Fenugreek seeds were found mixed with coriander, lentils and other seeds in three baskets, a pot and even in a model granary. Tutankhamun’s seeds are blue-black in colour, but when fresh fenugreek seeds are yellow-brown. They sprout in two or three days and the shoots may be eaten as a nutritious salad, since they contain about 30 per cent protein as well as a fragrant, rather bitter oil. The seeds are borne in narrow, sickle-like beaked pods up to 12 cm (41/2 in) long. The parent plant is an annual legume, with few branches 20 to 50 cm
The shoot of wild thyme Thymbra spicata found in Tutankhamun's tomb.
(8-20 in) high, bearing trifoliate leaves which are sawtoothed. One or two small, whitish pea flowers occur in the axils of the leaves in March and April.
Fenugreek is indigenous in the eastern Mediterranean region and was known to the Ancient Egyptians in pre-dynastic times, about 3000 BC. It is still widely cultivated in dry countries such as the Yemen and India, where it is grown for both fodder and for human consumption as a pot-herb. Some leaves I collected and dried in the Yemen years ago are still aromatic. Fenugreek seeds, besides being eaten cooked with other foods, are also useful medicinally as an ointment and to encourage lactation.
Fenugreek Trigonella foenum-graecum.
World History
