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0241 Sino-Iranica : vol.1
Sino-Iranica : vol.1 / Page 241 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000248
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THE OLIVE

43. The Yu yan tsa tsu 1 has the following notice of an exotic plant :

"The ts`i-run 3   (*dzi-tun, *zi-tun) tree has its habitat in the coun-
try Po-se (Persia), likewise in the country Fu-lin (Syria) . In Fu-lin it

is termed *   ts`i-t`i2 (*dzi, zi-ti). The tree grows to a height of twenty
or thirty feet. The bark is green, the flowers are white, resembling those of the shaddock (yu, Citrus grandis), and very fragrant.

The fruit is similar to that of the yan-t`ao   (Averrhoa carambola)
and ripens in the fifth month. The people of the Western countries press an oil out of it for frying cakes and fruit, in the same man-

ner as sesame seeds (kü-.en i   ) 3 are utilized in China."

The transcription tsti-t'un has been successfully identified by HIRTH4 with Persian zeitun, save that we have to define this form as Middle Persian; and Fu-lin ts`i-t`i with Aramaic zaitd (Hebrew zayi6). This is the olive-tree (Olea Euro paea) .5 The Persian word is a loan from the Semitic, the common Semitic form being *zeitu (Arabic zeitun). It is noteworthy that the Fu-lin form agrees more closely with Grusinian and Ossetic zet`i, Armenian jet, dzet (" olive-oil"), zeit (" olive"), Arabic zait,' than with the Aramaic word. The olive-tree, mentioned in Pahlavi literature (above, p. 193), grows spontaneously in Persia and Baluchistan, but the cultivated species was in all likelihood received by the Iranians (as well as by the Armenians) from the Semites. The olive-tree was known in Mesopotamia at an early date: objects in clay in the form of an olive belonging to the time of Urukagina, one of the pre-Sargonic rulers of Lagash, are still extant.'

1 Ch. 18, p. I I.

a A gloss thus indicates the reading of this character by the fan ts`ie; j`. 3 See above, p. 292.

Journal Am. Or. Soc., Vol. XXX, 1910, p. 19.

See, for instance, the illustrated article "olivier" in DUJARDIN-BEAUMETZ and EGASSE, Plantes médicinales indigènes et exotiques (p. 492, Paris, 1889), which is a very convenient and commendable reference-book, particularly valuable for its excellent illustrations. Cf. also S. KRAUSS, Talmudische Archäologie, Vol. II, p. 214; S. FRAENKEL, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen, p. 147.

6 W. MILLER, Sprache der Osseten, p. I0; HÜBSCHMANN, Arm. Gram., p. 309.

HANDCOCK, Mesopotamian Archaeology, p. 13. The contributions which A. ENGLER has made to the olive in Hehn's Kulturpflanzen (p. 118) are just as singular as his notions of the walnut. Leaves of the olive-tree have been found in Pliocene deposits near Mongardino north-west of Bologna, and this is sufficient for Engler to "prove" the autochthonous character of the tree in Italy. All it proves, if the

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