Dyed flax threads from a Georgian cave are some 30,000 years old
Long before farming, people in what is now Georgia were spinning, dyeing and knotting wild flax fibres in Dzudzuana Cave, around 30,000 years ago. The plant they later domesticated earned the Latin name usitatissimum, most useful, and still gives us linen, linseed oil and seeds rich in omega-3 fats.
Linum usitatissimum is a slender annual growing to about 1.2 metres, with narrow bluish leaves and five-petalled flowers. It exists only in cultivation and seems to have been domesticated just once, from wild pale flax, in the Fertile Crescent. By about 9,000 years ago there was bigger-seeded oil flax at Tell Ramad in Syria and flax cloth at Catalhoyuk in Turkey; the crop reached Switzerland and Germany by 5,000 years ago and was grown in China and India by then too. Linnaeus gave it its scientific name in 1753.
Ancient Egypt adored it. Temple walls showed flax in bloom, mummies were wrapped in linen, and priests wore nothing else because the fibre symbolised purity. Phoenician traders carried Egyptian linen around the Mediterranean and Roman ships used it for sails. Production faded with Rome until Charlemagne promoted it in the eighth century, and medieval Flanders became Europe's linen capital. By the early 20th century cheap cotton had pushed production to northern Russia, which supplied 90 percent of the world's crop, before synthetics sidelined flax altogether.
Fibre plants are harvested about 100 days after sowing, when stem bases yellow; specialised machines grip the stalks and pull them out roots and all to keep the fibres as long as possible. The straw is then retted, left to dew or soaked so microbes dissolve the pectin gluing fibres to stem, before being broken and combed. The results can be two to three times stronger than cotton. In 2022 the world produced about 876,000 tonnes, three quarters of it in France, with Normandy alone growing nearly a third.
Seeds are 42 percent fat, over half of it the omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid. Linseed oil, one of the oldest commercial oils, dries into a hard film used in paints, varnishes, linoleum and inks, and the leftover meal feeds livestock. Ground seed can go rancid within a week if left open to the air, though sealed, lightproof packaging keeps it stable for months.
Source: Flax
