How grain came to Sumer

Sumerian cylinder seal, Uruk, c. 3500-3100BC , currently in Louvre 

Description: cattle herd in a grain field...Now unless Sumerians grew giant grains, this is most likely a symbol, of something, but what?

Well, as I already explained in my post "Bulls and grain bowls", this is a calendar marker for the grain harvest which in Mesopotamia starts in Apr/May, Taurus

Taurus, which is an ancient animal calendar marker which marks the beginning of the calving season of the wild Eurasian cattle, which used to start in Apr/May...

And has nothing to do with stars...I talked about this in my post "Dairy farming seal"...

Keeping that in mind, let's have a look at another interesting cylinder seal from Uruk, dated to 3200BC, also in Louvre. Description: king-priest and his acolyte feeding the sacred herd...

You can see that the king is feeding the calves...So again we are in Taurus, the calving season...But what is the king feeding the calves with? It's hard to see on this impression.

Here is another depiction of the same scene. And here it is pretty clear that the king-priest's acolyte is holding the same giant grain...Which is then what the king is feeding the calves with...

So again, unless Sumerians grew giant grains, this is also a symbol, of the same thing: We harvest grain at the same time the wild Eurasian cattle calve...

And maybe Sumerians had some kind of thanksgiving ritual, where they fed the first calves with first grain? Don't know...

But I have already talked about all this before...So today I would like to talk about something else: How old are some of the Sumerian legends? For instance this one: "How grain came to Sumer"...

In this legend, we can read that: 

"Men used to eat grass with their mouths like sheep. In those times, they did not know grain, barley or flax"

When was this time "before grain" in Mesopotamia?

"An brought these down from the interior of heaven"

What does this mean "the interior of heaven"? 

Look at this: 

Sumerian: kur: n., mountain; highland; (foreign) land; the netherworld...

Sumerian Ekur (𒂍𒆳 É.KUR), is a term meaning "mountain house". The term was applied specifically to the mountain(s), where the gods were born...

And before the later speculative view was developed, according to which the gods, or most of them, have their seats in heaven, it was on the E.KUR mountain(s) where gods dwelt...

So maybe An didn't bring the grain from "the interior of heaven" but from the mountains...

E.KUR (The mountain house) was thus the place of the Assembly of the gods in the "Garden of the gods". Which is why E.KUR was also the name for Ziggurats, which were supposed to be models, imitations of the real, one and only E.KUR...

"Enlil...looked southwards and saw the wide sea; he looked northwards and saw the mountain of aromatic cedars. Enlil piled up the barley, gave it to the mountain..."

"Then Ninazu said: "Let us go to the mountain, to the mountain where barley and flax grow; ...... the rolling river, where the water wells up from the earth. Let us fetch the barley down from its mountain, let us introduce the barley into Sumer..."

Very very interesting...Because that is exactly what happened...around 9000BC...

Today I came across this article: "The distribution, natural habitats and availability of wild cereals in relation to their domestication in the Near East: multiple events, multiple centres" which compares the late Pleistocene/early Holocene archaeobotanical assemblages found in the Near East with present-day distributions of wild cereals...

The early agricultural sites are found in the same areas where the wild grains grow in abundance even today. In the mountains and highlands surrounding (and mainly to the north of) Mesopotamia...Look at the relief of the early cereal domestication sites...

Remember my article about the Garden of eden? You know the garden of the God(s)...Which was located "on the holy mountain"...Where, it turns out, grains grew wild in huge amounts...

Is this the place where during "Golden age humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor"? You know, Eden...The place from which 4 rivers emerge...The mountains north of Sumer...

Apart from wild cereals, these uplands are full of edible trees: sweet oaks, hazels, fir, junipers...The true garden of eden: God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds”

I wrote series of articles about human relationship with oaks and human consumption of acorns. It seems that all the earliest permanently settled sites were located in edible acorn rich areas. The jump page to the acorn related articles is called  🙂 "Acorns"

Oak uplands can easily support large villages of up to 1000 people and these people could harvest in 3 weeks enough acorns to last them 2 to 3 years...

Acorns could be stored in above ground aerated bins, in underground pits or they can be buried at the edge of streams where they can get leached while they keep fresh...

The people of these oak cultures could, with very little effort, provide their daily bread doing what god told them to do: eat the fruit of the trees and plants that bear seeds...

With plenty of free time people could enjoy life and develop their culture and technology. With plentiful supply of food there was no need to kill and eat all the animals that were caught...

So people could catch and keep the animals, breed them and eventually domesticate them. It was these animals that were probably first fed the wild grasses which later became our grains...

Interesting, right?

Garden of the gods? So how old is the Sumerian legend about "How grain came to Sumer"? Old, very old...And, considering that cuneiform emerged in Sumer in the late fourth millennium BC, and that grain was brought to Sumer from the northern mountains in the tenth millennium BC, this legend was already 6000 years old before it was possibly first time written down...

Guess what, there could be one even older legend. Found in Europe...But possibly not originating in Europe...

Before people gathered and processed grain, they gathered and processed acorns...

Sooooo???

Have you ever heard about the legend how Pelasgos taught people how to eat acorns? 

Apparently: "...Pelasgos was he who checked the habit of eating green leaves, grasses, and roots always inedible and sometimes poisonous. But he introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak..." 

I talked about this in my posts "Pelasgos" and "Acorns in ancient texts"...

So how old is this myth? And where did it originate? Lots of things to ponder...

That's it for tonight...

To read more about ancient animal and plant calendar markers, start here…then check the rest of the blog posts related to animal calendar markers I still didn't add to this page, and finally check my twitter threads I still didn't convert to blog post...I am 9 months behind now...

Pelasgos

Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the second-century AD, who lived in the time of Roman emperors Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius. He wrote "Description of Greece" in ten books, each dedicated to some portion of Greece

One of the books was about Arcadia (Greek: Ἀρκαδία), a region in the central Peloponnese, the old and mysterious place where Pelasgians, the followers of Pelasgus, started human civilisation.

Pausanius tells us that it was Pelasgus who "invented huts that humans should not shiver, or be soaked by rain, or oppressed by heat. He also invented coats of sheep-skins, such as poor folk still wear in Euboea and Phocis." 

I talked about the history of these sheep skin coats in my post "Gown"

Pausanius also tells us that Pelasgus "introduced as food the nuts of trees, not those of all trees but only the acorns of the edible oak." He notes that still in his own time, the Arcadians were fond of acorns.  

This is one of the Arcadian coins with the depiction of an acorn:

You can read more about depictions of acorn eating in ancient texts in my post "Acorns in ancient texts".

This is very interesting because acorns were the first starch food eaten by people, before they switched to grains...

When people lived in the "Garden of Eden" which is in the Old Testament described like this

I wrote about this in my post "Garden of Eden"

In my article about Garden of Eden, I proposed that the name "Eden" comes from PIE root for eating, which would make "Garden of Eden" "Garden of edible tree fruits" like acorns, nuts, apples, pears, cherries... 

In my article "Eat to break fast" about Eid ul-Fitr, Muslim holiday feast that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, I talked about the fact that the Arabic word Eid (festivity) could come from PIE root for eating...

The time when people lived in the Garden of Eden was to the Greeks known as the "Golden Age", which Ovid describes in Metamorphoses 1. 88 like this:

"The Golden Age (Aetas Aurea) was that first age [of mankind] which unconstrained, with heart and soul, obedient to no law, gave honour to good faith and righteousness. No punishment they knew, no fear; they read no penalties engraved on plates of bronze; no suppliant throng with dread beheld their judge; no judges had they then, but lived secure. No pine had yet, on its high mountain felled, descended to the sea to find strange lands afar; men knew no shores except their own. No battlements their cities yet embraced, no trumpets straight, no horns of sinuous brass, no sword, no helmet then--no need of arms; the world untroubled lived in leisured ease. Tellus (Earth) [Gaia] willingly, untouched, not wounded yet by hoe or plough, gave all her bounteous store; men were content with nature's food unforced, and gathered strawberries on the mountainside and cherries and the clutching bramble's fruit, and acorns fallen from Jove's [Zeus'] spreading tree. Springtime it was, always, for ever spring; the gentle zephyrs with their breathing balm caressed the flowers that sprang without a seed; anon the earth untilled brought forth her fruits, the unhallowed fields lay gold with heavy grain, and streams of milk and springs of nectar flowed and yellow honey dripped from boughs of green..."

And interestingly, the tradition arose in Greece that the site of the original Golden Age had been Arcadia, an impoverished rural area of Greece where the herdsmen still lived on acorns...

For those with dirty minds, you would fit right into Ancient Greece. The word for acorn in Ancient Greek was βάλανος (Balanos). The same word also meant glans penis (dick head)... 

Now here is something that has been bugging me for a while. The main thing Pelasgos did was to introduce acorn into human diet. Is it possible that Pelasgians just means acorn eaters??? I will try to explain why

Slavs living in the Balkans have been eating acorns until the mid 20th c. Most only during "hungry years", but some mountain populations regularly, to supplement their poor diet.

To ensure the supply of edible acorns, sweat oak forests were planted and maintained on village boundaries. Edible acorns were called "sladun" (sweat) "medun" (honney) "granica" (food)

These "sacred" oak forests were called "gaj" (cultivated forest), "zabran" (forbidden forest), "lug" (light forest) and for us particularly interesting "zabel, zabela" (???) name used in Serbia and Macedonia

In the book "Leskovački zbornik" (History of Leskovac) we find that certain forests in the area are caled zabel.

In another book called "Uzroci nestajanja šuma u Srbiji u XIX veku" (The reason for disapearence of forests in Serbia in the 19th century) we find that oak forests are called zabel, zabran in the south of Serbia. 

Another book "Скопље и његова околина" (Skoplje and its surrounding) we find that zabel is "родовскa својнa" (clan property), basically a clan, village forests which is not allowed to be cut, because it is used for the collection of acorns for human and animal consumption.

The book "Istorija seljackog društva. Deo III" (The history of the agricultural society part 3) talks about the evolution of the clan oak forests to village oak forests (zabel, zabran), and how they are used by the villagers.

In the book "Narodna književnost Srba na Kosovu", (Folk literature of the Serbs in Kosovo) we find that zabel is also called zabe and that it is a general word for a clan forest. 

In the magazine "Brastvo, broj 7" (Brotherhood) we find that zabran is called zabel and zabeo.

In "Antropogeografski i etnografski spisi" we find that the names for communal forests are branjevina, braničište, branište, zabran, zabel. 

In the book "Задужбине Косова" (Legats of Kosovo), we find that in Metohija, part of Old Serbia, the common name for protected oak forests among the Serbs was zabel and among Ghog Alabanians Gogaj. 


These were ancient oak forests left to grow between village lands or specifically planted on the boundaries of the village lands and which were forbidden to be cut. These oak forests were not just source of acorns, but also a natural habitat for wild boar, deer, rabit...important sources of meet. Every autumn villagers would go into the village oak forest and collect acorn, which was used both as animal feed and for human consumption. Each familly would collect over 1000 kilos of acorn every year which is a very significan amount of food. 

There is no etymology for "zabel". One possibility is that it comes from the fact that the sacred oaks were in Serbia marked with crosses. Like this one

These marks, and the trees on which they are made are called "zapis"

These kind of marks are also called "beleg", because of the lighter colour of the scar tissue, so it is possible that the zabel comes from za + bel = for + white, marked trees, but this is unlikely...

Ancient Greek word Balanos which means both acorn and oak comes from PIE root *gʷelh₂ (acorn) which in Greek became bel, bal. Is it possible that somehow in the Balkan mountains this word was used to build zabel = za + bel, bal = for oaks, for acorn???

Pelasgos is said to mean "Ancient", but wiktionary says that it is "likely of Pre-Greek origin" and of unknown meaning. As cognates we find Akkadian Pilistu, Palastu and Hebrew Pəlíštim (Philestines, Palestinians) 

Based on the latest genetic studies we know that Philestines came to Middle East from Europe. Based on ethnographic studies we know that in the middle east we have a sharp division on people who eat acorns: Palestinians and people who don't: Jews...

Now if we look at Pelasgos, Pilistu, Palastu, Pəlíštim, we can see that all of these names for acorns eaters start with "pel, pal". Is it possible that these names come from (pal) bal, (bel) bel + jes(t) = acorn + eat? 

"ἐσθίω" is the Ancient Greek for I eat...

"Coincidentally" in South Slavic languages where "zabel" = "za" + "bel" = "for" + "acorns" means "cultivated oak forest" we find that "jesti" means "to eat". So beljest = bel + jest = acorn + he eats = acorns eater = Belest

And interestingly, Pelasgoi was also spelled Pelastoi...Was it Pel+jest+toj (pronounced pelyestoy) = acorn+eat+they = acorn eaters?

This is very possible, as the so-called Harris Papyrus, a biography of Ramses III written under his son and successor Ramses IV, tells us that the pharaoh defeated the "Peleset" – as the Egyptians called the Philistines and other Sea Peoples early in his reign (around 1190 B.C.E.) and brought them back as captives to his lands...

Another interesting thing: in Macedonia where we find "zabel" cultivated oak forests, lowland people use "acorn eaters" as a derogatory term for hillbillies who eat acorns because their land is poor and they can't grow enough grain.

So If Pelesti (Belesti) really comes from pel, bel (acorn) + jest (eat), could Pelasgoi, Pelastois once have been used as an insulting term for the "acorn eaters" by the grain eaters?

Now have a look at this: 

Hebrew: balut - acorn
Iraq: bellut - oak, khubez bellut - acorn bread; 
Zagros mountains, Iran: Beli - acorn
Kurdish = bellot - acorn
Aramaic: bəllūṭā, ballūṭā - oak, acorn

So In all these languages root "bel" means acorn and oak...

So how does this fit with the official etymology of the Ancient Greek "βάλανος" (oak, acorn) which says that this word comes from Proto-Hellenic "*gʷə́lanos", ultimately from Proto-Indo-European "*gʷelh₂-" (“acorn”)...

Isn't it more likely that it is related to all the above Semitic words? And if so did Greeks borrow this word from the Semites?

Well I think the borrowing actually happened the other way round. Look at this:

Aramaic word bəllūṭā, ballūṭā, “oak; acorn” possibly relates to Akkadian 𒋾 (balāṭu, “to live...life-bringing trees or seeds”) and 𒄑𒁁𒀖 (be-lit, baluṭ, “a strong tree...bearing edible produce”) 

But this is not the main Semitic root meaning oak, acorn. The main Semitic root meaning oak, acorn is Akkadian 𒀠𒆷𒀭 (ʾallānu, alyānu) from Sumerian 𒄑𒀠𒆷𒈝 (allanum, “oak; acorn, acorn-shaped”)...

So how and when did "bel" (oak, acorn) come into Semitic languages??? Did it happen during the Bronze Age collapse when Pelestoi (Philestines) came to Middle East from Europe? But how do we then explain the Akkadian words with the root "bel"???

I think this is a very interesting subject which needs further investigation, don't you think?