Medieval Sugar Production in the Southern Levant: A Sweet Story

September 2022 | Vol. 10.9

By Richard Jones

The arrival of sugar into the Near East is well known in outline: the technical ability to make a crude crystalline sweet from sugar cane diffused westwards from its origins in the East as a result of Islamic influence and conquest. It reached Egypt as early as the 8th century CE and the Near East a little later.

Sugar production flourished in parts of this region owing on the one hand to suitable climatic conditions and the availability of a controllable water supply and wood for fuel. On the other hand, there was sugar’s immediate appeal: unlike honey or carob, here was a commodity that gave an immediate pleasurable sensation of the ‘sweet rush.’ No wonder its popularity increased as an exotic, luxury foodstuff or taken medicinally.

Within the century following the arrival of the Crusaders in the Levant, the Franks had recognised the economic potential of sugar as a high-value export product destined beyond the local markets to Europe and elsewhere; they developed and intensified the industry. The Mamluks also saw sugar cane as a cash crop, investing heavily in the industry and making it a state enterprise which reached its acme in the 13th and 14th centuries, only to decline significantly thereafter owing to multiple factors including periods of drought and civil unrest as well as rising competition from Cyprus.

Production, however, continued on a smaller scale into the Ottoman period. The diffusion of sugar making westward was unstoppable, as Sicily, Morocco and southern Spain, where sugar cane was already established but little exploited, became increasingly large-scale producers by the 15th century.

This picture is drawn largely from historical sources, but it has not until recently been illuminated much by the archaeological record. For a start, sugar itself is invisible, unlike oil and wine, for example, whose remains can be detected. The archaeological proxy for sugar production in the Near East lies in the first instance on the frequent finds of the specialised ceramic products, the ‘throw-away’ component of the industry: the conical mould with a tell-tale hole (usually one but occasionally more) at the bottom, sitting above the molasses jar. These are found where sugar was both produced, consumed or stored (for example at Akko and Hisban).

Sugar moulds and molasses jars from the 11th to early 17th century found at sites at Acre and neighbouring locations. From Shapiro et al. 2020, Fig. 8. https://doi.org/10.4000/books.momeditions.10169.

The installations where sugar was produced and refined have not survived well, the structures having frequently been destroyed or put to alternative uses. Nevertheless, archaeological discoveries, through either rescue or research-led excavation, have been made in present-day Israel and Jordan. Clusters of sugar-making centres are found in the Plain of Acre, around the Sea of Galilee, along the Jordan Valley, and at the southern end of the Dead Sea, generally of the Ayyubid/Crusader-Mamluk period, and above all in Cyprus of the 13th century onwards. Sadly, those discoveries have scarcely extended to Egypt, despite the record of some 66 centres operating in 14th century Fustat, or to Syria.

Map of the Near East showing the sugar production and other sites mentioned in the text. Original map © Sémhur / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-4.0.

The extraction of sugar from cane is a long, complex and labour-intensive process. Drawing on historical and archaeological sources and with the help of the remarkable illustration by Giovanni Stradano depicting all the main steps as observed in late 16th century Sicily, we can obtain glimpses of the process.

Sugar making in Sicily. From an engraving by Filippo Galle Harlem (1537-1612) reproducing a drawing by the painter Giovanni Stradano (Hans von der Straat) of Bruges (1636-1605). © The Trustees of the British Museum.

Following cultivation and harvesting, the sugar cane was transported to the building where the pressing or crushing took place; the latter required a water supply brought in by channel/aqueduct, well observed at the installation at Tawahin as-Sukkar, Jericho of Crusader/Ayyubid to Mamluk date. Descending the chute, the water reached the mill room for crushing the cane; Figure 4 shows one of the two mill rooms among the fine remains excavated at Masna’ as-sukkar, as-Safi (formerly Tawahin as-sukkar, Safi), contemporary with the complex at Jericho.

One of the mill rooms at Masna’ as-sukkar, as-Safi (formerly Tawahin as-sukkar, Safi) with the water chute in the background. From Jones 2017, Fig. 5.1a.

The juice was then transferred to a cauldron and boiled to concentrate the syrup; this step produced large dumps of ash from the fuel that likely included the waste sugar cane (bagasse). At the same time, a clarifier such as fine-grained lime was added to the syrup to remove impurities.

The resulting viscous sugar solution was then ladled into the sugar mould, which sat within a round slot on a bench, and on cooling crystallised into a sugar loaf, while the denser coarser fraction dripped into the molasses jar on the floor below the bench. This extraction process could be repeated to give increasingly refined fractions of sugar. The two pottery shapes varied according to date and quality of sugar, tending to become more slender over time. And at the large 14th century and later complex of Kouklia on Cyprus, where the process had become increasingly streamlined, the smallest size pot was reserved for the top quality, thrice-boiled, sugar.

The Frankish-period historical sources, which, apart from travellers accounts, were concerned typically with issues of land rights and access to water supplies, have enriched the archaeological picture, notably in the Plain of Acre where there was a dense cluster of sugar installations supplying the major settlement and maritime emporium at the time, Acre. The corresponding records of the subsequent Mamluk period throughout the southern Levant speak of the sugar industry’s success, yet it was achieved at a cost in what has been referred to as a ‘boom and bust’ economy. There was tension between the respective demands of that industry and the traditional agriculture based on cereals and legumes: their routines and procedures were generally incompatible with each other, and above all the scale of sugar cane cultivation placed a heavy burden on the soil and the local environment.

Many issues remain unresolved. The size and nature of the workforce – the skilled operatives and the unskilled labour – in the Levant are a matter of speculation, although more of this is known in the case of Cyprus. At its peak the annual yield of reboiled sugar from Cyprus’ efficient island-wide industry could have been as high as 500 tons; that from a ‘typical’ Mamluk installation cannot yet be estimated but in any case probably varied considerably.

How sugar travelled and who the operatives were who organised its distribution is important. The products probably left the installation destined directly to nearby consumers or to commercial centres in two forms: either within the ceramic container – the mould, despite its weight (up to 6kg), or the molasses jar – transported by camel or donkey, or, more likely in the case of sugar intended for export abroad, as the loaf or granules packed in a sack or crate. How much crude sugar produced at the centres was dispatched not to consumers but to large urban centres, such as Damascus, for further refining is unknown.

Beyond the Near East, sugar conjured different connotations over the centuries. Interactions between the Islamic and Byzantine worlds in the sphere of trade encouraged Byzantium to adopt the medicinal properties of sugar, for example as a base of composite drugs. But for the Crusaders returning to their homelands sugar was a more of a prestige, elite sweetener. Consolidating their positions in the Near Eastern markets, the Venetians (and Genoese) saw sugar as one of a range of economically valuable export products that would find culinary favour in Europe; in this way and as the industry’s centre of gravity moved increasingly westward to Sicily in the 15th century so sugar became increasingly and widely known even though it was not to become the staple sweetener until the 18th century.

The story of medieval sugar remains of abiding interest because of its multi-faceted nature that draws on knowledge of the economy, society, agriculture, technological knowhow and pharmacology of the times. The more those different strands of knowledge can be effectively integrated the richer the picture will become.

Richard Jones is Honorary Lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow.

Further Reading:

Bouras-Vallianatos, P. 2021. ‘Cross-cultural transfer of medical knowledge in the medieval Mediterranean: The introduction and dissemination of sugar-based potions from the Islamic world to Byzantium’, Speculum96, 963-1008.

Jones, R.E. (ed). 2017. Medieval sugar production: a view from the Mediterranean and from the 2002 excavation at Tawahin as-Sukkar, Safi, Jordan. Glasgow.

Steiner, M.L. 2008. ‘Tell abu Sarbut: the occupation of a rural site in the Ayyubid/Mamluk periods’. In: Steiner, M.L. and van der Steen, E.J. 2008. Sacred and Sweet: Studies on the Material Culture of Tell Deir ‘Alla and Tell Abu Sarbut. Leuven, Peeters, 154-196.

Stern, E.J., Getzov, N., Shapiro, A., Smithline, H. 2015. ‘Sugar production in the ‘Akko Plain from the Fatimid to the Early Ottoman periods’. In: K.D. Politis (Ed.) The origins of the sugar industry and the transmission of ancient Greek and Medieval Arab science and technology from the Near East to Europe. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, 79-112.

Taha H., 2015. ‘The sugarcane industry in Jericho, Jordan Valley’. In: K.D. Politis (Ed.) The origins of the sugar industry and the transmission of ancient Greek and Medieval Arab science and technology from the Near East to Europe. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, 51-78.

Von Wartburg, M.L. 2015. ‘Medieval cane sugar production in Cyprus: a review of archaeological and textual evidence with a focus on specific technological and economic developments’. In: K.D. Politis (Ed.) The origins of the sugar industry and the transmission of ancient Greek and Medieval Arab science and technology from the Near East to Europe. National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, 147-166.

Walker, B.J. 2004. Mamluk investment in Transjordan: a ‘boom and bust’ economy’, Mamluk Studies Review8:2, 119-147.

How to cite this article

Jones, R. 2022. “Medieval Sugar Production in the Southern Levant: A Sweet Story.” The Ancient Near East Today 10.9. Accessed at: https://anetoday.org/jones-medieval-sugar-production/.