RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
A1 Čulíková, Věra
T1 Modern assortment of utility plants in baroque cesspit in Thunovská street No. 192 at Lesser Town in Prague
JF Staletá Praha
YR 2013
VO 29
IS 2
SP 64
OP 119
DO 10.56112/sp.2013.2.05
UL https://staletapraha.cz/en/artkey/pha-201302-0005.php
AB Contents of a brick cesspit belonging to the college of Theatine order (Prague-Lesser Town, Thunovská St. No. 192/III) were submitted for archaeobotanical analysis with the aim of recording the assortment of economic plants within the Prague ecclesiastic ambient at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries and shortly afterwards. The analysis confirmed the supply of vegetal macroremains through faeces together with the waste above all from the dispensary of the monastery. The set of more than 110,000 diasporas representing 210-220 taxa of herbs and woody species ranges among the richest ones from the early modern era within all of Europe. Medicinal species, in western European countries considered characteristic for hospitals and pharmacies of those times, were recorded in unusual quantities. The assortment of vegetables was extraordinarily varied. Two utility species (Phytolacca americana, Benincasa cerifera) are not hitherto known from archaeological situations outside the Czech Republic. The presence of species imported and newly introduced, some of which were expensive goods bears witnesses to the fact that the members of the order belonged to the social elite and, at the same time, documents globalization of the world in those days. The article is a detailed study of the concrete set of finds.