Skip to main content

The timeline can be navigated with the “Scroll Left” and “Scroll Right” buttons or by dragging the pointer to a date on the timeline waveform (located at the bottom of the screen on the desktop version and on the left of the screen on mobile). To filter by a particular topic and see a smaller section of the data, make a selection on the dropdown “Filters” menu or click “Search” to do a keyword search. Hover over the abbreviated filter tags in the blue boxes to see the complete name of the filter, or click a filter to display all the data with this tag. If you want to take a deeper dive into a specific topic by viewing a narrative essay page and a curated timeline, click on “Stories.”

Read More
A botanical illustration of stalk, leaf, and other parts of sugarcane.
Botanical illustration of sugarcane.

Sugar is understood primarily as a medicine within the Greek and Roman empires.

20s BCE

The Story of: Sugar, The Colonizer Wound
EUR
SUG
Botanical illustration of sugarcane.

Extremely wealthy Greek and Roman families are able to purchase sugar to use in food preparation, but for most Greeks and Romans this medicinal ingredient is inaccessible. Raw sugar, which pulls water out of the body, is used to dress wounds. Additionally, sugar can preserve medicinal plants for the same reason: sugaring fruit pulls the water out and dries it, helping the fruit (or another part of a plant) to last longer.