Ancient Egyptian Wheats

Extract

Correct identification of remains of cultivated plants is prerequisite to a reasonable concept of the early history of these plants and of agriculture in general. Sooner or later faulty or incomplete identification may lead to wrong conclusions and thus, on the one hand, obscure connections between places and peoples which might otherwise be indicated by contemporary cultivated plants, or on the other, suggest interrelations which did not exist.

Perhaps of all countries in the world Egypt is the one which has yielded the most material for the study of ancient plant husbandry, and yet the introduction of the plants into that country and the species grown is not yet fully elucidated.

Until quite recently Emmer (Triticum dicoccum Schübl.) was the only species of wheat reported in deposits of prehistoric and dynastic Egypt up to the Ptolemaean period. Then Eincorn (Triticum monococcum L.) was added to the list, in that its presence in the Late Neolithic find at el Omari near Helouan, and in the third dynasty tomb of Pharaoh Zoser at Saqqara was claimed by various authors. These identifications were disputed on the basis of reasonable doubt, but no documentation has hitherto been offered to prove the claim or the validity of the protest.