Flax for seed or fibre use? Flax capsules from ancient Egyptian sites (3rd millennium BC to second century AD) compared with modern flax genebank accessions

In order to determine whether ancient Egyptians had already selected and cultivated very specialized flax types according to their purpose for textile or oil production, respectively, we compared archaeobotanical flax finds with nearly 3000 diverse genebank accessions kept at the Plant Gene Resources of Canada (PGRC). The main result was that fibre flax was most probably already cultivated during the 3rd millennium BC, whereas in later periods an intermediate flax and/or oil type was in use. The collaboration between archaeobotanists and genebank curators shows how our knowledge about ancient usage of plants can be improved by interpreting observations made on ancient findings using recent characterization data obtained from diverse genebank material.

Automated summary

The study compared archaeobotanical flax finds with diverse genebank accessions to determine if ancient Egyptians had cultivated specialized flax types for textiles or oil production. The results suggest that fibre flax was cultivated during the 3rd millennium BC, while an intermediate flax and/or oil type was used in later periods. The collaboration between archaeobotanists and genebank curators enhances our understanding of ancient plant usage by interpreting observations from ancient findings using recent genebank data.