India, Thailand and China.
In China, hemp fiber was already used for textiles more than 5,000 years ago, and there are also testimonies of medicinal and recreational use, collected in the book on agriculture,, Ben Coa Jing, a book attributed to the mythical Emperor Shennong (2800 BC).
There he mentions the use of hemp to interact with spirits and to relax, and also advises not to overdo it, so as not to end up seeing demons.
Hemp in the 5th century B.C.
Much later, in the 5th century BC. C., Herodotus, a Greek historian, mentions its use among the Scythians, a people of horsemen from the Eurasian steppes who used hemp seeds in their steam baths, which, according to the Greek historian, made them howl with joy.”.
The word cannabis would be of Scythian origin, and although these horsemen possibly used the seeds, they were unaware of the benefits of thecbd flowers.
More modern research points to a more recent religious use by the Jewish people. In 2020, Israeli archaeologists detected traces of cannabis with a high THC component on the altar of the Jewish temple in Tel Arad.
This discovery would confirm the thesis of the Polish anthropologist Sula Benet (1903-1982), who affirmed that the Kaneh Bosm present in the recipe for the anointing oil that God dictated to Moses, would be the Hebrew name for hemp or cannabis.s.
However, the expansion of hemp cultivation is associated with more profane uses: hemp fiber has been used in the manufacture of textiles, the manufacture of sails and ropes, and in the manufacture of paper.
The sails of the ships that brought Columbus to America were made of hemp fiber, and the first bibles made by Gutenberg were also printed on paper made from old clothes and rags made from hemp fiber.
hemp in europe
In Europe, the cultivation of hemp spread during the Middle Ages, and in Spain it experienced great development during the 18th century and until shortly before the end of the 19th century, when it began to decline.
The appearance of synthetic materials and technological changes restricted the uses of hemp during the 20th century, but the death blow to these crops was provided by the campaign launched by US government agencies against the recreational use of cannabis, in the mid-1960s. the 30s
A situation that has been changing since the end of the 20th century, although its therapeutic properties have been known since the 1940s, when cannabidiol (CBD) was discovered.
