There's no secret to anyone that De IONESCU was born out of the need to dream and create stories within layers of Hemp.

So the need to find a place that we could call "the foundation" of our Brand or the Home of it, was absolutely needed.

We stuck to part of our roots and decided there's no place more suited for this, than a certain country we will tell you more about, starting today.

Romania is the place where we started to dream but it is also the place where our dreams became true.

There is no coincidence that De IONECU was created on Romanian Lands and the time has come to tell you exactly "why".

Romania is located primarily on the lower Danube River in southeastern Europe with a coastal area bordering the Black Sea. 

Neolithic archaeobotanical evidence for Cannabis was reportedly discovered at the Frumușica site (we mentioned it on our previous post) in the northeastern parts of Romania, near Moldova.

Also in our previous post we referred to ancient evidence for Cannabis use in the form of a "pipe-cup" holding charred Cannabis seeds discovered in a pit-grave at Gurbănești near Bucharest and dated to the later third millennium.

Although this cultural context indicates a ritualistic, perhaps psychoactive use, the discovery documents the presence of Cannabis in southeastern Europe over 4000 years ago where it was likely cultivated for fiber as well as other uses.

Both sites mentioned before like Frumușica and Gurbănești are associated with ancient Yamnaya cultures.

The people represented by this culture spread rapidly across greater northern Europe beginning with 4900 to 4700 BP, all the way from Ukraine to Belgium.

People of the Yamnaya (also called Kurgan) and derivative cultures also spread a special trait of drinking linked to specific types of cord-decorated ceramic cups and beakers. In appreciation of this culturally important brew, some studies suggest that people decorated their vessels with cordage impressions. This cord-impressed ornament was initiated in the steppe region and subsequently carried into Europe, first reaching the "eastern wing of the Globular Amphora culture and eventually becoming very much-imitated as false cord and pit-and-comb decoration) by cultures of the North European Plain from the Pontic steppes to the British Isles".

Pottery decorated with cord-impressions was made extensively in ancient eastern Asia as well, beginning relatively early in the Holocene period. Take, for example, the Shengwen culture (ca. 12,000 to 10,000 BP) from the lower Yangzi River in China and the Incipient Jōmon culture (ca. 12,500 to 10,000 BP) of Japan. The terms “Shengwen” and “Jōmon” both refer to “corded ware” or cordage impressed ceramics.

People associated with the Neolithic Shengwen horizon likely cultivated Cannabis for fiber and seed and perhaps for mind-altering purposes as well.

It was also believed that cord-impressions acted as a kind of marketing technique for the contents of the container somehow like a presumed advertising method to the design concept.



Cord decoration remained typical of northern Bronze Age pottery well into the second millennium.

Hemp was probably ousted as a fibre by wool. It survived on the steppes and was passed on by Persians to the Arabs.

Hemp seems to have remained a northern plant until it was introduced into the Mediterranean from Anatolia by Hellenistic Greeks and Romans who wanted it for ropes.

 

Although most of the material culture of the Corded Ware horizon was indigenous to northern Europe, fundamental aspects such as traditional rituals and prestige use of Cannabis and its connections to particular styles of pottery were very much like those of the Yamnaya traditions (read previous Blog Post) which moved into Europe from the steppes initially through parts of Romania.

 

About a millennium later, Cannabis drug use was still an important culture trait in parts of Romania, for instance, among Thracians, tribal groups closely related to Scythians who occupied areas of the eastern Balkan Peninsula as well as Dacia (present day north central and western Romania) approximately 3000 to 2000 BP.

And that's how the word Hemp started having roots into the land we are proud to call today

the home of De IONESCU - ROMANIA.