An Israeli Shrine Shows Signs Of The Earliest Ritual Use Of Marijuana!

A limestone altar from an Iron Age shrine in Israel contains remains of the world’s oldest known example of burning cannabis plants in a ritual ceremony, a new study finds.

This altar, along with a second altar on which incense was burned, stood at the entrance to a room where religious rites were presumably held inside a fortress in the Biblical kingdom of Judah. Previous analyzes of the recovered pottery and documented historical events at the site indicate that the sanctuary was in use from about 760 B.C. to 715 B.C. Excavations at the Tel Arad site in Israel in the 1960s uncovered the sanctuary amid the ruins of two fortified cities, one built on top of the other, dating to the 9th century BCE. at the beginning of the 6th century B.C.

The cannabis on the smaller of the two altars was mixed with animal dung so it could be burned at a low temperature, likely allowing ritualists to inhale the mind-altering fumes of the plant, the researchers report. This cannabis sample contained enough of the psychoactive plant compound, THC, to have induced an altered state of consciousness by breathing its vapors. The incense, a form of dried tree resin, was placed on the larger altar and mixed with animal fats that allowed it to burn at temperatures high enough to release the resin’s fragrance, scientists say.

Biblical and historical texts indicate that frankincense and another fragrant tree resin, myrrh, came to the Middle East from the Iron Age and surrounding regions through trade from southern Arabia, but cannabis is completely new to understanding incense burning in this region, and in Judah in particular. It is suspected that cannabis plants were cultivated far from Israel, in what is now China or southeastern Russia, knowledge of cannabis, or marijuana, probably spread from eastern and central Asia to Europe along the early Silk Road trade routes.