Dear Beatrice and friends,
sure there is all kinds of literature on Greek rations, (specializing on
Aegean Prehistory I'm most interested in Bronze Age subjects like Palmer, R.
(1989) Subsistence rations at Pylos and Knossos. Minos 24, 89-124), but I'd
prefer to have as many sources as can be for comparison when thinking about
the possibilities of how big a family might have lived from how big a field
(including the difficult question of how much such a field would grow
without fertilizer...).
We have quite an interesting amount of balance weights in the BA Aegean
(stone, metal), and specialists have determined their relations and
nominations, but their possible practical uses are still quite unclear.
So this is where we can start to use a traditional hand mill (mine is made
from two stones being turned on each other, and naturally produces a rather
coarse flour) and compare. But for those who are not so lucky with
traditional tools each organic food store should have similarly ground
flour!
Please let me know, if you like, as many results as possible from your own
experiments, I'm very interested!
Green greetings from Crete
Sabine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Beatrice Hopkinson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 8:45 PM
Subject: Re: barley and barley-flour weights/densities
> Mac and Sabine,
>
> As you are in Greece I would have thought that Naval rations are
> well documented in provisioning reports and could be researched that
> way.
>
> I have been involved with weights and measures in Europe and the
> suggestion below from Sabine re densitites would be a good way to go
> particularly if you use stone-ground flour rather than processed flour -
> the difference could be considerable between the two. I have tried it
> with
> grain size in salt with an Elizabethan bushel measure and the difference
> was 50%! I don't know if Sabine's suggestioned below was in error and
> was
> meant to read "a plastic liter measure" rather than a "plastic vessel
> CONTAINING a liter
> of water" ?
>
> I would add that in a barter economy ( which is was mainly in
> antiquity ) , volumetric
> measures of grain were more likely than weight measures - though for some
> products
> I think it is clear that weighing machines were in use.
>
> We are having a weights and measures discussion on the ANE list at
> the moment and if you feel it would be relevant I could send you the
> information documented in the
> UK for the 8-11th century.
>
> Bea
>
>
>>Hello,
>>
>>my first idea would be to get a kilo (or three, as for that) of barley
>>grain plus the same in flour, put them respectively in a common kitchen
>>measure (usually a plastic vessel containing about a liter of water and
>>showing lines on different heights for so much sugar, flour, water in
>>weight and/or ml-dl) and compare...
>>
>>But I would be very interested in all kinds of other measures or
>>information coming out of this question - could you all please answer to
>>the list?
>>I would also be interested in studies trying to account for the actual
>>amount of barley/wheat that is necessary to feed a man with different
>>kinds of work.
>>
>>Sabine Beckmann
>>
>>
>>University of Crete
>>Dept. of History and Archaeology
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: John (Mac) Marston
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Saturday, March 17, 2007 7:07 PM
>> Subject: barley and barley-flour weights/densities
>>
>>
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>>
>> A colleague in Athens is attempting to sort out weights and measures of
>>barley-flour in antiquity. The crux of the problem appears to be the
>>relative difference in densities between wheat and barley flour. If anyone
>>has numerical data on this, it would be much appreciated. See the text
>>below for more detail: please reply to Stephen directly, myself, or the
>>list.
>>
>>
>> Thank you for your help!
>>
>>
>> Mac
>>
>>
>>
>> I am currently researching and writing a dissertation on the
>> provisioning of Greek soldiers and sailors in the fifth and fourth
>> centuries B.C.E. For this work, I need to be able to calculate (or
>> at least come up with orders of magnitude for) the amounts of grain
>> that classical Greek military forces consumed over given periods of
>> time. In order to do this, I need to to be able to calculate how
>> much the standard daily consumption of barley-flour (since this was
>> the form that the dominant cereal component of classical Greek
>> soldiers and sailors' diets took) was for an average Greek soldier
>> or sailor.
>>
>>
>> Unfortunately, these calculations have been complicated by the fact
>> that grains in classical antiquity were measured, sold and
>> distributed by volume, rather than by weight. Thus, while we have,
>> relatively speaking, much information on the size by volume of
>> military and other cereal rations, we have only one equivalency
>> which permits us to convert volumes of barley and wheat into
>> weights: this comes from a recently published fourth-century
>> Athenian grain-tax law [R.S. Stroud, *The Athenian grain-tax law of
>> 374/3 B.C.* (Princeton, 1998), 54-55], prescribing weights for
>> tax-grain from Lemnos, Imbros, and Scyros, of 0.63kg for a liter of
>> wheat and of 0.51kg for a liter of barley.
>>
>>
>> I had been hoping to use this equivalency to come up with a weight
>> by volume for barley-flour, but I have been unable to find data
>> anywhere on how much less a given volume of barley-flour weighs
>> than the given volume of barley it was made from. This is the key
>> question for me, and I cannot build the base of my dissertation
>> without answering it. Any advice, information, or bibliography
>> would therefore be greatly appreciated.
>>
>>
>> Stephen ([log in to unmask])
>>
>>
>> Mac Marston
>>
>> Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
>>
>> University of California, Los Angeles
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> C: (310) 923-0640
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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