Rome’s Most Valuable Plant: Worth More Than Gold… Then Gone Forever скачать в хорошем качестве

Rome’s Most Valuable Plant: Worth More Than Gold… Then Gone Forever

Rome’s Most Valuable Plant: Worth More Than Gold… Then Gone Forever — this is the forgotten story of Silphium (often linked to the ancient city of Cyrene/Sirene in North Africa), a legendary ancient Roman plant once prized for its resin, medicine, and spice so valuable it was treated like silver by weight and stamped on ancient coins with a heart-shaped seed pod. But Silphium couldn’t be farmed, demand exploded across the Roman world, and the plant was ultimately harvested into extinction, leaving behind only texts, coins, and a mystery that still haunts historians. Then comes the modern twist: a rare Turkish giant fennel relative, Ferula drudiana, rediscovered in the 20th century and later studied for its bioactive compounds, raises one chilling question — was Silphium truly lost forever, or did it survive under another name? In this Unearthed Harvest episode, we trace the rise of Cyrene’s “gold plant,” the forces that erased it, and the evidence—along with the skepticism—behind the possible rediscovery. #Silphium #AncientRome #LostPlants