HOLY SMOKE!
This explains a LOT!
The discovery was made using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry testing on an Iron Age Judahite shrine at Tel Arad, in Israel’s Negev desert. The cannabis altar was in the inner sanctum of the temple, known as the cella, or holy of holies.
“We know from all around the Ancient Near East and around the world that many cultures used hallucinogenic materials and ingredients in order to get into some kind of religious ecstasy,” Eran Arie, curator of Iron Age and Persian Periods archaeology in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem told CNN. “We never thought about Judah taking part in these cultic practices. The fact that we found cannabis in an official cult place of Judah says something new.”
According to a new paper published in the journal Tel Aviv , ancient esoteric worshippers at a Judahite temple at the fortress mound in Tel Arad in Israel “likely smoked cannabis during cultic ceremonies.” This statement comes after a team of Israeli scientists performed chemical analysis on residues found on two Iron Age altars dating back more than 2,700 years at the entrance to the shrine; both were found to contain cannabis and frankincense.
The frankincense had come from the resin of the Boswellia sacra , a small tree found in Oman, Yemen, and Somalia, and according to a Daily Mail report, the presence of cannabis resin suggests “a deliberate psychoactive substance” was made and burned to “stimulate ecstasy as part of esoteric ceremonies.”
