282 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



Herodotus ^ tells us that Babylonia grew no olive trees, 

 and that its inhabitants made use of oil of sesame. It 

 is certain that a country so subject to inundation was 

 not at all favourable to the olive. The cold excludes the 

 higher plateaux and the mountains of the north of 

 Persia. 



I do not know if there is a name in Zend, but the 

 Semitic word sait must date from a remote antiquity, for 

 it is found in modern Persian, seitun,^ and in Arabic, 

 zeitun, sjetiin.^ It even exists in Turkish and among 

 the Tartars of the Crimea, seitun,^ which may signify 

 that it is of Turanian origin, or from the remote epoch 

 when the Turanian and Semitic peoples intermixed. 



The ancient Egyptians cultivated the olive tree, which 

 they called tat.^ Several botanists have ascertained the 

 presence of branches or leaves of the olive in the sarco- 

 phagi.^ Nothing is more certain, though Hehn'^ has 

 recently asserted the contrary, without giving any proof 

 in support of his opinion. It would be interesting to 

 know to what dynasty belong the most ancient mummy- 

 cases in which olive branches have been found. The 

 Egyptian name, quite different to the Semitic, shows an 

 existence more ancient than the earliest dynasties. I 

 shall mention presently another fact in support of this 

 great antiquity. 



Theophrastus says ^ that the olive was much grown, 

 and the harvest of oil considerable in Cyrenaica, but 

 he does not say that the species was wild there, and the 

 quantity of oil mentioned seems to point to a cultivated 

 variety. The low-lying, very hot country between Egypt 

 and the Atlas is little favourable to a naturalization 

 of the olive outside the plantations. Kralik, a very 

 accurate botanist, did not anywhere see on his journey 



* Herodotus, Hist., bk. i. c. 193. ^ Boissier, Fl. Orient., iv. p. 36. 

 3 Ebn Baithar, Germ, trans., p. 569 ; Forskal, Plant. Egypt., p. 49. 



* Boissier, ihid. ; Steven, ibid. 



^ Unger, I)ie Pflanz. der Alien. J^gypt, p. 45. 



« De Candolle, Physiol. Vegdt., p. 696; Pleyte, quoted by Braun and 

 Ascherson, Sitzher. Naturfor. Ges., May 15, 1877. 

 ^ Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, edit. 3, p. 88, line 9. 



* Theophrastus, Hist. Plant., lib. iv. c. 3. 



