Sugar Production in the Islamic Period: An Archaeological Perspective

Sugar is one of the most common items to be found in a household pantry, it is one of the cheapest ingredients one can buy at the grocery store, and it is an integral part of thousands of recipes, particularly sweet dishes.  But how did it grow to be so popular? How did the cane sugar plant, native to a tropical climate and requiring a lot of water, a lot of heat and a lot of labor to process become part of a thriving industry? How did a luxury item become as abundant as water?

The roots of this phenomenon can be found in the Islamic Period.  The explosion of the sugar trade in this period was brought on by new developments in its production, helping this substance enter new international trade markets.  This industry flourished under Ayyubid and Mamluk rule, giving many new peoples a sweet tooth and laying the foundations for the modern sugar industry.

Sugar production was not new in the Islamic period, even the ancient Greeks and Romans were aware of it though it was scarce and only used in imported medicine, not as a food. The Greek physician Dioscorides in the 1st century (AD) wrote "There is a kind of coalesced honey called sakcharon (sugar) found in reeds in India and Eudaimon Arabia (Yemen) similar in consistency to salt and brittle enough to be broken between the teeth like salt. It is good dissolved in water for the intestines and stomach and taken as a drink to help a painful bladder and kidneys.”  Also, Pliny the Elder, a Roman of the 1st-century (AD) wrote "Sugar is made in Arabia as well, but Indian sugar is better. It is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut. Sugar is used only for medical purposes.”  Though the sugar described by these 1^st century men sounds similar to the sugar known today, it was an inferior product produced until a more refined sugar was developed around 1000 AD.  

It was in the Islamic period that the production process changed, and the sugar trade expanded. This was an industrial revolution in the technology of sugar production. But, how did it come to be a part of the Islamic world? The sugar cane plant was transferred from Bengal to Iran in probably the 5^th century AD. Qasab al-sukkar is mentioned as one of the crops of the Sawad in Caliph ‘Umar’s cadastral survey of the former Sasanian territories.  From here the plant spread to Iraq, Khuzistan, later Syria, Egypt and eventually Spain as far north as Castellon.

The importance of sugar is well documented in texts from the medieval Italian and Arabic sources:

• Albert of Aachen (1099)
• James of Vitry (beginning of 13th century)
• Burchard of Mount Sion (end of 13th century)
• Rambam (Maimonides; second half of 12th century)
• al-Nuwayri (end of 14th century). 
• al-Qalqashandi (end of 14th century)
• Geniza letters

For more information on sugar as discussed in such text, please read Sato Tsugitaka’s A History of Sugar in the Daily Life of the Muslim World.  

Archaeological evidence does corroborate the textual evidence of both the processes by which sugar was produced and the implements with which it was done.  Producing sugar was rather labor intensive, and so the bulk of industrial sugar was produced on plantations.  Due to the large scale of production, slaves were sometimes involved.  Arab entrepreneurs adopted sugar production techniques from India and expanded the industry, using mills and refineries on site. The cultivation of the plant spread throughout the region using artificial irrigation.  It also seems that a number of production sites existed in close proximity one to the other in one geographical area, of which we will see examples.  About the early Crusader Period, the concept of the different stages required in sugar production for commercial use was developed. From that point one can find sugar refineries that were built according to this concept. This change brought with it the introduction of ceramic sugar vessels, of which many are excavated.  

The process of sugar production was this: the cane stems were cut into small pieces and the juice was extracted in two stages; the canes were milled, and then the crushed residue was pressed to release more juice.  Hand mortars were probably the main means of production. (In the thirteenth century the process is seen to be more complex and efficient, with technological innovation. The sugar cane was then milled by water or animal power.) The juice was then boiled a number of times producing a syrupy concentrate and the impurities that were skimmed off. The syrup was poured into ceramic vessels, where it eventually crystallized. Molasses was drained from the crystallizing sugar through a hole in the tip of the sugar pot to the molasses jar beneath, producing crystallized sugar and molasses. This slow draining, as well as evaporation of liquid, resulted in a cone-shaped cake of sugar. The collected syrup might be re-boiled and poured again into molds or sold in its own right.

The fourteenth-century Italian merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti records three different grades of sugar, listed according to price, the most expensive being bambillonia or caffetino, the second grade being musciatto, and the cheapest being polvere di zucchero. Similar distinctions can be found in Arabic sources of this period, and the cost of the sugar depended upon the number of boilings – one, two or three – which the sugar received before it was left to crystallise. the smallest pots were probably used for the three times boiled sugar, and the largest for the single-boiled variety.  The more boiled – the more expensive.  The bulk of the production concentrated on the middle-priced musciatto sugar.  

This process leaves a good amount of archaeological evidence, large and small, that has been found at numerous sites. Larger evidence can be the structures that were associated with the crushing of the cane, the boiling of the syrup, and the crystallization of the liquid.  The smaller evidence is the sherds of ceramic vessels – conical sugar pots and bag-shaped molasses jars – in which the crystallized and liquid sugar was captured and stored.  The conical molds had a wide mouth, narrow base, and one to three small holes punched in the base. The molds were either set directly on or raised over syrup jars, which collected the liquid slowly draining from the mold. The sugar molds were often broken during the removal of the sugar cake, resulting in great quantities of broken pottery remaining at sugar-production sites. The vast majority of both molds and jars are plain, but there are rare examples of decorated sugar molds, having combed decoration or even a dark green glaze.  

We see ample leavings of this industry particularly in Israel and Jordan, where over 40 sugar mills and refineries have been discovered.  The work in this region shows that sugar production sites were first established along the Mediterranean coast before later expanding inland to the Jordan Valley.  The distribution of sugar mills provides a good indication of the intensity of the industry, which was traded all over the Mediterranean.  While only one site (Tell Qasila) can be dated securely to the 12th century, most of the sites are dated to the 13th century and some to the 14th-15th centuries.

Jericho has a relatively well preserved industrial installation for manufacturing sugar. The remains consist of an aqueduct, press, mill house, refinery, furnace, kitchen and a storage house. A considerable number of artefacts were found, including sugar vessels. The mill system can be dated from Crusader/Ayyubid period to the end of the Mamluk period, when it went out of use.  We see a same pattern at other sites.  In the early Mamluk period a complex of installations for the manufacture of sugar was built inside Beth She’an’s citadel's inner rooms, keep, and part of the moat.  More evidence for sugar manufacture exists in the form of thousands of sherds of sugar pots lying on a lime floor. The industry appears to have been short-lived in this location.  

Perhaps the earliest Islamic sugar mill to be excavated is located near the ancient Achaemenid palace at Susa. This region benefited from an extensive irrigation system created during the Parthian and Sasanian dynasties. The different components of the site correspond well to the descriptions of sugar making provided by the Arab author al-Nuwayri (d. c.1332), that took place between the 11^th and 12^th centuries.  Remains largely consisted of sugar pots and molasses jars.  

Very well preserved sugar refineries dating to the late thirteenth to sixteenth centuries A.D. have been found in Cyprus, modeled on the earlier and contemporary Levantine refineries, and North Africa (several sites, probably sixteenth century and later, have been surveyed in Morocco).  Textual sources also indicate that Egypt was awash in sugar cane, though there have unfortunately been no published excavations in Egypt which mention evidence for the industry.  Archaeologically, we see that the sugar trade was extensive and lucrative, fueling a high demand as profits were to be found at local and international markets.  We also see a general movement of the industry from east to west over time.

Archaeological evidence of the sugar trade is also able to tell us what parties were involved in production.  Archaeological remains in the Akko plain indicate that the government was directly involved in production.  Excavations and surveys at six sites in the Akko Plain (Lower Horbat Manot, El Kabri, Ben Ami, Nahariyya, ‘Ein Afeq, Akko) revealed evidence of sugar production from the 11th to the 17th centuries.  Petrographic analysis shows that the sugar molds (and molasses jars) from the Crusader period (twelfth and thirteenth centuries) were tempered with coastal sand, and in most, the potters used sea water in the matrix or dipped the finished vessel in it. This shows that all the Crusader period sugar vessels were made close to the seashore. In the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, coastal sand was not used to temper the sugar vessels and the potters did not use sea water; they used limestone and chalk as tempering materials. This reveals a transition of production of the sugar molds, from the coastal area to the mountain region, while the sugar production sites remained in the same location: on the plain, near the coast, where the conditions were appropriate for sugar cultivation. This suggests a link to the transfer of the governmental center from ‘Akko after its defeat by the Mamluks in 1291, to Ẓefat, situated further inland, in the Mamluk and early Ottoman periods. 

More evidence for government involvement can be seen in a different region as well.  At the governor’s palace in the Mamluk regional capital of Hisban (in the mountains above the Jordan Valley) a storeroom in the palace was found containing numerous molasses jars and molded glazed bowls with Arabic inscriptions.  We see through these examples that sugar molds are able to show the active involvement of the central government in sugar production. Unlike basic products such as grain, olive oil and wine that mostly constitute the economy of the population, sugar production was controlled by the political government, beginning from the production of the ceramic vessels, proceeding to land control and finally control of profits.  A good way for the government to make money considering how lucrative the trade was. This may suggest that the sugar industry could emerge and further maintain itself only in conjunction with the requisite political situation and sufficient financial support.  

Historical sources suggest a period of greatest productivity was in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (a time when the sugar from the Nile Delta and from Greater Syria was extensively traded in the Mediterranean), with a slow decline in the fifteenth century. This is mirrored by ceramic changes on the Akko plain (see Politis 2015).  Based on studies of Arabic and European written sources, a certain economic historian Eliyahu Ashtor has suggested that the demise of the sugar industry in the region resulted from the failure of the elite of the Mamluk sultanate to invest in new technology in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Responding to lower agricultural revenues – possibly due to the depopulation of rural areas caused by the waves of plague after 1348 – the Mamluk elite raised taxes in order to maintain state revenues, which did nothing to alleviate strain on the rural populace. By the end of the fifteenth century the Mediterranean market was dominated by sugar produced in Cyprus and elsewhere in southern Europe - the production was moving west.  By the 16^th century according to the cadastral records for Jordan and Palestine, production of sugar had ceased in the area.  There is evidence that the industry held on a bit longer archaeological, though this is largely understudied as research of this period of time is dominated on the rise of late medieval and early modern Europe.

Despite its decline in the Eastern Mediterranean, the boom in sugar production during the Islamic Period paved the way for the future.  It provided an effective model for a productive industry for others to emulate and left a taste in everyone’s mouth for more sweetness in their food.  

Final note: The Arab world had a rich development of recipes and cuisine during this period that strongly featured sugar, used to enrich many dishes from sour foods, fish, meats, and stews to, of course, pastries and jams which used syrups made of white sugar and crystals of colored sugar.  Want to try one of these foods: https://www.redpathsugar.com/recipe/knafeh-middle-eastern-sweet-cheese-pastry 

Sources:

• Book Two of Dioscorides' Materia Medica 

• Burke, Katherine S. "A Note on Archaeological Evidence for Sugar Production in the Middle Islamic Periods in Bila≠d al-Sha≠m." Mamlūk Studies Review 8, no. 2 (2004): 109-18. https://doi.org/10.6082/M1Z899K1.

• Faas, Patrick. Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.

• Galloway, J H. The Sugar Cane Industry: An Historical Geography from Its Origins to 1914. N.p.: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

• Milwright, Marcus. An Introduction to Islamic Archaeology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, 2010. 

• Politis, Konstantinos D., ed. The Origins of the Sugar Industry and the Transmission of Ancient Greek and Medieval Arab Science and Technology from the Near East to Europe. Athens: National and Kapodistriako University of Athens, 2015.

• Ponting, Clive. World History: A New Perspective. London: Chatto & Windus, 2000.

• Stern, Edna J. "The Excavations at Lower Horbat Manot: A Medieval Sugar-Production Site." 'Atiqot 42 (2001): 277-308.

• Stern, Edna J. The Sugar Industry in Palestine during the Crusader, Ayyubid and Mamluk Periods in Light of the Archeological Finds. Vol. 1. 1999.

• Taha, Hamdan. "Some Aspects of Sugar production in Jericho, Jordan Valley." A Timeless Vale : archaeological and related essays on the Jordan Valley in honour of Gerrit van der Kooij on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday (2009): 203-13.

• Tsugitaka, Sato. "Sugar in the Economic Life of Mamluk Egypt." Mamluk Studies Review 8, no. 2 (2004): 87-107

• Watson, Andrew. Agricultural Innovation in the Early Islamic World. N.p.: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 

• Zaouali, Lilia. Medieval Cuisine of the Islamic World: A Concise History with 174 Recipes. N.p.: . University of California, 2007.