Although Thymbra spicata is not a native Egyptian plant, a freshly picked twig was discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun. Such a plant could have been cultivated in Egypt by “the state,” or by a foreigner sojourning in Egypt. The twig is an example of plant acclimatization, such as plants brought by Hatshepsut’s mission to Punt and those collected during Thutmose III’s expedition in Retjenu depicted on the walls of Amun’s temple in Karnak. The maximal span of elapsed time between the Battle of Megiddo and the death of Tutankhamun is less than 150 years (at most four or five generations). A study of a family of royal gardeners suggests that T. spicata was cultivated in Egypt during the Eighteenth Dynasty and the twig found in Tutankhamun’s tomb was a progeny of such an introduction. Eventually its cultivation failed, and the plant vanished from Egypt.
Tutankhamun; plants, aromatic, Levantine; Thymbra spicata; domestication; Botanical Garden; Zaʽatar; Megiddo; begetal matter; twig; Karnak; Valley of the Kings
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