Cannabis: Lost Sacrament of the Ancient World

Although prohibited in most of the today’s world, cannabis and humanity have a shared history that extends far back into ancient times. Evidence of its role in the production of cloth and rope goes back more than ten thousand years. Its psychoactive properties have also long been known by humanity, and ancient man attributed a supernatural force behind such effects. Archaeological evidence of cannabis ritual use of cannabis dates back to 3500 BCE, and it became considerably widespread. Egyptians, Assyrian, Babylonian and Persians used cannabis in Temple rituals, and for medical purposes, as has long been acknowledged, .

Although, it has generally been seen that the neighbours of these cultures, the ancient Hebrews, whose religious history was recorded in the Bible’s Old Testament and the Hebrew Tanakh, rejected these practices. However, in 1936, a little known Polish anthropologist and etymologist put forth the controversial hypothesis that the Hebrew words, kaneh and kaneh bosm, identified cannabis, and had been mistranslated as calamus.

This linguistic suggestion drastically changes the story of the Bible in a number of ways, but it seemed destined to be an obscure linguistic hypothesis, until 2020, when evidence from a 2,800 year old temple site in tel Arad, Jerusalem confirmed the ritual use of cannabis Among the ancient Hebrews