On the supposed Mummy Wheat.
Before concluding this article, I think it pertinent to say that no grain taken from an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and sown by horticulturists has ever been known to germinate. It is not that the thing is impossible, for grains are all the better preserved that they are protected from the air and from variations of temperature or humidity, and certainly these conditions are fulfilled by Egyptian monuments; but, as a matter of fact, the attempts at raising wheat from these ancient seeds have not been successful. The experiment which has been most talked of is that of the Count of Sternberg, at Prague.[1820] He had received the grains from a trustworthy traveller, who assured him they were taken from a sarcophagus. Two of these seeds germinated, it is said, but I have ascertained that in Germany well-informed persons believe there is some imposture, either on the part of the Arabs, who sometimes slip modern seeds into the tombs (even maize, an American plant), or on that of the employés of the Count of Sternberg. The grain known in commerce as mummy wheat has never had any proof of antiquity of origin.
Spelt and Allied Varieties or Species.[1821]
Louis Vilmorin,[1822] in imitation of Seringe’s excellent work on cereals,[1823] has grouped together those wheats whose seeds when ripe are closely contained in their envelope or husk, necessitating a special operation to free them from it, a character rather agricultural than botanical. He then enumerates the forms of these wheats under three names, which correspond to as many species of most botanists.
1. Spelt—Triticum spelta, Linnæus.
Spelt is now hardly cultivated out of south Germany and German-Switzerland. This was not the case formerly. The descriptions of cereals by Greek authors are so brief and insignificant that there is always room for hesitation as to the sense of the words they use. Yet, judging from the customs of which they speak, scholars think[1824] that the Greeks first called spelt olyra, afterwards zeia, names which we find in Herodotus and Homer. Dioscorides[1825] distinguishes two sorts of zeia, which apparently answer to Triticum spelta and T. monococcum. It is believed that spelt was the semen (corn, par excellence) and the far of Pliny, which he said was used as food by the Latins for 360 years before they knew how to make bread.[1826] As spelt has not been found among the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and Italy, and as the former cultivated the allied varieties called T. dicoccum and T. monococcum,[1827] it is possible that the far of the Latins was rather one of these.
The existence of the true spelt in ancient Egypt and the neighbouring countries seems to me yet more doubtful. The olyra of the Egyptians, of which Herodotus speaks, was not the olyra of the Greeks; some authors have supposed it to be rice, oryza.[1828] As to spelt, it is a plant which is not grown in such hot countries. Modern travellers from Rauwolf onwards have not seen it in Egyptian cultivation,[1829] nor has it been found in the ancient monuments. This is what led me to suppose[1830] that the Hebrew word kussemeth, which occurs three times in the Bible,[1831] ought not to be attributed to spelt, as it is by Hebrew scholars.[1832] I imagined it was perhaps the allied form, T. monococcum, but neither is this grown in Egypt.
Spelt has no name in Sanskrit, nor in any modern Indian languages, nor in Persian,[1833] and therefore, of course, none in Chinese. European names, on the contrary, are numerous, and bear witness to an ancient cultivation, especially in the east of Europe. Spelta in Saxon, whence the English name, and the French, épeautre; Dinkel in modern German, orkiss in Polish, pobla in Russian,[1834] are names which seem to come from very different roots. In the south of Europe the names are rarer. There is a Spanish one, however, of Asturia, escandia,[1835] but I know of none in Basque.
History, and especially philology, point to an origin in eastern temperate Europe and the neighbouring countries of Asia. We have to discover whether the plant has been found wild.