Food & agriculture · c. 350 CE

Crystalline sugar

Gupta-era Indians learned to boil cane juice into storable crystals called khanda.

Sugarcane was domesticated in New Guinea, but crystallised sugar was first made in India around the 4th century CE. It travelled west through Persia and the Arab world, later fuelling the Atlantic plantation economy.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 2

Irrigation 6000 BCE
Agriculture 9500 BCE

What it led to 2

Arab Agricultural Revolution 800
Ethanol fuel program 1975

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World trade as a share of GDP since 1500 Latest: 1950-now (PWT): 57.8 % of GDP (2023) Source: Our World in Data