Everybody's input here has been most interesting and informative.  But as 
an
experimenter I would also venture to add something about the importance 
of being
exact in trying to reproduce what went on in antiquity.  My own 
experiments showed that one learns unexpected things experimentally that 
were not understood or could be foreseen from a modern point of view, and 
in fact went against the grain (forgive the pun) of modern specialists.   
There is also evidence of Mesopotamian diet from the 3rd and 2nd mbc that 
shows  food rations were distributed according to rank and gender, with 
women and laborers and children getting less, higher ranking officials 
getting more.   But again, an
experiment that stays as close to the truth as we now know it, can still 
reveal some surprises and therefore worth doing.   So I don't agree that 
it would be a 'fool's errand' :)

With regard to the last question on barley flour or meal being 
biologically more unstable than barley grains, or even bread.  Wouldn't 
the addition of salt stabilize all of these?

Bea

>A last word from Stephen.
>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Again, thank you all for your comments and advice, which are proving
>> enormously helpful.  And thank you, especially, Sabine:  I did not
>> know about the twice-baked barley biscuit from Crete--this must be
>> very similar to the biscoctum (i.e. twice-cooked) barley biscuit
>> medieval and early modern Mediterranean galley crews ate.  I will
>> definitely follow that up, in Athens, and in Crete, too, if I can
>> find the time and money.
>>
>> Nic, Anaya and Sabine have again pointed out some of the many
>> problems inherent in this question, and it may seem to some, or
>> most, of you that I am on a fool's errand.  I may be, but I wanted
>> to post one more time in order to provide you with an outline of
>> what we know on this subject, in order to provide a sounder basis
>> for the discussion.  As a start, I should say that Forbes and
>> Foxhall's article (Chiron 12 (1982):  41-90) was ground-breaking in
>> its collection and treatment of the literary and epigraphical
>> evidence (one of the things Anaya asks for in her e-mail) for
>> rations in classical antiquity, and remains the starting point for
>> any research on the topic, although new data and new insights have
>> emerged since they published their artice.  Also:
>>
>> 1.  We know that the predominant type of barley in classical Greece
>> was 6-rowed and hulled.
>>
>> 2.  We do know, from many and various literary sources, that
>> barley-flour, olive oil, and wine were the basis of the diet of the
>> classical Greek soldier and sailor, together with some condiments
>> such as garlic and onions.  We can also use the evidence of rations
>> handed out (we know in many cases that these were handed out and
>> were not just 'paper' rations) to sailors and soldiers in the
>> medieval and early modern Mediterranean as a control on our
>> calculations of the caloric content of the diets of Greek soldiers
>> and sailors (sometimes, of course, they will have needed more, but
>> we are aiming for a norm, in order to produce a minimum estimate,
>> or order of magnitude, rather than aiming at precision).  The
>> caloric content of the diets of soldiers and sailors in the later
>> Mediterranean was roughly between 3,000 and 3,300 calories--with
>> some outliers--and cereals or cereal products made up 60-70% of the
>> caloric content.  This figure of 60-70% is reflected in the diets of
>> most, if not all, pre-industrial Mediterranean populations.
>>
>> 3.  There must have been different grades of flour and we know very
>> little about this for classical Greece, the period I'm interested
>> in, though we do know a little more about this subject for the
>> early Roman empire.  I am assuming, for purposes of calculation,
>> that soldiers and sailors were buying roughly milled barley.  As
>> for crop processing, there is M.-C. Amouretti, *Le pain et
>> l'huile*, and three books recently published in a new series by
>> Brill [Technology and Change in History] on ancient food
>> technology, processing, and milling, but still, for classical
>> Greece, we know very little.
>>
>> I will end with one more question--my last to the list, I promise, I
>> have already taken up too much of your time and thought--brought up
>> by Anaya.  Barley-flour or meal is obviously far more biologically
>> unstable than barley grains, or even bread--does anybody know how
>> long it would last before it became inedible?
>>
>> Again, thank you all for your time and interest,
>> all the best,
>> Stephen.
>
>Mac Marston
>Cotsen Institute of Archaeology
>University of California, Los Angeles
>[log in to unmask]
>C: (310) 923-0640
>
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