ABSTRACT
Cinnamon and Cassia* are among the oldest spices reaching ancient Egypt, reportedly by the seventeenth century B.C. But it seems that the bark that was entering the cinnamon trade in ancient times was of different botanical origin. Probably the Greek and Romans had used both cinnamon and cassia, but the Arab traders who dominated and controlled the spices trade shrouded the sources in mystery. Cinnamon and cassia were among the spices sought after by most fifteenth-and sixteenth-century European explorers (Dao et al., 1999).
