THE OLIVE 



43. The Yu yah tsa tsu 1 has the following notice of an exotic plant: 

 "The ts'i-t'un ^ ^ (*dzi-tun, *zi-tun) tree has its habitat in the coun- 

 try Po-se (Persia), likewise in the country Fu-lin (Syria). In Fu-lin it 

 is termed ^ M. ts'i-t'i 2 (*dzi, zi-ti). The tree grows to a height of twenty 

 or thirty feet. The bark is green, the flowers are white, resembling 

 those of the shaddock (yu $J, Citrus grandis), and very fragrant. 

 The fruit is similar to that of the yah-t'ao fa %ft (Averrhoa carambola) 

 and ripens in the fifth month. The people of the Western countries 

 press an oil out of it for frying cakes and fruit, in the same man- 

 ner as sesame seeds {kil-hh E 0) 3 are utilized in China." 



The transcription ts'i-t'un has been successfully identified by Hirth 4 

 with Persian zeitun, save that we have to define this form as Middle 

 Persian; and Fu-lin tsH-Vi with Aramaic zaitd (Hebrew zayid). This 

 is the olive-tree (Olea Europaea). 5 The Persian word is a loan from 

 the Semitic, the common Semitic form being *zeitu (Arabic zeitun) . It 

 is noteworthy that the Fu-lin form agrees more closely with Grusinian 

 and Ossetic zeVi, Armenian jet, dzet ("olive-oil"), zeit ("olive"), Arabic 

 zait, 6 than with the Aramaic word. The olive-tree, mentioned in 

 Pahlavi literature (above, p. 193), grows spontaneously in Persia and 

 Baluchistan, but the cultivated species was in all likelihood received 

 by the Iranians (as well as by the Armenians) from the Semites. The 

 olive-tree was known in Mesopotamia at an early date: objects in 

 clay in the form of an olive belonging to the time of Urukagina, one 

 of the pre-Sargonic rulers of Lagash, are still extant. 7 



!Ch. i8,p. 11. 



2 A gloss thus indicates the reading of this character by the fan tsHe HI %•. 



3 See above, p. 292. 



1 Journal Am. Or. Soc, Vol. XXX, 1910, p. 19. 



fi See, for instance, the illustrated article "olivier" in Dujardin-Beaumetz 

 and Egasse, Plantes m^dicinales indigenes et exotiques (p. 492, Paris, 1889), which 

 is a very convenient and commendable reference-book, particularly valuable for 

 its excellent illustrations. Cf. also S. Krauss, Talmudische Archaologie, Vol. II, 

 p. 214; S. Fraenkel, Die aramaischen Fremdworter im Arabischen, p. 147. 



8 W. Miller, Sprache der Osseten, p. 10; Hubschmann, Arm. Gram., p. 309. 



7 Handcock, Mesopotamian Archaeology, p. 13. The contributions which 

 A. Engler has made to the olive in Hehn's Kulturpflanzen (p. 118) are just as sing- 

 ular as his notions of the walnut. Leaves of the olive-tree have been found in Pliocene 

 deposits near Mongardino north-west of Bologna, and this is sufficient for Engler 

 to "prove" the autochthonous character of the tree in Italy. All it proves, if the 



415 



