ANCIENT DRUG TRADE BROUGHT TO LIGHT

JERUSALEM - A thriving Bronze Age drug trade supplied narcotics to ancient
cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean as balm for the pain of
childbirth and disease, proving a sophisticated knowledge of medicines
dating back thousands of years, researchers say.

Ancient ceramic pots, most of them nearly identical in shape and about 5
inches long, have been found in tombs and settlements throughout the Middle
East, dating as far back as 1400 B.C., said Joe Zias, an anthropologist at
Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

The drugs were probably used as medicine and the finds are helping
researchers better understand how ancient people treated illness and
disease.

"It's a window to the past that many people are unaware of," Zias told a
recent conference in Israel on DNA and archaeology. "Here's something used
in prehistoric times and it's used until today."

When turned upside down, the thin-necked vessels with round bases resemble
opium poppies pods. If there was any doubt about what was inside, the round
bases have white markings, designs that symbolized knife cuts made on poppy
bulbs so the white opium base can ooze and be harvested, Zias said.

The Mycenaean ceramics were analyzed with a procedure called gas
chromatography that turned up traces of opium.

Hundreds of the pots have been found and they commonly show up in the hands
of antiquities dealers in places like Jerusalem's Old City. "Give me an hour
there and I could find you 10 of them," Zias said.

Based on ancient Egyptian medical writings from the third millennium B.C.,
researchers believe opium and hashish -- a smokable drug that comes from the
concentrated resin from the flowers of hemp plants -- were used during
surgery and to treat aches and pains and other ailments. Hashish was also
used to ease menstrual cramps and was even offered to women during
childbirth.

Based on Egyptian writings, archaeologists believe the opium was eaten
rather than smoked.

The drugs are part of a medical record that shows the ancients were far more
advanced than most people realize, Zias said, noting evidence that European
people did cranial surgery as long as 10,000 years ago, while the Romans
left records of 120 surgical procedures.

The ancient trade was run by respected healers rather than drug-dealing
criminal, experts point out.

"We know for sure these things were used for medical purposes," Zias said.
"The question is whether they were used for recreational purposes."