542 Sino-Iranica 



The descriptions given of cinnamon and cassia by Theophrastus 1 

 show that the ancients did not exactly agree on the identity of these 

 plants, and Theophrastus himself speaks from hearsay ("In regard to 

 cinnamon and cassia they say the following: both are shrubs, it is said, 

 and not of large size. . . . Such is the account given by some. Others 

 say that cinnamon is shrubby or rather like an under-brush, and that 

 there are two kinds, one black, the other white"). The difference be- 

 tween cinnamon and cassia seems to have been that the latter possessed 

 stouter branches, was very fibrous, and difficult to strip off the bark. 

 This bark was used; it was bitter, and had a pungent odor. 2 



Certain it is that the two words are of Semitic origin. 3 The fact that 

 there is no cinnamon in Arabia and Ethiopia was already known to 

 Garcia da Orta. 4 An unfortunate attempt has been made to trace 

 the cinnamon of the ancients to the Chinese. 5 This theory has thus 

 been formulated by Muss-Arnolt: 6 "This spice was imported by 

 Phoenician merchants from Egypt, where it is called khisi-t. The 

 Egyptians, again, brought it from the land of Punt, to which it was 

 imported from Japan, where we have it under the form kei-chi ('branch 

 of the cinnamon-tree'), or better kei-shin ('heart of the cinnamon') 

 [read sin, *sim]. The Japanese itself is again borrowed from the Chinese 

 kei-U [?]. The -t in the Egyptian represents the feminine suffix." As 

 may be seen from O. Schrader, 7 this strange hypothesis was first put 

 forward in 1883 by C. Schumann. Schrader himself feels somewhat 

 sceptic about it, and regards the appearance of Chinese merchandise on 

 the markets of Egypt at such an early date as hardly probable. From a 

 sinological viewpoint, this speculation must be wholly rejected, both 

 in its linguistic and its historical bearings. Japan was not in existence \ 

 in 1500 B.C., when cinnamon-wood of the country Punt is spoken of in ; 

 the Egyptian inscriptions; and China was then a small agrarian inland *, 

 community restricted to the northern part of the present empire, and ! 



1 Hist, plant., IX. v, 1-3. 



2 Theophrastus, IX. v, 3. 



3 Greek Kaala is derived from Hebrew qest'a, perhaps related to Assyrian kasu, 

 kasiya (Pognon, Journal asiatique, 1917, I, p. 400). Greek kinnamomon is traced 

 to Hebrew qinnamon (Exodus, xxx, 23). 



4 Markham, Colloquies, pp. 1 19-120. 



5 Thus also Fluckiger and Hanbury (Pharmacographia, p. 520), whose 

 argumentation is not sound, as it lacks all sense of chronology. The Persian term 

 dar-cinl, for instance, is strictly of mediaeval origin, and cannot be invoked as evidence 

 for the supposition that cinnamon was exported from China many centuries before 

 Christ. 



6 Transactions Am. Phil. Assoc, Vol. XXIII, 1892, p. 115. 



7 Reallexikon, p. 989. 



