Millennial zoological mystery of medieval Persian scientists

Abstract

Great medieval scientist-polymath Abu Rayhan Al-Beruni (973–1050) wrote in his book “Pharmacognosy” about some kind of “worms” inhabiting willows in Azerbaijan and Southern Iran and used by native people for producing of a red dye. It was unclear during one thousand years which organisms Al-Beruni noted as those dye-producing “worms”. Some modern authors even suggested that the relevant medieval text was partly erroneous. To the contrary, in the present paper we, for the first time, consider some species of the felt scale insects (Coccinea: Eriococcidae) as the organisms, which have probably been used for the production of the red dye in the medieval countries of Western and Central Asia. These insects are several species from two closely related genera Acanthococcus Signoret, 1875 and Gossyparia Signoret, 1875. The review of biological characters, identification key, new figures and colour photographs are provided for the species of Acanthococcus and Gossyparia associated with Salix spp. in the Asiatic Region. Acanthococcus turanicus Matesova, 1967, syn. nov. is placed in synonymy with A. salicis (Borchsenius, 1938), and A. altaicus Matesova, 1967, syn. nov. is placed in synonymy with A. spiraeae Borchsenius, 1949. Earlier discovered synonymy of A. melnikensis (Hodgson et Trencheva, 2008) with A. aceris Signoret, 1875 is discussed. Some other dye-producing scale insects and their pigments are also briefly considered. Резюме. Выдающийся средневековый учёный-энциклопедист Абу Райхан Аль-Беруни (9731050) в своей книге «Фармакогнозия» упоминал неких красильных «червей», живущих на ивах в Азербайджане и Южном Иране и используемых местным населением для получения красной краски. На протяжении тысячи лет подлинная биологическая природа этих красильных организмов оставалась неясной, а некоторые современные авторы предполагали даже, что средневековый текст был частично ошибочным. В настоящей статье мы впервые показываем, что некоторые виды войлочников (Coccinea: Eriococcidae) вполне могли быть использованы для получения красной краски в средневековых государствах Западной и Центральной Азии. Эти виды относятся к двум близкородственным родам Acanthococcus Signoret, 1875 и Gossyparia Signoret, 1875. В статье содержится подробный биологический обзор таких видов, оригинальные рисунки и фотографии, а также определительный ключ для видов, отмечавшихся на Salix spp. в азиатском регионе. Acanthococcus turanicus Matesova, 1967, syn. nov. рассматривается в качестве младшего синонима A. salicis (Borchsenius, 1938); A. altaicus Matesova, 1967, syn. nov. помещается в синонимы A. spiraeae Borchsenius, 1949. Дополнительно обсуждается ранее установленная синонимия A. melnikensis (Hodgson et Trencheva, 2008) с A. aceris Signoret, 1875. Кратко рассматриваются также некоторые другие красильные виды кокцид и их пигменты. I.A. Gavrilov-Zimin & A.S. Kurochkin. Millenial zoological mystery of medieval Persian scientists ( Zoosystematica Rossica, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 201–227 202 Introduction Ancient and medieval scientists of Europe and Central Asia often discussed different dye-producing plants and animals in their manuscripts. In spite of the fact that the modern historical and archaeological studies on this subject are very abundant and published in numerous papers and books (see for the general review: Cardon, 2007, 2014), some ancient texts still provide unexpected and important information. Thus, the great medieval scientist-polymath Abu Rayhan Al-Beruni (973–1050) (Fig. 1) wrote in his book “Pharmacognosy” about “worms” inhabiting some sort of willows (named “kirmaj”) in Azerbaijan and Darabdjird (Fars Province of modern Iran) and used for producing of a red dye (“arjuwani”); these “worms” were scraped off the plant for further using (see modern edition: Beruni, 1973: 455, 711). Al-Beruni’s note was based on data of Persian historian and philologist Hamza Al-Isfahani (about 893–961), but unfortunately without clear reference to the exact tractate of Al-Isfahani (Fig. 2). A lot of texts of Al-Isfahani were lost during centuries and/or were never translated in modern languages and it is rather problematic now to understand which Al-Isfahani’s text could include the description of the dye-producing organisms. We suppose such information could be present in “Al-Hayes and Al-Muawa’n’ah Biaal’Arbyyat and Al-Farsiyat”, because this manuscript included the data on the names of different plants and animals; now, the fragments of the Al-Isfahani’s manuscript are preserved in some libraries in Cairo, Egypt (Brockelmann, 1937: 222) and we hope that in future philologists will try to combine these fragments and provide a modern translation and edition of them. For the present discussion, we shall use only the well-studied and well-translated “Pharmacognosy” of Al-Beruni. At least two modern translations of this book into European languages exist; both were published independently in 1973. The first one into Russian was done by U.I. Karimov under a general editing of the famous orientalist A.K. Arends and is comprising 1120 pages, including numerous comments. The second translation into English was done by H.M. Said & R.E. Elahie, with comments by S.K. Hamarneh, and is comprising about 960 pages (806 pp. + 152 pp. in two volumes), but with the inclusion of the Arabic text of Al-Beruni, which occupies about one half of the first volume. Thus, it seems that the Russian translation is significantly more comprehensive than the English one. We were able to find and study this Russian translation only, but it seems that the information on the dyeing organisms in both Russian and English translations is identical as we can judge comparing Russian text