Snippet #5: Opium Poppies in the Orphic Hymns

An opium poppy and a Bronze Age opium vessel from Cyprus. The vessel is scarred with white glaze to look like the cuts made to extract latex from an opium pod. See C. Pedro Behn, cited below. Image source

CW: I’m talking about Opium use in the ancient Mediterranean and specifically its relationship to Sleep, Dreams, and Death. Folks with a history of substance use and/or sensitivity around issues of overdose may want to exercise whatever self-care you may need.

This snippet comes courtesy of my most recent research into the Orphic Hymn of Hypnos, the commentary of which I’m still working on. Please excuse my Long Covid brain fog that sometimes interferes with my getting my words out quickly. These snippets are fresh off the press and unedited, so you get me in all my chronically ill glory. 😐

A caveat: There is a lot of bad “research” on psychoactives in the ancient world floating around the internet—the resources below are extremely well-documented and up-to-date. Please take almost everything you read on the internet about substance use in the ancient world with a large grain of salt. While there IS ample evidence for use of psychotropic substances, so much of what I see out there is based on outdated (and in some cases, shoddy) early-20th century research, and makes wildly irresponsible claims that are no longer accepted by the vast majority of scholars in the field. (A prime example being the supposed existence of hallucinogenic gases arising out of the crack in the ground in Delphi—don’t even get me started on that one, which was long ago disproven by geologists.)

ANYHOO…my point is be careful out there, kids.

Here are two very well-respected studies that you should use if you want to continue your own research:

C. Pedro Behn, “The Use of Opium in the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean.” Folia philologica, 1986, Roč. 109, Čís. 4 (1986), pp. 193-197, I-III. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23462630

M.D. Merlin, “Archaeological Evidence for the Tradition of Psychoactive Plant Use in the Old World.” Economic Botany, Autumn, 2003, Vol. 57, No. 3 (Autumn, 2003), pp. 295-323. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4256701

And here is one of the cylindrical fumigation columns archaeologists have found at ancient Cretan sites. We don’t know for sure whether the Orphics would have used something like this, but it’s possible, since the technology still persists in some parts of the world today.

Image courtesy of M.D. Merlin, cited above.