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.