Aleksiar Wild rue was used as medicine, to purify air, and for its psychoactive effectsAleksiar
In Saudi Arabia, wild rue (Peganum harmala) is used in traditional medicine and for fumigating homes. These practices are not new: a study has revealed that as long as 2,700 years ago, containers were used for burning and inhaling the plant, which has bactericidal, psychoactive, and therapeutic properties. “Our discovery sheds light on how ancient communities drew on traditional plant knowledge and their local pharmacopeia to care for their health, purify spaces, and potentially trigger psychoactive effects,” said archaeologist Barbara Huber of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Germany, in a statement released by the institution. The team used molecular analysis to detect chemical substances typical of the plant species in tiny samples, allowing them to infer the circumstances under which the substances were used. The archaeological site was once a settlement at an oasis in northwestern Saudi Arabia known as Qurayyah and is renowned for its decorated pottery (Communications Biology, May 23).
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