History of saffron stores from wild flowers, believing that divine intervention alone enables saffron's medicinal properties. Such evidence suggests that saffron was an article of long-distance trade before Crete's Minoan palace culture reached a peak in the 2nd millennium BC. Saffron was also honoured as a sweet-smelling spice over three millennia ago in the Hebrew Tanakh: In ancient Persia, saffron ("Crocus sativus" 'Hausknechtii') was cultivated at Derbena and Isfahan in the 10th century BC. There, Persian saffron threads have been found interwoven into ancient Persian royal carpets and funeral shrouds. Saffron was used by ancient Persian worshippers as a ritual offering to their
History of saffron flowers mixed with roasted beans; this was used topically on men. Women ingested a more complex preparation. In Greco-Roman times saffron was widely traded across the Mediterranean by the Phoenicians. Their customers ranged from the perfumers of Rosetta, in Egypt, to physicians in Gaza to townsfolk in Rhodes, who wore pouches of saffron in order to mask the presence of malodorous fellow citizens during outings to the theatre. For the Greeks, saffron was widely associated with professional courtesans and retainers known as the "hetaerae". Large dye works operating in Sidon and Tyre used saffron baths as a substitute; there, royal