File:The story of a grain of wheat (1903) (14766316835).jpg

Identifier: storyofgrainofwh00edga (find matches)
Title: The story of a grain of wheat
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Edgar, William C. (William Crowell), 1856-1932
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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be inferred that thecultivation of wheat, although primitive, ante-dates the most ancient tongues known to moderncivilization. Altogether, since Mesopotamia seemsto have the best claim to the distinction, it wouldseem permissible to consider the first wheat-fieldsknown to history to have been situated there. To the student of the archaeology of wheat,Egypt, that land of prehistoric civilization, pre-sents a field of absorbing interest. That grainwas grown and consumed by the ancient Egyp-tians is beyond question, but Egyptologists aredivided as to the age of wheat culture in thatcountry. Before setting forth the views, of thefew scholars who have made a special study ofancient Egyptian agriculture, it may be remarkedthat each and all of these authorities are anterior THE STORY OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT 35 to the modern age of Egyptology, which barelydates back a quarter of a century. The discov-eries of Maspero and his school have greatly ex-tended Egyptian history, and have taken the story
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Wheat Market, Assouan, Egypt. of its civilization back to a very remote period.The origin of wheat culture in Egypt must re-main, it is to be feared, as obscure a problem asthat of the original home of this cereal. Someauthorities doubt the use of wheat or of any grainby the aboriginal inhabitants of the Nile valley.The primitive men who lived by the banks of theNile before the formation of the delta are sup-posed to have lived on fish and plants of the lotusvariety. But the formation of the delta is datedback by geologists quite twenty thousand years, $6 THE STORY OF A GRAIN OF WHEAT and an antiquity of half that period for wheat andbarley would be a respectable pedigree. Dr.Budge, the head of the Egyptian department atthe British Museum, is not inclined to believethat wheat is indigenous in Egypt or that it wasgrown there in very ancient times. He does be-lieve, however, that in prehistoric days a red grainwas cultivated, which he is inclined to identifywith barley, though this seem

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