New Delhi: Lemons which are merely used as a fruit all across the globe, were once considered as status symbols by the ancient Romans.
They considered lemons as the first fruits to have arrived in the Mediterranean around the time of Jesus.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel studied a collection of ancient texts, art, artifacts, and plant remains such as fossil pollen grains, charcoals, seeds.
Until the first century AD, the only citrus produce available to the ancient Romans were the extremely rare and inordinately expensive citrons and lemons, they said.
"Today, citrus orchards are a major component of the Mediterranean landscape and one of the most important cultivated fruits in the region. But citrus is not native to the Mediterranean Basin and originated in Southeast Asia," said Dafna Langgut, from Tel Aviv University in Israel.
"My findings show that citrons and lemons were the first citrus fruits to arrive in the Mediterranean and were status symbols for the elite," Langgut said.
"All other citrus fruits most probably spread more than a millennium later for economic reasons," she added.
At first, Romans only had access to rough-skinned citrons, also known as etrogim - mostly rind and dry, tasteless flesh. The citron arrived in Rome from what is now Israel.
The earliest botanical remains of the citron were identified in a Persian royal garden near Jerusalem and dated to the 5th-4th centuries BC.
It is presumed that it spread from there to other locations around the Mediterranean, researchers said.
"The first remains of the earliest lemon, found in the Roman Forum, date to right around the time of Jesus Christ, the end of the first century BC and early first century AD," said Langgut.
It appears that the citron was considered a valuable commodity due to its healing qualities, symbolic use, pleasant odour and rarity, researchers said.
Only the rich could have afforded it. It's spread, therefore, was helped more by its high social status, its significance in religion and its unique features, rather than its culinary qualities, they said.
(With PTI inputs)
