Egyptians Carrying Grain to the Threshing Floor.
In the ordinary life of the Egyptians, the woman mealed the flour—in as primitive a form as the prehistoric man—and in the British Museum are two wooden models, which show the first process of converting the cereal into meal; and then we have two figures of men kneading dough—from the Museum at Ghizeh (formerly at Boulak). The bread itself was both leavened and unleavened—as may be seen by the many examples—round, triangular, and square—in the British Museum, some of which must have been a foot across, and over an inch thick; the three examples given on page 27 being 5in. in diameter, and 1/2in. thick; 7 ditto and 1/2 ditto; whilst the ornamented cake is 3-1/2in. in diameter and 3/4in. thick.
But there were professional bakers in Egypt, as we see in some of the tomb-pictures. In the Biblical story of Joseph we find that ‘the butler of the King of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the King of Egypt’; and the Rabbi Solomon says their offences were the butler not having perceived a fly in Pharaoh’s cup, and the baker having got a stone into the royal bread, so that Pharaoh thought they were conspiring against his life. We know they were put in prison with Joseph, and related their dreams to him. The dream of the Opheh, or chief baker, was that he ‘had three white baskets on his head, and in the uppermost basket there was all manner of bake meats for Pharaoh.’ The Bible story of Joseph goes on to tell us how, in the years of plenty, he providentially stored up the excess of corn to meet the years of famine, and how the Israelites sent to Egypt for food, and subsequently abode in that land.
Egyptian Methods of Bread-Making.
Thanks to Assyrian art, and to the enduring qualities of bronze, we are able to see how that ancient people made their bread (at least in the camp) during the reign of Shalmaneser II., son of Assur-nasir-abli, who began to govern Assyria about the year 860 B.C., and died in 825 B.C. On the bronze bands of the great gates of Balawat are recorded the warlike doings of Shalmaneser II. in detail. In almost every camp that is represented are men depicted as preparing bread against the return of the, of course, victorious soldiery: we see them mealing the corn, kneading the dough, making it into flat, round cakes, and, finally, piling these up in large heaps ready for the hungry warriors.
These gates were found in the year 1877 by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam, who, whilst excavating for the Trustees of the British Museum on the site of ancient Nineveh, began also excavations at a mound called Balawat, about 15 miles east of Mosul, and nine miles from Nimroud. Having received, as a present, before his departure for the East, some fragments of chased bronze, said to have been found in this mound, he naturally had the greatest wish to follow up the indication of a new store of antiquities. He experienced some difficulty from the villagers of Balawat, as the mound had been used by them for some years as a burial ground, and their scruples having been overcome, the result was the finding of these beautiful bronzes in fragments. They were skilfully restored at the British Museum, where they now are, and rank among the best of Assyrian antiquities.
Egyptian Bread.