Spices-From the beginning

What is a spice? A spice can be a seed, fruit, root, bark, or any plant substance which can be primarily used for flavoring, coloring or preserving food. Spices can be distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of plants used for flavoring or as a garnish to the food.

So where did it all began? Spices have been closely connected to magic, cultural traditions, preservation, medicine and embalming since early human history & Archaeologists have also estimated that from as far back as 50,000 B.C. humans have used the special qualities of aromatic plants to help flavor their food. The primitive human would have utilized the sweet-smelling spices in order to make food taste more better. They would have offered all  aromatic herbs to their primitive gods and used the spices for healing properties. From that moment on, spices played an very important & crucial role in human existence. .The spice trade was developed throughout South Asia and Middle East by at earliest 2000 BCE with cinnamon and black pepper, and in the East Asia with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for mummification and their demand for exotic spices and herbs helped to stimulate the world trade of spices. The word spice comes from French word "espice", which became "epice", and which came from the Latin root spec, the noun referring to "appearance, sort, kind": species has the same root. By 1000 BCE, medical systems which were based upon herbs could be found in China, Korea, and India. Spices have been traded since historical civilizations in Asia, Northeast Africa and Europe. Spices such as cinnamon, cassia, cardamom, ginger, pepper, and turmeric were well-known and used in antiquity for commerce in the Eastern World. Spices found their way into the Middle East before the beginning of the Christian era, where the true sources of  spices were withheld by the traders and associated with fantastic tales.