If summer in Greece could be captured in a single image, it would surely feature a watermelon. Pablo Neruda once called it the “fruit of thirst” and described its flesh as a flag of green, white, and red dissolving into “a waterfall of sugar.”
For Greeks, watermelon is more than a fruit—it’s childhood memories, seaside meals with loved ones, and cicadas buzzing in the background. Mark Twain even claimed that tasting it was to know “what the angels eat.” The angels, however, would have been less impressed with its wild ancestor: a pale green, bitter melon.
Over thousands of years, through selective breeding across cultures, this wild fruit transformed into the sweet red watermelon we know today—“half a creation of nature, half a creation of humankind,” says Harry Paris, a researcher at Israel’s Agricultural Research Organization. Paris spent years tracing the watermelon’s evolution through ancient Hebrew texts, Egyptian tomb art, and medieval manuscripts, documenting a journey spanning 5,000 years.
From Pharaohs to Physicians
Seeds and paintings of watermelons have been discovered in Egyptian tombs dating back 4,000 years, including that of King Tutankhamun. These early fruits weren’t round but elongated—proof they had been cultivated. Though bitter, they were prized for their high water content. In an age without refrigeration, watermelons could be stored for weeks, even months, in cool, shaded places. Pharaohs were buried with them, believing the fruit would quench their thirst on the long journey to the afterlife.
By 2,000 BCE, the fruit’s story appears in medical texts, travel journals, and recipes. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates and Dioscorides praised its healing properties. It was prescribed as a diuretic and even used to treat children suffering from heatstroke, with cool rind placed on their foreheads. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder called it “refreshing beyond measure” in his Historia Naturalis.
By 200 CE, Hebrew texts listed watermelon alongside figs, grapes, and pomegranates—fruits defined by their sweetness. This suggests that by then, watermelons had grown closer to today’s form, though their flesh was still yellow, as seen in a Byzantine mosaic from 5th-century Israel.
A Red Renaissance
The first illustrations of the red-fleshed watermelon in Europe appear in the Tacuinum Sanitatis, a medieval health handbook based on an 11th-century Arabic text. Commissioned by Italian nobles in the 14th century, it shows striped, oblong melons being harvested, sold, and sliced open to reveal their vibrant red flesh. By then, the watermelon had firmly entered Europe’s culinary and cultural imagination.
A Fruit That Carries Memories
Today, watermelon is inseparable from Mediterranean summers—a fruit that stirs the senses and the emotions. It is the sweet taste of childhood, the symbol of long, hot afternoons by the sea, the flavor of carefree moments. More than just food, it has been humanity’s companion for millennia: a fruit of survival, of celebration, and of joy.
