Scientific methods for identification of plants mentioned in ancient texts (as exemplified by biblical phytonymics)

The article is based on the results of ethnobotanical studies of the texts of the biblical corpus. Earlier, we studied in detail the “model” Hebrew names of plants mentioned in the texts of the Bible (ˀēzôḇ “hyssop” and boṭnîm “pistachio”) (Sorokin, 2012, 2017b, 2018, 2019). The most important problem of ethnobotanical studies of ancient texts written in extinct languages is the botanical identification of ancient plant names (phytonyms), by which we mean revealing the correspondence of an ancient phytonym to any biological taxon or group of taxa in their modern sense. Our task was to develop methodological principles for such studies. The article critically examines the methods of botanical identification of biblical phytonyms, makes a comparative assessment of the value of each method, offers original methodological recommendations in this field of research, presented in the form of an algorithm.