History
Garlic is one of the oldest known cultivated plants, with references dating back some 5,000 years. There are historical evidences that the Egyptians and Indians already cultivated garlic 5000 years ago, by the Babylonians about 4500 years ago and the Chinese as far back as 4000 years ago with medicinal use published aroung 510 A.D. in China, describing the use of garlic to control dysentery, used as an anti-parasitic, detoxicant, stomachic and anti-febrile. Garlic is also known to be used as a dietary food by the Egyptians.
There are also evidences that garlic was part of the food of laborers who constructed the pyramids. Egyptian characters were found on a pyramid recording the quantities of garlic comsumed by these laborers.
Garlic was placed by the ancient Greeks (Theophrastus relates) on the piles of stones at cross-roads as ] a supper for Hecate, and according to Pliny garlic and onion were invocated as deities by the Egyptians at the taking of oaths. It was also consumed by the Greek and Roman soldiers and the rural class and it was recommended to protect from the sun in field labor.
The Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder(23-79 A.D.) commented about the virtues of garlic in his Natural History.
Herodotus (484-425 B.C.) mentioned about the consumption of garlic by the laborers who constructed ] the pyramids.
Tao Hong-jing, a chinese physician, also referred to garlic in one of his books.
Garlic is mentioned in several Old English vocabularies of plants from the tenth to the fifteenth centuries, and is described by the herbalists of the sixteenth century from Turner (1548) onwards. It is stated to have been grown in England before the year 1540.