Jerusalem elite drank vanilla-flavored wine – c. 600 BC

The Americas Connected – Part Two

by Don Ricardo, the ignorant Georgia Creek Peon

Archaeologists in Israel held a press conference this week to announce that vanilla resin had been identified in the bottoms of wine jars that were found in the ruins of houses belonging to the elite Judea. The jars dated from the sacking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar’s army in 686 BC. The spokesman for the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University stated that this discovery proved that the elite of Judea, during this area had access to a trade network, which reached all the way to the Indian Ocean, where the vanilla was harvested.

Oh really?

Before continuing to this article click Vanilla-Flavored Wine to read the original article on this discovery. There is a big, big problem with the archaeologists’ interpretation of vanilla being used as a spice by the Judeans.

Vanilla is a spice derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily obtained from pods of the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from vainilla, the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning a sheath or a pod), is translated simply as “little pod”. Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlīlxochitl by the Aztecs. All species of vanilla, cultivated today, derive from a species originally growing in the tropical forests on the Gulf Coastal plains of southern Veracruz, Tabasco, Chiapas and Campeche.

Until the mid-19th century, Mexico was the chief producer of vanilla. In 1819, French entrepreneurs shipped vanilla fruits to the islands of Réunion and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, in hope of producing vanilla there. It was not until the mid-19^th century that farmers in Madagascar  began to grow vanilla plants.   Indonesia did not become a major producer of vanilla until the late 20^th century.

So . . . if the elite of Jerusalem like to put vanilla in their wine, the only known source of that spice in 600 BC would have been the Gulf Coast region of Mexico.   That means there were regular shipments of vanilla being transported from Mexico to Europe and then on to the eastern Mediterranean Basin.   However, all of the architectural and artistic evidence in Mexico and Georgia is that these ships were manned by men from Scandinavia, Scotland, Ireland, plus the Atlantic coasts of France and Iberia.

Do you see I what I have been saying all along.   Just this week we have another example of profound evidence, proving a very different history of the Americas, which is ignored by the archaeologists, who discovered it!

Now you know!