Topic Barley, Cereal Grain
Barley offering
It is said the Ancient Egyptians believed that one day Osiris, god of agriculture, made a decoction of barley that had germinated with the sacred waters of the Nile, and then distracted by other urgent affairs, left it out in the sun and forgot it. When he came back the mixture had fermented. He drank it, and thought it so good that he let mankind profit by it. This was said to be the origin of beer.
Like emmer and einkorn (ancient wheat), barley has been cultivated since the earliest of times. I say this without giving a specific date because archaeologists are at this moment pushing back the beginnings of agriculture with every find they make.
According to Wikipedia:
“Barley was the first domesticated grain in the Near East, approximately the same time as einkorn and emmer wheat. Wild barley (H. vulgare ssp. spontaneum) ranges from North Africa and Crete in the west, to Tibet in the east. The earliest evidence of wild barley in an archaeological context comes from the Epipaleolithic at Ohalo II at the southern end of the Sea of Galilee. The remains were dated to about 8500 BC. The earliest domesticated barley occurs at Aceramic Neolithic sites, in the Near East such as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B layers of Tell Abu Hureyra, in Syria. Barley has been grown in the Korean Peninsula since the Early Mumun Pottery Period (c. 1500–850 BC) along with other crops such as millet, wheat, and legumes.”
One of the earliest accounts of the distribution of barley can be found on a clay tablet from Mesopotamia, written in Cuneiform dating to 2350 BC. It called for a ration of 30-40 pints for adults and 20 pints for children.
By all accounts whether it was in Mesopotamia, Egypt or later in Greece or Rome barley had a variety of uses as it does today.
Barley is eaten in breads, soups and stews. In ancient Egypt as today it was made into porridge and sprouted barley was used as a base for beer. Barley was and still is today a major feed crop for domestic animals. Barley was used as a type of currency to pay royal workers in Ancient Egypt.
Barley beer may have been the first fermented drink developed by Neolithic people although there is evidence that another drink,namely honey wine (or Mead as it is known), could have predated barley when man was still a hunter-gather and had not put down permanent roots and turned to agriculture.
According to Egyptian food and Drink, by Hillery Wilson, because there was no distinction in ancient egypt between barley and wheat it is impossible to be certain which was the oldest cultivated grain; both were generally termed”corn”.
Barley is eaten in breads, soups and stews. In ancient Egypt as today it was made into porridge and sprouted barley was used as a base for beer. Barley was and still is today a major feed crop for domestic animals. Barley was used as a type of currency to pay royal workers in Ancient Egypt.
Barley and other cereal grains such as emmer, einkorn and later modern wheat and rice (all members of the grass family) were the staples and probably the most important products of the world at that time or any other. The grass family with its many editable species including maze, from the new world, could be said to have created the world we know today.
Original Article:
By Joanna Linsley-Poe
Copyright 3/2011
Ancient Foods
I found this looking for images for Barley:
Ancient beer recipes found in Syria
Barley Beer Recipe-Syria
A Syrian-Belgian-British archaeological mission unearthed 3,800-year-old Babylonian beer-making instructions on cuneiform tablets at a dig in northern Syria.
Abdel-Massih Baghdo, director of the Hassakeh Archaeological Department, told The Associated Press in a telephone call that the 92 tablets were found in the 14th layer of Tell Shagher, a site just north of Hassakeh.
He said the tablets showed beer-making methods and tallied quantities of beer produced and distributed in the region.
Hassakeh, 400 miles northeast of Damascus, is known these days for its wheat production. Recent archaeological discoveries have pushed back the dates for early beer production.
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