Esoteric Botanical Knowledge-scapes of Medieval Iberia

Prado, Shalen

Esoteric Botanical Knowledge-scapes of Medieval Iberia

dc.contributor.author	Prado, Shalen
dc.contributor.editor	Montes-Landa, Julia
dc.contributor.editor	Jürcke, Friederike
dc.contributor.editor	Cecarelli, Alessandro
dc.date.accessioned	2021-06-25T11:39:59Z
dc.date.available	2021-06-25T11:39:59Z
dc.date.issued	2021-01-01
dc.description.abstract	Esoteric texts containing botanical knowledge-scapes provide robust complementary data for paleoethnobotanical analyses. These data fill in the gaps for our interpretations of plant taxa that are often archaeologically invisible and provide more detail about the complex relationships between the people of the past and archaeologically visible plant remains. These texts also contain information that cannot be accessed through archaeology alone, such as the ‘qualities’ of plants that are determined by celestial bodies within the ‘great chain of being’ (among other factors). Lastly, such texts provide details on the sources and distribution of plants across the Medieval world (e.g. geographic indicators). Using the Picatrix, the Latin translation of an earlier Arabic esoteric text, the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, it is argued that esoteric texts have multiple applications for archaeological investigations that use paleoethnobotanical analyses.
dc.identifier.doi	10.17863/CAM.71851
dc.identifier.issn	0261-4332
dc.identifier.uri	https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/324398
dc.language.iso	en
dc.publisher	Archaeological Review from Cambridge
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
dc.rights.uri	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
dc.title	Esoteric Botanical Knowledge-scapes of Medieval Iberia
dc.type	Article
prism.endingPage	111
prism.number	2
prism.publicationName	Archaeological Review from Cambridge
prism.startingPage	98
prism.volume	35