History
Sesame was cultivated during the Indus valley civilization and was the main oil crop. It was probably exported to Mesopotamia around 2500 BC and was known in Akkadian and Sumerian as 'ellu'. Sesame seeds were one of the first crops processed for oil as well as one of the earliest condiments. In fact, the word enne/enna/ennai that means oil in many Dravidian languages including Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil has its roots in the Dravidian words eL (ಎಳ್/ಎಳ್ಳು, எள்ளு) and nei (ನೆಯ್, நெய்), which mean sesame and ghee respectively.
The Hindi word for oil (Tel (तेल)) is also derived from sesame oil (from Sanskrit Taila (तैल), which means obtained from Tila (तिल) Sesame).
Prior to 600 BC, the Assyrians used sesame oil as a food, salve, and medication, primarily by the rich, as the difficulty of obtaining it made it expensive. Hindus used it in votive lamps and considered the oil sacred.
Read more about this topic: Sesame Oil
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“It gives me the greatest pleasure to say, as I do from the bottom of my heart, that never in the history of the country, in any crisis and under any conditions, have our Jewish fellow citizens failed to live up to the highest standards of citizenship and patriotism.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)