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CRETAN LAND

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Cretan Iama

FLAVOURS OF THE CRETAN LAND

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Greece’s flora is one of the richest in the Mediterranean. The country accounts for just 6% of the area of the Mediterranean but hosts 26% of its flora. Greece’s great biological wealth is mainly due to its geographical position, landscape diversity, complex geological and ecological history and relatively mild human interventions.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in Greek herbs and their dozens of uses. Currently, the industrial uses of herbs in Greece and globally include cosmetics, medicines, and food. There are hundreds of different chemicals in each herb. Combinations of different plants and herbs can benefit the human body through the synergies created by the therapeutic substances contained in each plant.

CRETE, A LAND UNTOUCHED BY TIME

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Crete is the floral crossroads of the Eastern Mediterranean. Its flora has not changed significantly over time, mainly thanks to the morphology of local territory. The climate of the island has contributed to a truly profuse flora and diverse ecosystems that compose a rarely diverse whole. There is hardly another place on the globe of comparable in size to Crete that has so many plant species.

This wealth of endemic plants is due to Crete’s isolation from the continental mass for millions of years, the existence of high mountains and the wide variety of habitats, which have become sanctuaries for endemic, rare and endangered plant species that have become extinct in other locations.

Aromatic plants, known for their pharmaceutical properties since antiquity, represent a long and significant tradition in Crete. The island has been an exporting centre for pharmaceutical and aromatic plants. Indeed, it is characteristic that about 15% of the tablets written in Linear B, dated to the 13th century BCE, which were discovered in Knossos concern perfumes and aromatic plants.

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Cretan Iama

THE PAGES OF HISTORY

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The use of herbs in Greece began in ancient times. The knowledge of Greek writers regarding the therapeutic use of various plant species has been preserved over the centuries and is now the main basis of modern folk medicine.

Although there are references to the medicinal properties of herbs from the Homeric era, it was Hippocrates and Dioscorides who laid the foundations of modern medicine. Hippocrates, the father of medicine, introduced observation and experimentation into therapeutic practice. He recorded approximately 400 species of herbs whose use became known from the 5th century BCE.

Theophrastus is known as the father of botany, with his writings on the morphology, development and efficacy of plants (Enquiry into Plants, On the Causes of Plants), which have survived to this day. Dioscorides is known as the “father of pharmacognosy”, as he did not only include about 600 herbs and their properties in his work, but also described their botanical characteristics in detail. There followed other very important people in the development of medicine and pharmacology (for many centuries there was no clear distinction between the two sciences), such as Galen.