Evans, Arthur J.: The Palace of Minos: a comparative account of the successive stages of the early Cretan civilization as illustred by the discoveries at Knossos (Band 4,2): Camp-stool Fresco, long-robed priests and beneficent genii [...] (London, 1935)

EARS OF BARLEY ON TABLETS

62 s

from one or more units to 152. It is seen to alternate on them with parallel
ideographic figures relating to cereals. In some cases, moreover, this is
succeeded on the clay inventories by the bowl sign O, sometimes shown
with a handle "~C7- On the back of certain tablets, e.g. Fig. 609 d 1, where
this conjunction occurs, the bowl sign is repeated, with a well-known
composite sign of Class B, ^f, before it (Fig. 609 d 2). This sign is a
regular concomitant of vessels of various forms in use for liquid contents.
In view of this fact we may infer that in the present case it had a
similar signification, and refers not to the actual produce of the plant but
to a drink made from it.

Summary as is the sketch of the vegetable form here presented, its
orouping with unquestionable cereal forms, such as are shown in other
tablets, sufficiently indicates that it was a food plant of the same class.
From the wavy outline of the ears, and the constant division of the stalk
into two main stems, it seems probable that we have to do with millet,
of the actual storage of which in the Palace evidence has been given
above (see Fig. 607 a, b). In the cases where the 'bowl' sign is added,
we may therefore conclude that it refers to some kind of drink brewed

from this, such as the millet beer
made, according to Hekataeos,
by the Paeonians.1 Millet itself
throughout a large part of primi-
tive Europe and Asia Minor was
the ' Staff of life ',2 and its name
panicum recalls the fact that, to
the Italic race at least, it was
the original material of bread.

On several tablets (Fig. 609,
b, c, d) this sign alternates with
a parallel ideographic figure representing an ear of corn on a stalk. In
some cases this is bearded (Fig. 609 e), but it seems probable that the simpler
unbearded forms that more frequently occur (Fig. 609, b, c, d) really represent
the same cereal, since they occupy identical positions in similar formulas.
On a series of these both varieties are followed by the *[* sign, also
coupled in the same way with the ' granary'. There is further associated

Followed
by bowl
sign-mark
of liquid
contents.

Proposed
identifica-
tion with
millet.

SI a.

SI I

Q

*5t

744

s-fa.

£

/

Zlf-

Fig. 612. Ear of Barley on Tablets. (Num-
bers REFER TO HAND-LIST.)

1 Millet
beer' of
Paeo-
nians.

Barley
corn asso-
ciated
with other
cereal
signs.

1 Athenaeus, x (p. 447, c) ■ 'Erararos Se .
llatoi-us (firjo-t ttivw fipvrov airb tS>v KpiBwv,

" See Hehn, Ku/turplanzen^c. (1874, ed.,
pp- 4S3. 484)-