DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0091
74 DOMESTIC HABITS OF THE EGYPTIANS.
connected with the necessary food of man; and very little
variety in the crops grown on the same field sufficed to prevent
the land being impoverished or run out. They frequently dis-
pensed with the use of the plough, and then merely dragged
the wet mud with hushes, before throwing in the seed, which
was sown broadcast. The plough was drawn by two oxen,
sometimes yoked by the neck, sometimes by the horns; and
one instance occurs of it drawn by men, showing that the
breaking up of the surface was alone required ; which might be
aptly described by the Roman term " scarification." This sin-
gular and interesting subject (now in the Louvre) is shown by
its style to be from a Theban tomb of the eighteenth, or the
beginning of the nineteenth dynasty; and it forms part of the
same agricultural scene with the succeeding woodcut.
The wheat was cut with a toothed sickle, a short way below the
ear, and was then carried hi coarse nets to the threshing-floor;
but the doom (or holcus sorghum) was plucked up by the roots,
and, when the earth had been beaten off with the hand, was
tied up in bundles or small sheaves, the grain on its round
head being afterwards stripped off by an instrument furnished
with three or four prongs, through which it was forcibly drawn.
Their mode of threshing was with oxen, which, driven over
the corn strewed upon the hard ground, or on a paved floor,
trod out the grain; as they still do in Italy, Spain, and some
other countries; and the ox was " unmuzzled," as with the
Jews. The grain was then winnowed; and having been piled
up hi great heaps, was carried off in baskets to the granary ;
one teller being employed, with the usual caution of the
Egyptians, to note down the number of measures removed, and
another to verify the quantity on their arrival at the granary.
Great attention was paid to the rearing of cattle and sheep ;
and many wild animals, as the gazelle, the ibex or wild goat,
)at,
connected with the necessary food of man; and very little
variety in the crops grown on the same field sufficed to prevent
the land being impoverished or run out. They frequently dis-
pensed with the use of the plough, and then merely dragged
the wet mud with hushes, before throwing in the seed, which
was sown broadcast. The plough was drawn by two oxen,
sometimes yoked by the neck, sometimes by the horns; and
one instance occurs of it drawn by men, showing that the
breaking up of the surface was alone required ; which might be
aptly described by the Roman term " scarification." This sin-
gular and interesting subject (now in the Louvre) is shown by
its style to be from a Theban tomb of the eighteenth, or the
beginning of the nineteenth dynasty; and it forms part of the
same agricultural scene with the succeeding woodcut.
The wheat was cut with a toothed sickle, a short way below the
ear, and was then carried hi coarse nets to the threshing-floor;
but the doom (or holcus sorghum) was plucked up by the roots,
and, when the earth had been beaten off with the hand, was
tied up in bundles or small sheaves, the grain on its round
head being afterwards stripped off by an instrument furnished
with three or four prongs, through which it was forcibly drawn.
Their mode of threshing was with oxen, which, driven over
the corn strewed upon the hard ground, or on a paved floor,
trod out the grain; as they still do in Italy, Spain, and some
other countries; and the ox was " unmuzzled," as with the
Jews. The grain was then winnowed; and having been piled
up hi great heaps, was carried off in baskets to the granary ;
one teller being employed, with the usual caution of the
Egyptians, to note down the number of measures removed, and
another to verify the quantity on their arrival at the granary.
Great attention was paid to the rearing of cattle and sheep ;
and many wild animals, as the gazelle, the ibex or wild goat,
)at,