Metallurgy, Materials & Chemistry

Crystallised cane sugar

by ~500 BCE-500 CEIndian sugar-makersTexts and trade recordPan-Indian / unspecified

500 BCE

Techniques to crystallise cane juice into solid sugar ('sharkara').

Meanwhile in the West

Spread west; the words 'sugar' and 'candy' trace to Sanskrit 'sharkara'/'khanda'.

Sugarcane itself likely originates in New Guinea; crystallisation is the Indian contribution.

The foundation of the global sugar industry.

500 BCECrystallised cane sugar

Carried by traders and armies to Persia, the Arab world and Europe.

Pataliputra (Patna), c. 4th c. CE. Gupta-era sugar makers
Cane juice is boiled down and crystallised into granules called khanda, the root of the word candy.
Gundeshapur, Persia, 6th-7th c. CE. Cultivators of Sasanian Persia
Cane growing and refining spread to Khuzestan in south-west Persia.
Cairo, Egypt, c. 10th-11th c. CE. Arab cultivators and refiners
Under Arab rule, cane spreads around the Mediterranean, and Egypt becomes a leading producer of refined white sugar.
Venice, 13th-15th c. CE. Venetian merchants
Venice refines and resells sugar across Europe, where it is a costly spice and medicine.
Madeira, 1450s. Portuguese planters
Sugar plantations on this Atlantic island become the model for the plantation system.
Barbados, 1640s. English planters using enslaved Africans
The Caribbean 'sugar revolution' is built on the forced labour of enslaved Africans, one of history's great crimes.