FLOWERS 3,000 YEARS OLD

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 4

FLOWERS 3,000 YEARS OLD

Professor P. E. Newberry, writing in the ‘ Morning Test ’ on lbs subject of flowers found :n ancient tombs, says that many of our most familiar flowers arc io bo found among (lie wreaths and bouquets that have been miraculously preserved from thousands of years ago. Prom 1000 n.C. downwards it was tho custom in Pgypt to adorn their dead with wreaths and garlands, and often largo bouquets like those recently found in the tomb of Tutankhamen were put into the tombs. In the Dor el Bahari vault, which contained the mummies of twenty-five Pings and queens, many wreaths were discovered, and tho flowers of which they were composed wore identified by tho botanist and explorer Dr George Sfchwcinfnrth.

In 1588 Professor Petrio found nearly 100 wreaths and garlands in graves dating from tile first century me., and these were handed to me for examination. Since then I have collected about eighty wreaths, which range in data from 1100 ij.c. to ICO A .n. T he wonderful preservation of the flowers and twigs of which these garlands are composed is remarkable evidence of the extraordinary dryness of the Egyptian climate, for the greater number have been found in graves only a. few feet from the surface of tho desert.

Many of the most delicate flowers have been preserved without sustaining tlio slightest damage. Some roses, for instance, of the Grsoco-Roman period had evidently been picked in the bud, so as to prevent the petals from falling. In drying in the coffin the petals had shrivelled and shrunk up into a ball, but when moistened in warm water and opened, the stamens, anthers, and pollen grains appear before the eyes in a marvellous stale of preservation. N'ot a stamen, I not an anther, not a pollen grain is missing. Of course, when taken out of the grave tlieso wreaths were very dry and brittle and in that state it was impossible to examine them. They were therefore soaked in cold, lukewarm, or warm water (accord- | ing to the species), when they soon recovered their original flexibility end permitted of being handled and examined with ease.. By this moans it was possible to prepare a series of specimens of flowers gathered 2,000 years and more ago, which arc as satisfactory for the purposes of science as any collected at ihe present day. Among the flowers used in these wreaths may be mentioned a single rose—an exactly similar rose was obtained after twelve yearn’ search in the shape of the Rosa Sanota from Abyssinia—a stock, the narcissus tazetta, a willow herb, a, lychnis, * species of Hibiscus, i the chrysanthemum ooronarhim, the del- i phinium, the iris sihrica, a mignonette, sweet marjoram, myrtle, and an immortelle. There are many gardening scenes figured on j the wails of Egyptian tombs. One dating 1 from near 2,000 years b.c. shows that precisely the same shaped flower pot was! used in the Nile Valley as wo employ at the : present day. Twenty-five years ago I pub-1 listed on account of the tomb of a gardener | and florist that the late Lord Northampton, Dr Spiogelhery, and I had just discovered, at. Thebes. It dated from the fifteenth century, b.c., and paintings in it showed that the ornamental flowers grown in tho gardens of those Imperial times of Bsypt were, besides the blue water lily and papyrus'! and common corn field weeds, the cornflower, 1 Boaax. ddoiirJiwii. di**sr. and oonvoivuL-c.