Saqez: The Kurdish Wild Mastic and the Zagros Tree That Weeps Resin

Sherko Sabir
May 31
6 min read

Saqez: The Kurdish Wild Mastic and the Zagros Tree That Weeps Resin

In the Zagros mountain forests of Rojhelat — the four Iranian Kurdish provinces where the great mountain range runs south through Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah, Ilam, and West Azerbaijan — there grows a tree that this series has not yet named on its own. It is Pistacia atlantica, the Atlas pistachio or Kurdish wild pistachio, a gnarled, drought-resistant tree of the oak-pistachio forest belt that covers the Zagros slopes from roughly 600 to 2,200 metres elevation. This is the tree that produces saqez — the wild Kurdish mountain resin, a natural mastic that bleeds from cuts in the bark, hardens in the air into pale amber lumps, and has been harvested by Kurdish communities for use as chewing gum, incense, and traditional medicine for as long as the Zagros has had people in it. This series covered the terebinth tree (Pistacia terebinthus, the kezwan) in the qehweya kezwanê article: the smaller species whose berries are roasted for Kurdish coffee. The Pistacia atlantica is its Zagros cousin — larger, longer-lived, and the tree the Zagros landscape holds as one of its most valuable forest species. The saqez resin it produces is still an important commodity in Kurdistan Province and across the Iranian Kurdish highlands. The Zagros Pistacia atlantica forests are managed specifically as a forest resource, and the resin — chewed as a natural gum, burned as an aromatic incense at celebrations and religious ceremonies, and used in traditional medicine for the stomach and the throat — is a product of the Kurdish mountain that has never been domesticated or industrialised away from its wild origin. This is the one-hundred-and-forty-second article in the series. Sherko has covered the honey, the rhubarb, the garlic, the figs, the wheat, the mushrooms. Now the Zagros gives him its resin.

Key Takeaways

• Saqez is the wild Kurdish mountain mastic — resin from Pistacia atlantica trees in the Zagros, still an important commodity

• The Pistacia atlantica is managed as a valuable forest tree in the Zagros — one of the ecosystem’s anchoring species

• Used as chewing gum, incense at Kurdish ceremonies, and traditional medicine — a wild product never industrialised

• The Pistacia genus — represented in the Zagros by three species — is the wild ancestor genus of the cultivated pistachio

Quick Facts

Kurdish/Persian Name: Saqez (the resin); bên / bein (the tree, Sorani); also called lêt or wild pistachio in Kurdish

Species: Pistacia atlantica (Atlas pistachio); related to P. terebinthus (kezwan) and P. vera (cultivated pistachio)

Habitat: Zagros mountains of Rojhelat (Kurdistan Province, Kermanshah, Ilam); 600–2,200 m elevation; the oak-pistachio forest belt

Uses: Saqez resin as chewing gum, aromatic incense, and traditional medicine; seed oil for cooking and soap; fruit as emergency food

The Tree That Weeps

Harvesting saqez is a patient work. The Pistacia atlantica tree, which can live for several hundred years and reach a considerable girth, is tapped in summer by making shallow cuts or notches in the bark with a knife. From these cuts, a milky, aromatic sap oozes out over the following days, exposed to the dry Zagros air, oxidising and hardening gradually into a pale amber resin with a piney, slightly turpentine-adjacent fragrance that softens when warmed by the hand. The hardened drops of resin — saqez — are collected, cleaned of bark debris, and stored. Used as a chewing gum, saqez softens in the mouth and releases a resinous, aromatic flavour that is nothing like commercial chewing gum: it is the taste of the tree itself, of the Zagros forest, of pine resin and aromatic oils and something older than any cultivated food. It is consumed for its medicinal properties (believed to aid digestion and soothe the throat), for its fragrance, and simply because it is the thing you chew when you are in the mountains. Burned as incense, the smoke of saqez carries a sweet, piney smell that is used at Kurdish celebrations and religious ceremonies — Wikipedia’s documentation of the Pistacia atlantica specifically notes the use of its dried sap smoke “for celebrations and religious ceremonies.” And the seed oil — extracted from the small seeds of the Pistacia atlantica fruit, which resemble miniature pistachio nuts — is edible and has been used for cooking and soap production across the Zagros region.

The Wild Pistachio and the Zagros Origin

This series has made the argument, article by article, that the Kurdish mountains are where the world’s food came from. The wild walnut ancestor (genim #127 established wheat; hejîr #132 established fig; zeytûn #126 established olive). The Pistacia atlantica adds another thread to that argument: the Pistacia genus, centred in the Zagros and Taurus mountains, is the wild ancestor of the cultivated pistachio (Pistacia vera). The same mountain forests that gave the world wheat and the fig also gave it the pistachio — in its wild form, the Pistacia atlantica, which produces a small oily seed and a generous aromatic resin, and which was the grafting stock on which early pistachio cultivation was built. Anissa Helou’s documentation of the Zagros Pistacia tradition notes that “once grafted, it gives the famous pistachios that we know.” The saqez tree, the kezwan tree (P. terebinthus), and the cultivated pistachio (P. vera) are all members of the same Zagros-centred family. The Zagros did not just feed the world from its orchards and wheat fields. It flavoured the world with its resins, and it gave the pistachio — one of the most prized nuts on earth — its wild ancestors.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is saqez?

Saqez is the wild mountain mastic of the Zagros — the aromatic resin harvested from cuts in the bark of Pistacia atlantica trees growing in the Kurdish mountain forests of Rojhelat. It hardens in the air into pale amber lumps with a piney, resinous fragrance, and is used as a natural chewing gum, as aromatic incense burned at Kurdish ceremonies and celebrations, and in traditional medicine for the stomach and throat. It is still an important commodity in Kurdistan Province, Iran.

How does the Pistacia atlantica differ from the terebinth (kezwan)?

Both are members of the Pistacia genus. Pistacia terebinthus (kezwan) is the terebinth of the Bakur mountains whose berries are roasted for qehweya kezwanê (Kurdish coffee) — it is smaller and more commonly found in the Taurus and Bakur zone. Pistacia atlantica (bên) is the Atlas pistachio of the Zagros, larger and longer-lived, primarily valued for its saqez resin and seed oil. The two species occupy overlapping but distinct ranges: kezwan is more Bakur/Taurus; bên/saqez is more Zagros/Rojhelat.

Is the Pistacia atlantica related to the cultivated pistachio?

Yes — directly. The cultivated pistachio (Pistacia vera) is the domesticated member of the Zagros-centred Pistacia genus. Pistacia atlantica and Pistacia terebinthus are its wild relatives, with which it shares genus, native range, and many ecological traits. Pistacia atlantica is commonly used as the rootstock on which Pistacia vera is grafted for cultivation — the wild tree supports the cultivated one. The Zagros, which gave the world wild wheat and wild walnut, also gave it the wild ancestor genus of the pistachio.

Conclusion

Saqez is the one-hundred-and-forty-second article in the series, and the one that reaches into the bark. Every other article in the series has been about what the Kurdish mountains grow: the fruits, the grains, the animals, the plants. Saqez is what the tree secretes when you cut it — the resin that bleeds from the Zagros Pistacia atlantica and hardens in the mountain air into something aromatic and medicinal and genuinely wild. It has no recipe. It does not go into a pot or onto a plate. It is chewed, burned, and inhaled. And in that, it stands for the part of the Kurdish food tradition that is beyond cooking: the forest itself, offering its chemistry directly, needing no fire and no preparation, asking only that you know which tree to cut and when to come back for what it has given.