A
threshing-board is an obsolete farm implement used to separate cereals from their straw; that is, to
threshThreshing is the process of loosening the edible part of cereal grain from the scaly, inedible chaff that surrounds it. It is the step in grain preparation before winnowing, which separates the loosened chaff from the grain. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain.Threshing may be done by...
. It is a thick board, made with a variety of slats, with a shape between rectangular and trapezoidal, with the frontal part somewhat narrower and curved upward (like a
sled or sledgeA sled, sledge, or sleigh is a vehicle that moves by sliding. Usually runners or a smooth underside enable a sled to slide. Sleds are used for transport on surfaces with low friction, usually snow or ice...
) and whose bottom is covered with
lithic flakeIn archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure," and may also be referred to as a chip or spall, or collectively as debitage. The objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of flakes, is known as a core. Once the proper...
s or
razorA razor is a bladed tool primarily used in the shaving off of unwanted body hair.- Early razors :Razors have been identified from many Bronze Age cultures. These were made of bronze or obsidian and were generally oval in shape, with a small tang protruding from one of the short ends...
-like metal blades.
One form, once common in the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it...
area, was "about three to four feet wide and six feet deep (these dimensions often vary, however), consisting of two or three wooden planks assembled to one another, of more than four inches wide, in which several hard and cutting flints crammed into the bottom part pull along over the grains. In the rear part there is a large ring nailed, that is used to tie the rope that pulls it and to which two horses are usually harnessed; and a person, sitting on the threshing-board, drives it in circles over the cereal that is spread on the threshing floor. Should the person need more weight, he need only put some big stones over it."
The dimensions of threshing boards varied. In
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, they could be up to approximately two meters in length and a meter and a half wide. There were also smaller threshing-boards, as little about a meter-and-a-half long and a meter wide. The thickness of the slats of the threshing-board is some five or six centimeters. Nonetheless, since threshing-boards are nowadays custom made, made to order or made smaller as an adornment or souvenir, they may range from miniatures up to the sizes previously described.
The threshing-board has been traditionally pulled by mules or by oxen over the grains spread on the
threshing floorA threshing floor is a specially flattened surface made either of rock or beaten earth where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest. The threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family. It was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind....
. As it was moved in circles over the harvest that was spread, the stone chips or blades cut the
strawStraw is an agricultural by-product, the dry stalk of a cereal plant, after the grain or seed has been removed. Straw makes up about half of the yield of cereal crops such as barley, oats, rice, rye and wheat...
and the ear of
wheatWheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
(which remained between the threshing-board and the pebbles on the ground), thus separating the seed without actually damaging it. The threshed grain was then gathered and set to be cleaned by some means of winnowing.
Traditional threshing systems
Until the arrival of
combine harvesterThe combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The objective is to complete three processes, which used to be distinct, in one pass of the machine over a particular part of the field. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn ,...
s, which reap, thresh and clean grain in a single process, the traditional methods of threshing cereals and some
legumeIn botanical writing legume is a plant in the family Fabaceae , or a fruit of these specific plants. A'legume' fruit is a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces on two sides. A common name for this type of fruit is a pod, although "pod" is also applied to a few...
s were those described by
Pliny the ElderGaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
in his Natural History, with three variants: "The cereals are threshed in some places with the threshing-board on the threshing floor; in others they are trampled by a train of horses, and in others they are beaten with flails".
In this manner, Pliny refers to the three traditional methods of threshing grain:
- Beating sheafs of grain against a crushing stone or a crushing lump of wood.
- Trampling grain spread on the threshing floor; the trampling would be done by a train of mules or oxen
- Threshing with flail
A flail is an agricultural tool used for threshing to separate grains from their husks.It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the other to strike a pile of grain, loosening the husks...
s, a type of traditional wooden tool with which one strikes the pile of grain until the seed is separated from the chaffChaff is the inedible, dry, scaly protective casings of the seeds of cereal grain, or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material such as scaly parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw...
.
Threshing with the threshing-board
The threshing-board is a historical form of threshing that can still be seen in some regions that practice a marginal agriculture. It is also somewhat preserved as an occasional
folkloricFolklore is the body of expressive culture, including stories, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which...
and ceremonial practice, to commemorate traditional local customs.
For threshing with the threshing-board, first one brings the baled stalks to the threshing floor. Some are stacked, waiting their turn, and others are untied and placed in a circle forming a pile of grain that is heated by the sun. Then, the farmers drag the threshing board over the stalks, first going several times around in circles, and then in figure-eights, and stirring the grain with a wooden
pitchforkA pitchfork is an agricultural tool with a long handle and long, thin, widely separated pointed tines used to lift and pitch loose material, such as hay, leaves, grapes, dung or other agricultural materials. Pitchforks typically have from two to six tines with different lengths and spacing...
. Sometimes, this work was done with another kind of threshing implement: a Plostellum punicum (Latin; literally "Punic cart") or
threshing-cart, fitted with a group of rollers, each with metallic transverse razors. In this first stage, the straw is detached from the ear; much chaff and dirty dust remains, mixed with the edible grain. Every time that the work of dragging the threshing board is repeated, the grain is stirred again, moving more straw to the edge of the threshing floor. If too much grain is spread on the ground, it has to be raked and swept in order to make a round mound and, if possible, to remove as much straw as possible.
After turning the grain and straw upside down and leaving it to dry during a lunch break, the farmers carry out a second round of threshing in order to separate the last of the grain from the straw. Then, they use pitchforks, rakes and brooms to create a mound. A pair of oxen or mules pulls the threshing-board by means of a chain or a strap fixed to a hook nailed in the front plank;
donkeyThe donkey or ass, Equus africanus asinus, is a domesticated member of the Equidae or horse family, and an odd-toed ungulate. The wild ancestor of the donkey is the African Wild Ass, E. africanus. Traditionally, the scientific name for the donkey is Equus asinus asinus based on the principle of...
s are not used, because unlike mules and oxen they often defecate on the crops. The driver rides on the threshing-board, both guiding the draft animals and increasing the weight of the threshing-board. If the driver's weight is not enough, large stones are put on the board. In recent times, the animals are sometimes replaced with a
tractorA tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
; because the driver no longer sits on the board, the weight of stones becomes more important. Children enjoy riding on the threshing-board for fun, and the farmers allow it because their weight is useful, as long as the children are not too boisterous. During this process, if the stalks are excessively squashed, two large metal arcs are affixed to the back of the threshing-board; these turn-up and give volume to the straws, behind the threshing.
After threshing is finished, to avoid the mixing the dirty remnants with the clean, new stalks, the threshing floor must be cleaned first with a rake to move the more heavier material, and then with several brooms (in the narrow sense: they are typically made from "
broom shrubBrooms are a group of evergreen, semi-evergreen, and deciduous shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the legume family Fabaceae, mainly in the three genera Chamaecytisus, Cytisus and Genista, but also in five other small genera . All genera in this group are from the tribe Genisteae...
"—
Cytisus scopariusCytisus scoparius is a perennial, leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe from the Iberian Peninsula north to the British Isles and southern Scandinavia, and east to Poland and Romania, where it is found in sunny sites, usually on dry, sandy soils at low altitudes...
—and are stronger than domestic brooms). Also the straw was accumulated carefully and stored, because it was a good
fodderIn agriculture, fodder or animal feed is any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed domesticated livestock such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs. Most animal feed is from plants but some is of animal origin...
for
livestockLivestock are one or more domesticated animals raised in an agricultural setting to produce commodities such as food or fiber, or labor...
. The entire process of threshing generates a thin dust that soaks in through the
respiratory systemThe respiratory systems function is to allow gas exchange to all parts of the body. The space between the alveoli & the capillaries, the anatomy or structure of the exchange system, and the precise physiological uses of the exchanged gases vary depending on the organism...
and sticks to the
throatIn anatomy, the throat is the anterior part of the neck, in front of the vertebral column. It consists of the pharynx and larynx. An important feature of the throat is the epiglottis, a flap which separates the esophagus from the trachea and prevents inhalation of food or drink.The throat...
.
During the sweeping, the
huskHusk in botany is the outer shell or coating of a seed. It usually refers to the leafy outer covering of an ear of maize as it grows on the plant. Literally, a husk or hull includes the protective outer covering of a seed, fruit or vegetable...
s and the
chaffChaff is the inedible, dry, scaly protective casings of the seeds of cereal grain, or similar fine, dry, scaly plant material such as scaly parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw...
are separated to one part of the threshing-floor, while the grain, still not entirely clean, was winnowed, either by traditional of winnowing with
sieveIn general, a sieve separates wanted/desired/needed elements from unwanted material using a tool such as a mesh, net or other filtration or distillation methods, but it is also used for classification of powders by particle size, or for size measurement as an analytical technique. The word "sift"...
s, or by a mechanical winnowing machine.
Traditional threshing implements (including the threshing-board) were gradually abandoned and replaced by modern combine harvesters. This change, of course, occurred in some areas before others. For instance, in Spain, it happened in the 1950s and 1960s.
Until that time, threshing-boards were made in certain particular towns and villages with specialized craftsmen. Whereas the woodworking involved is simple, even rough, the flintknapping and the inlaying of flakes into the bottom of board need specialized skills that were passed from father to son. The most famous Spanish town for this work was, doubtlessly,
CantalejoCantalejo is a municipality located in the province of Segovia, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 3,622 inhabitants. The dialect known as Gacería was spoken here....
(
SegoviaSegovia is a province of central/northern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Burgos, Soria, Guadalajara, Madrid, Ávila, and Valladolid....
), where the craftsmen who made threshing-boards were known as briqueros.
Origins in the Neolithic and Copper Age
Patricia C. Anderson (of Centre d’Etudes Préhistoire, Antiquité et Moyen Age del CNRS
), discovered archaeological remains that demonstrate the existence of threshing-boards at least 8,000 years old in the Near EastNear East today is an ambiguous term that covers different countries for archeologists and historians, on one hand, and for political scientists, economists, and journalists, on the other...
and BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
. The artefacts are lithic flakeIn archaeology, a lithic flake is a "portion of rock removed from an objective piece by percussion or pressure," and may also be referred to as a chip or spall, or collectively as debitage. The objective piece, or the rock being reduced by the removal of flakes, is known as a core. Once the proper...
s and, above all obsidianObsidian is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock. It is produced when felsic lava extruded from a volcano cools without crystal growth...
or flintFlint is a hard, sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as a variety of chert. It occurs chiefly as nodules and masses in sedimentary rocks, such as chalks and limestones. Inside the nodule, flint is usually dark grey, black, green, white, or brown in color, and...
bladeA blade is the flat part of a tool, weapon, or machine that normally has a cutting edge and/or pointed end typically made of a flaking stone, such as flint, or metal, most recently steel...
s, recognizable through the type of microscopic wear that it has. Her work was completed by Jacques Chabot (of the Centre interuniversitaire d'études sur les lettres, les arts et les traditions, CELAT), who has studied
MitanniMitanni or Hanigalbat was a loosely organized Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria from ca. 1500 BC-1300 BC...
(northern
MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
and
ArmeniaArmenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
). Both count among their specialties the study of microwear analysis, through which it is possible to take a particular piece of flint or obsidian (to take the most common examples) and determine the tasks for which it was used.
Concretely, the cutting of cereals leaves a very characteristic
glossyGloss is an optical property, which is based on the interaction of light with physical characteristics of a surface. It is actually the ability of a surface to reflect light into the specular direction. The factors that affects gloss are the refractive index of the material, the angle of incident...
pattern of wear, owing to the presence of microscopic mineral particles (phytolithA phytolith is a rigid microscopic body that occurs in many plants. The most common type of phytolith is the silica phytolith, also called opal phytolith. Silica phytoliths vary in size and shape depending on the plant taxon and plant part in which they occur...
s
) in the stalks of the plants. Therefore, scholars using controlled experimental replication studies and functional analysis with a scanning electron microscopeThe scanning electron microscope is a type of electron microscope that images the sample surface by scanning it with a high-energy beam of electrons in a raster scan pattern...
are able to identify stone artifacts that were used sickleA sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crop or cutting grass for hay. The inside of the curve is sharp, so that the user can draw or swing the blade against the base of the crop, catching it in the curve and slicing it at the same time...
s or threshing-boards. The edge damage on the pieces used in threshing-boards is distinct because, besides the glossy abrasion characteristic of cutting cereals, they have micro-scars from chipping, as a result of the blows of the threshing-board against the rock surface of the threshing floor.
The most productive
archaeological siteAn archaeological site is a place in which evidence of past activity is preserved , and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology and represents a part of the archaeological recordBeyond this, the definition and geographical extent of a 'site' can vary widely,...
is
AratashenAratashen is a town in the Armavir Province of Armenia. A neolithic-chalcolithic tell is located south of the town.- References :* – World-Gazetteer.com...
, Armenia: a village occupied between 5000 and 3000 BC (
NeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BCE in the Middle East that is traditionally considered the last part of the Stone Age...
and
Copper AgeThe Chalcolithic period or Copper Age period [also known as the Eneolithic ], is a phase in the development of human culture in which the use of early metal tools appeared alongside the use of stone tools.The period is a transitional one outside of the traditional three-age system, and occurs...
). The archaeological excavations have provided thousands of pieces from the knapping of obsidian (suggesting that Aratashen was a center of production and trade of artifacts of that highly-regarded stone); the rest of the
archaeological recordThe archaeological record is a term used in archaeology to denote all archaeological evidence, including the physical remains of past human activities which archaeologists seek out and record in an attempt to analyze and reconstruct the past...
consists mainly of fragments of common pottery,
ground stoneIn archaeology, ground stone is a category of stone tool formed by the grinding of a coarse-grained tool stone, either purposely or incidentally. Ground stone tools are usually made of basalt, rhyolite, granite, or other macrocrystalline igneous stones whose coarse structure makes them ideal for...
s, and other agricultural tools. Analyzing a sample of 200 lithic flakes and blades, selected from the best-preserved pieces, it is possible to differentiate between those used in sickles and those used in threshing-boards. The lithic blades of obsidian were knapped using highly-developed and standardized methods, such as the use of a "pectoral crutch" with a copper point. Beginning at the headwaters of the river
EuphratesThe Euphrates is the longest and historically one of the most important rivers of Southwest Asia. Together with the Tigris, the Euphrates is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia...
, where this site is located, the craftsmen and peddlers sold their wares throughout the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
.
The threshing-boards must have been important in the
protohistoryProtohistory refers to a period between prehistory and history, during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted its existence in their own writings...
of Mesopotamia, since they already appear in the some of the oldest written documents discovered: specifically, several
sandstoneSandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow,...
tablets from the early town of
Kish-Geography:*Kish Island, an Iranian island and a city in the Persian Gulf*Kish , an ancient city in Sumer, now in Iraq*Kish Bank, a shallow in the Irish Sea*Kiş, Khojavend, Azerbaijan*Kiş, Shaki, Azerbaijan-People:*Kish , a person in the Bible...
(
IraqIraq , officially the Republic of Iraq , also known as Mesopotamia, is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert.Iraq shares borders with Jordan to the west, Syria...
), engraved with
cuneiformCuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world. Cuneiform writing emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC during the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing...
pictograms, which could be the world's oldest surviving written record, dating to the middle of the
4th millennium BCThe 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing.The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt are established and grow to prominence. Agriculture spreads widely across Eurasia...
(Early
Uruk periodThe Uruk period existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, following the Ubaid period and succeeded by the Jemdet Nasr period. Named after the Sumerian city of Uruk, this period saw the emergence of urban life in Mesopotamia. It was...
). One of these tablets, preserved in the
Ashmolean MuseumThe Ashmolean Museum on Beaumont Street, Oxford, England, is the world's first university museum...
of Oxford University, appears to have pictures of threshing-boards on both faces, next to some numeric symbols and other pictograms. These presumed threshing-boards (which might instead be sledges) have a shape similar to threshing-carts that were used until recently in parts of the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
where non-industrial agriculture survived. Descriptions also appear in numerous cuneiform
clay tabletIn ancient times, small tablets made out of clay were used as a writing medium.From the 4th millennium BCE in the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian and Hittite civilisations of the Mesopotamia region, cuneiform characters were imprinted on a wet clay tablet with a stylus often made of reed. Once...
s as early as the third millennium BC.
There are another representation, in this case without writing, in central Turkey. It is an impression of a
cylinder sealA cylinder seal is a cylinder engraved with a 'picture story', used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. First appearing in the Near East during the Uruk period, later versions would employ notations with Mesopotamian hieroglyphs...
from the archaeological site of
Arslantepe-MalatyaMalatya is a city and a province in middle eastern Turkey.- Overview :In ancient times, it was also known by its older name of Melitene, that dates back to the Roman period. An even older name was Melid...
, which appeared near of the named «Temple B». The archaeological layers were dated to 3374 BC using
dendrochronologyDendrochronology or tree-ring dating is the scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings. Dendrochronology can date the time at which tree rings were formed, in many types of wood, to the exact calendar year...
. The stamp shows a figure seated on a threshing-board, with a clear image of the lithic flakes inlaid in the bottom of the board. The main figure is sitting (possibly on a
throneA throne is the official chair or seat upon which a monarch is seated on state or ceremonial occasions. "Throne" in an abstract sense can also refer to the monarchy or the Crown itself, an instance of metonymy, and is also used in many terms such as "the power behind the throne".-Thrones in ancient...
) under a
dossalA Dossal , from French dos , is an ecclesiastical ornamented cloth suspended behind an altar.Altar screen is sometimes used as a synonym for the Dossal....
. In front is a driver or oxherd, and there are peasants with pitchforks nearby. According to M. A. Frangipane, that the seal may illustrate a religious scene:
It closely resembles another scene, painted on the walls of the same site (a ceremonial procession of a person of high rank, painted in an archaic lineal style in the colours red and black), although the current condition of the wall obscures the exact nature of the vehicle in which he is seated, it is indeed possible to see that it is pulled by a pair of oxen. Professor Sherratt interprets both scenes as presenting manifestations of civil or religious power. In that era, the threshing-board was a sophisticated and expensive implement, built by specialized artisans, using pieces of flint or obsidian; in the case of Lower Mesopotamia, these were imported from far away: in the alluvial plateau of Sumer, as in all south of Mesopotamia, it was impossible to find stone, not even a pebble.
Furthermore, threshing required a threshing floor composed of natural rock, cobbles or, at least, very hard and compressed ground, located in a sunny place situated in a rise in the ground with a constant dry wind, and with a flat base that would not allow puddles to form when it rained. So, a threshing floor was not available to just anybody. It was expensive, as we can see from the biblical citations in the following section. Also, it required draft animals, expensive and difficult to drive (because this was not a matter of having them walk in a straight line). All this meant that a threshing implement required a large amount of harvested grain to pay off the expenditure. Thus, the rise of the threshing-board turns on a distinctive, sophisticated system of powerful elites.
The discovery of a ceremonial sledge (perhaps a threshing-board) with gold ornaments in the
Tomb of Pu-AbiPu-Abi was an important personage in the Sumerian city of Ur who lived about 2600-2500 BCE, during the First Dynasty of Ur. While she is normally labeled as a "queen", that title is somewhat in dispute....
, one of the "royal tombs" of
UrUr was a city in ancient Sumer, located at the site of modern Tell el-Mukayyar in Iraq's Dhi Qar Governorate....
, dated from the
3rd millennium BCThe 3rd millennium BC spans the Early to Middle Bronze Age.It represents a period of time in which imperialism, or the desire to conquer, grew to prominence, in the city states of the Middle East, but also throughout Eurasia, with Indo-European expansion to Anatolia, Europe and Central Asia. The...
, makes clear the underlying problem of distinguishing in the ancient representations between a true threshing-board and a sledge (that is, an unwheeled vehicle for hauling freight). Although we know that the threshing-board appears no later than the
4th millennium BCThe 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture. It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of writing.The city states of Sumer and the kingdom of Egypt are established and grow to prominence. Agriculture spreads widely across Eurasia...
(as we can see in Atarashen
and Arslantepe-Malatya), and we also know that the wheel was invented in Mesopotamia in the middle of that same millennium, still, the utilization and spread of the wheel was not instantaneous. The sledges survived at least until the invention of the articulated axle, nearly 2000 BC. During this time, some vehicles were hybrids: sledges with wheels that could be dismantled to overcome obstacles by carrying it on shoulders or, simply, dragging it. Consequently—except in the case of Arslantepe, where the lithic flakes are clear visible—we cannot determine whether these representations are threshing-boards or sledges for freight or for rites.
James FrazerSir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion....
compiled numerous ceremonies of harvest and thresh, that centered on a Cereal Spirit
. From the Ancient EgyptAncient Egypt was an ancient civilization of eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. The civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh, and...
ian era to pre-industrial period, this spirit seems to have reside d in the first threshed sheaf or, sometimes, in the last one.
Biblical references
Any reference to the act of threshing or to the threshing board itself is incomplete without a reference to the threshing floor, because the work of threshing by necessity requires a threshing floor. The first biblical mention of the threshing floor is in . As such, it was not a shed, building, or any place covered with a roof and surrounded by walls, but a circular piece of ground from fifty to a hundred feet in diameter, in the open air, on elevated ground, and made smooth, hardy, and clean. Here the grain was threshed and winnowed.
In the Bible are found four modes of threshing grain (some of which modes are expounded in ):
- With a rod or flail. This was for small, delicate seeds such as flitches and cummin. It was also used when only small quantities of grain was to be threshed, or when it was necessary to conceal the operation from an enemy. Examples are found in , when Ruth "beat out" what she had gleaned during the day, and , when Gideon "threshed (Hebrew, chabat, "beat out") wheat by the winepress to hide it from the Midianites."
- With the charuts, Hebrew for "threshing instrument." This is the threshing board or sledge under discussion in this article.
- With the agalah, Hebrew for "cart-wheel." This type of threshing instrument is probably referred to in . The term agalah is supposed to have been the same as the morag, "threshing instrument," mentioned in , , and , though some make the morag and the charuts the same. This instrument is still known in Egypt by the name of mowrej. It consists of three or four heavy rollers of wood, iron, or stone, roughly made and joined together in a square frame, which is in the form of a sledge or drag. Rollers are said to be like barrels of an organ with their projections. Cylinders are parallel with each other and are stuck full of spikes having sharp square points. It is used the same way as the charuts. The driver sits on the machine, and with his weight helps to keep it down. (Authorities are not agreed as to the differences between the charuts, the morag, and the agalah.)
- By treading. The last mode is that of simply treading out the grain with a horse or an ox. is an example of this. The Egyptians used this rather inefficient mode of threshing with multiple oxen, and this mode is still in use in the East.
All four methods are discussed at length in the Talmud.
Two apparently coincident descriptive narratives are given in and with regard to King David's purchase of the threshing floor on Mount
MoriahMoriah is the name given to a mountain range by the Book of Genesis, in which context it is given as the location of the near sacrifice of Isaac. Traditionally Moriah has been interpreted as the name of the specific mountain at which this occurred, rather than just the name of the range...
(as well as Mount Moriah itself). In it, the Lord's directive to Gad, King David's prophet, was to instruct David to "rear an altar unto the Lord in the threshingfloor of
AraunahAraunah is the name given by the Books of Samuel to a Jebusite who owned the threshing floor on the summit of Mount Moriah that David purchased and used as the site for assembling an altar to God. The Book of Chronicles, a later text, renders his name as Ornan.-Biblical narrative:The narrative...
the
JebusiteAccording to the Hebrew Bible, the Jebusites were a Canaanite tribe who inhabited and built Jerusalem prior to its conquest by King David; the Books of Kings state that Jerusalem was known as Jebus prior to this event...
" ( and ) during the end of the three-day plague that was then ensuing upon David's people of Israel. In the 1Chronicles account, the purchase of the entire hilltop of Mount Moriah is the subject, which is why the purchase price (verse 25) is different from the 2 Samuel account.
This selection is highly significant for several reasons:
- It was selected by the Lord (not David) .
- Araunah's threshing floor was located on a hilltop called Mount Moriah. It is the same location of Abraham's attempted sacrifice of his son, Isaac .
- The typology of the threshing floor is signified by and . It means that only the grain is gathered and admitted into the kingdom of God, while the chaff is cast into the unquenchable fire.
- On this hilltop was later built Solomon's Temple , whose own typology heightens the significance of the threshing floor typology.
The selected place, Mount Moriah, was owned by Araunah (or, Ornan) the Jebusite, a rich villager who owned and operated the threshing floor on Mount Moriah. Araunah was awed by the visit of the king and offered his oxen to
sacrificeSacrifice is commonly known as the practice of offering food, objects , or the lives of animals or people to the gods as an act of propitiation or worship...
and the threshing boards and other implements as wood for the sacrifice. Even so, David rejected any gift to come from a pagan and instead affirmed his intent to purchase first the oxen and threshing floor, then, later, the whole of Mount Moriah that contained it. Had David accepted Araunah's offer, it would have been Araunah's sacrifice instead of David's.
The references to the purchase are ostensively contradictory about the purchase price; it is 50
shekelShekel , also rendered sheqel, refers to one of many ancient units of weight and currency. The first known usage is from Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. One explanation is given for the origination of this word as to have originally applied to a specific mass of barley, and the first syllable of the...
s of
silverSilver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
according to , and 600 shekels of
goldGold is a chemical element with the symbol Au and an atomic number of 79. It has been a highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since the beginning of recorded history. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. Gold is...
according to . However, this contradiction is only on the surface. The 50 shekels was the initial price to purchase the two oxen and the threshing floor, but the later price of 600 shekels was paid to purchase the property of Mount Moriah in addition
to the oxen and threshing floor contained within
and earlier purchased.
Generally, all threshing floors were located on hilltops, not to associate with the various gods, but to expose them to prevailing winds that assist in the process of winnowing. The wind adds to the typology of the threshing floor, as the wind is a type of the Holy Ghost (see ).
The last Biblical mention of threshing floors is in and . The term "floor" is the Greek halon which means threshing floor, and this fits the import of the two verses. The typology of the threshing floor on Mount Moriah, Solomon's Temple, and these two verses are significant.
As for the word "thresh," The last biblical mention is in , again showing the typology of separating the chaff from the wheat.
Classical Greece and Rome
During the early history of Greece and Rome the threshing board was not used. Only after the development of commerce (with occurred in the 5th and 4th centuries in Greece and 2nd and 1st centuries in Rome) and the subsequent transmission of information from the near east that it became widely used. According to V.V. Struve, who cites, in part, verses of The Iliad, the Greeks of the 8th century BC threshed cereals by trampling them with oxen:
CarthageCarthage refers both to an ancient city in present-day Tunisia, and a modern-day suburb of Tunis. The civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic or Carthaginian...
, which colonized the southeastern
Iberian PeninsulaThe Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small area of France. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas—the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas...
in the 3rd century BC, had advanced agricultural technology, greatly superior to the Roman techniques of the time. Their methods astonished travellers such as
AgathoclesAgathocles , , was tyrant of Syracuse and king of Sicily .-Biography:...
and
RegulusMarcus Atilius Regulus , a general and consul in the ninth year of the First Punic War . Regulus defeated the Salentini and captured Brundisium during his first term as consul in 267 BC....
, and were an inspiration for the writings of
VarroMarcus Terentius Varro , also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer.-Biography:...
and Pliny. One well-known Carthaginian agronomist,
MagoMago was a Carthaginian writer, author of an agricultural manual in Punic which was a record of the farming knowledge of Carthage. The Punic text has been lost, but some fragments of Greek and Latin translations survive....
, wrote a treatise that was translated into Latin by order of the Roman Senate. The ancient Romans describe Tunisia, today mainly desert, as a fertile landscape of olive groveOlive Grove was Sheffield Wednesday F.C.'s first permanent football ground, home to the club for just over a decade at the end of the 19th Century...
s and wheat fieldsWheat is a worldwide cultivated grass from the Fertile Crescent region of the Near East. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
. In HispaniaHispania was the name given by the Romans to the whole of the Iberian Peninsula . When Rome was a republic, Hispania was divided into two provinces: Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior...
, the Carthaginians are known to have introduced several new crops (mainly fruit treeA fruit tree is a tree bearing fruit that is consumed or used by people — all trees that are flowering plants produce fruit, which are the ripened ovary of a flower containing one or more seeds. In horticultural usage, the term 'fruit tree' is limited to those that provide fruit for human food...
s) and some machines like the threshing-board, either the version with stone-chips (tribulum
in Latin) or the version with rollers (threshing cart
, named in their honour plostellum punicum by the Romans).
In
RomeAncient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, the threshing-board had only economic significance, without the religious symbolism it took on in ancient Israel. The treatises of agriculture written by Roman experts as Cato, Varro, Columella and Pliny the Elder (quoted above), touch the topic of threshing. In chronological order:
- Cato: In the time of Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, surnamed the Censor , the Wise , the Ancient , or the Elder , to distinguish him from Cato the Younger...
—that is, the 2nd century BCThe 2nd century BC started the first day of 200 BC and ended the last day of 101 BC. It is considered part of the Classical era, although depending on the region being studied, other terms may be more proper .-Overview:Fresh from its victories in the Second Punic War, the...
—Rome was intensely connected with the conquered areas of GreeceAncient Greece is the civilisation belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Greek Dark Ages ca. 1100 BC and the Dorian invasion, to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. It is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the...
and CarthageCarthage refers both to an ancient city in present-day Tunisia, and a modern-day suburb of Tunis. The civilization that developed within the city's sphere of influence is referred to as Punic or Carthaginian...
, whose higher degree of agricultural development threatened Roman traditionalism. Cato's book De Agricultura was against exotic innovations such as the threshing-board in its different variants, defending instead a traditional agricultural system based on manual labour. To some writers, Cato's ideas drove, indirectly, to the disintegration of republicanRepublicanism is the ideology of governing a nation as a republic, where the head of state is appointed by means other than heredity, often elections. The exact meaning of Republicanism varies depending on the cultural and historical context. The sometimes contrary definitions are all covered in...
society and even the imperial economy. Cato preferred threshing by trampling by mules or oxen. He doesn't expressly mention the threshing-board, in spite of the fact it was already spreading through the empire. It is, then, "almost impossible to define, on the basis of Cato's report, when this or that implement or refinement came into use".
- Varro: Unlike Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro , also known as Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus, was a Roman scholar and writer.-Biography:...
was not a man of action but a scholar, a πολιγραφοτάτω, in the 1st century BCThe 1st century BC, also known as the last century BC or 1st century BCE started on the first day of 100 BC and ended on the last day of 1 BC.It is considered part of the Classical era, epoch, or historical period...
. Varro, whose studies were wider than Cato's, tried to combine the cosmopolitan Greek outlook with Rome's provincial traditions. In his book of agricultural advice Rerum Rusticarum de Agri Cultura Varro only twice reflects the reality of his times by mentioning threshing-boards. He advises, "None of the implements that can be produced in the plantation (farm) itself should be bought, as with almost all everything which is made from unfinished wood such as hampers, baskets, threshing-boards, stakes, rakes…"; the inclination to self-sufficiency that he demonstrates here would later be harmful to Rome. Varro nonetheless shows himself more open to innovation that Cato: "To achieve an abundant and high-quality harvest, the stalks should be taken to the threshing floor without piling them up, so the grain is in the best condition, and the grain (should be) separated from the stalks on the threshing floor, a process which is done, among other ways, with a pair of mules and a threshing-board. This is made with a wooden board (with its underside) equipped with stone-chips or saws of iron, which, with a plow in front or a large counterweight, is pulled by a pair of mules yoked together and thus separates the grain from the stalks…". That is, he explains in a very didactic way how the threshing-boards works and the advantages of this innovative device. Next, he talks about the variant called plostellum poenicum (=punicum=Punic=Carthaginian), a threshing implement with rollers and metallic saws whose origin is, as we have already seen, Carthaginian, and which was used in Hispania (which had, in the past, been controlled by Carthage): "Another way to make it is by means of a cart with teethed rollers and bearings; this cart is named plostellum punicum, in which one can sit and move the device that is pulled by mules, as it is done in Hispania CiteriorDuring the Roman Republic, Hispania Citerior was a region of Hispania roughly occupying the northeastern coast and the Ebro Valley of what is now Spain. Hispania Ulterior was located west of Hispania Citerior—that is, farther away from Rome.-External links:*...
and other places."
- Columella (Lucius Junius Moderatus
Lucius Iunius Moderatus Columella was a Roman writer. After a career in the army , he took up farming...
, beginning of Common EraThis article is about the period 1–9 AD, the first nine years of the 1st century. Note that there is no year zero in either the proleptic Gregorian calendar or the Julian calendar. Hence 1 AD was preceded by the year 1 BC.-Events and trends:...
- 60s): a native of Hispania BaeticaHispania Baetica was one of three Imperial Roman provincesin Hispania, . Hispania Baetica was bordered to the west by Lusitania , and to the northeast by Hispania Tarraconensis...
; after finishing its military career, Columella worked managing large estates. This writer from Hispania brings a new note to this topic, writing, in this case, about threshing floorA threshing floor is a specially flattened surface made either of rock or beaten earth where a farmer would thresh the grain harvest. The threshing floor was either owned by the entire village or by a single family. It was usually located outside the village in a place exposed to the wind....
s: "The threshing floor, if it is possible, must be placed in such way that it can be overseen by the master or by the foreman; the best is one that is cobbled, because not only allows that the cereal be quickly threshed, since the ground don't give way to the blows of hoofs and threshing-boards, but also, these cereals, before being winnowed, are cleaner and lack the pebbles and little clods that always remaine in a threshing floor of pressed earth."
- Pliny: Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
(23 - 79) only compiles what his predecessors had written, which we have already quoted.
Middle Ages
We will speak of the
Middle AgesThe Middle Ages of European history is a period of European history covering roughly a millennium in the 5th century through 16th centuries. More specific starting and ending points are sometimes adopted by scholars to suit their respective specializations or current focus...
in a broad sense, without entering into great detail and focusing, essentially, on
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
because it is difficult to find any trustworty documents about threshing-boards in that era. The barbarian invasions of Europe had detrimental effects upon agriculture as well as upon the general economy, leading to the loss of many of the more advanced techniques, among them the threshing-board, which was completely alien to Germanic tradition. The eastern Mediterranean areas, on the other hand, continued the use of the threshing-board, passing into the Muslim culture, where it took deep root.
In the Iberian Peninsula, in the Visigothic kingdom and the Christian zone during the
ReconquistaThe Reconquista was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims...
, the threshing-board was little known (although awareness of it never quite disappeared). The degradation extended not only to the economy, but also to the very sources that we have to study the period: scholars are confronted with a documentary void that is difficult to get around. It is certain that in Islamic
Al-AndalusAl-Andalus was the Arabic name given to the parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Arab and North African Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492....
, the threshing board continued to be very popular, which led to the Christians recuperating the tradition as they advanced in the
ReconquistaThe Reconquista was a period of 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula succeeded in retaking the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims...
. This act coincides with a generalized recovery in all of Europe. Economic prosperity began to return at the start of the 11th century; the experts speak of the increased area of tilled lands; the increased use of draft animals (first oxen, thanks to the frontal yoke, and later horses, thanks to
harness collarA horse collar is a part of a horse harness device used to distribute load around a horse's neck and shoulders when pulling a wagon or plow. The collar often supports a pair of curved metal or wood pieces, called hames, to which the traces of the harness are attached...
); of the increase in metal tools and improved metalworking; of the appearance of the moldboard plough, often with wheels; and the increase in watermills. Livestock became a sign of progress: peasants, less dependent and more prosperous, became able to buy draft animals, and even plows. The peasants who had their own plow and one or two draft animals were a small elite, pampered by the feudal lord, who acquired a distinct status,
that of yeoman farmers
, quite distinct from farm-hand labourer whose only tool was their own arms. The existence of draft animals does not imply the diffusion of the threshing-board in Western Europe, where the flail continued to be the preferred threshing implement. On the other hand, in Spain, the weight of Eastern tradition made the difference: Professor
Julio Caro BarojaJulio Caro Baroja was a Spanish anthropologist, historian, linguist and essayist....
admits that in Spain the threshing-board appears cited or represented in works of art. Concretely, he mentions some Romanesque reliefs in Beleña (Salamanca) and Campisábalos (Guadalajara), both from the 12th century. One may add a document written in 1265, in which a woman named Doña Mayor (widow of one Don Arnal, an ecclesiastical tax collector, and thus a person of good position), leaves to the
dioceseIn some forms of Christianity, a diocese is an administrative territorial unit administered by a bishop. It is also referred to as a bishopric or Episcopal Area or episcopal see, though strictly the term episcopal see refers to the domain of ecclesiastical authority officially held by the bishop,...
chapterChapter designates certain corporate ecclesiastical bodies in the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Nordic Lutheran churches.The word is said to be derived from the chapter of the rule book: it is a custom under the Rule of Saint Benedict that monks gather daily for a meeting to discuss monastery...
of
SalamancaSalamanca is a city in western Spain, the capital of the province of Salamanca, which belongs to the autonomous community of Castile and Leon...
her inheritance of Valcuevo, a farm in the municipality of
ValverdónValverdón is a municipality located in the province of Salamanca, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2004 census , the municipality has a population of 291 inhabitants....
, Salamanca:
And I, Doña Mayor, leave on my death these two yokings of country state above referred to the Cathedral Chapter, well preserved with 76 bushelA bushel is an imperial and U.S. customary unit of dry volume, equivalent in each of these systems to 4 pecks or 8 gallons. It is used for volumes of dry commodities , most often in agriculture. It is abbreviated as bsh. or bu. The name derives from the 14th century buschel or busschel, a box.-...
s of wheat, 38 bushels of rye, and 38 bushels of barley to seed each yoking and with ploughshares, and with plows, and with ploughbeams, and with threshing-boards and with all the accoutrements that a well-laid-out property should have.
These documents, at least testify for the presence of threshing-boards, which, undoubtedly was continuous from then until recently in the Mediterranean basin. The rest is mere generalized speculation, given that traditional historiography centers on features more like of
Western EuropeWestern Europe is the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a cultural entity—the region lying west of Central Europe...
. In any case, none of the consulted authors describe the threshing-board as playing a relevant part in the progress of medieval agriculture. We must, then, join with the despair of French historian
Georges DubyGeorges Duby was a French historian specializing in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of France's most prominent public intellectuals from the 1970s until his death in 1996.Born in 1919...
, in his complaint:
Through all that has been said, we can see how interesting it would be to measure the influence of technical progress on agricultural output. Nevertheless, we must renounce this hope. Before the end of the 12th century, the methods of seignorial administration were all quite primitive; they granted little importance to writing and even less to numbers. The documents are more deceptive than those of the Carolingian eraCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 to his death. He expanded the Frankish kingdoms into a Frankish Empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe...
.
----
Nowadays, numerous elements of traditional agriculture are being lost, and because of this various entities have been working to conserve or recover this cultural capital. Among these is an international interdisciplinary project called E.A.R.T.H.,
Early
Agricultural
Remnants and
Technical
Heritage. Participating countries include
BulgariaBulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a country in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe. Bulgaria borders five other countries: Romania to the north , Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south...
,
CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
,
ScotlandScotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
,
SpainSpain , officially the Kingdom of Spain , is a country located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula.
[The Spanish constitution does not establish any official denomination of the country, even though España , Estado español and Nación española are used interchangeably...]
, and the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, in alphabetical order. Investigations center on broad archeological, documentary and ethnological aspects, related to diverse elements of traditional agriculture, threshing-boards among them, in diverse countries, historical periods and societies.
Craftsmen from Cantalejo
Cantalejo is located at the confluence of the
Duraton RiverThe Duratón River is a river in Spain. It originates in the municipality of Somosierra in the Sierra de Guadarrama....
and the Cega River. Modern Cantalejo arose in the 11th century, although there are architectural remains that are much older, and forms part of
SegoviaSegovia is a province of central/northern Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered by the provinces of Burgos, Soria, Guadalajara, Madrid, Ávila, and Valladolid....
province in Spain. It was apparently prosperous at the beginning but, lost its liberty in the 17th Century and became a jurisdictional lordship. There is no clear record of when the specialized craft of making threshing-boards was introduced into Cantalejo, but all who have written on the topic indicate that it was probably during the 16th or 17th century.
The production of threshing-boards appears to coincide with the arrival of foreign artisans, although this is speculation based on the fact that the artisans' form of speech includes aspects of many foreign languages, especially
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
. The makers of threshing-boards and plows were called
«Briqueros», a word of French origin that refers to the making of
tinderboxHistorically, a tinderbox is a small container containing flint, firesteel, and tinder , used together to help kindle a fire...
es and
matchlockThe matchlock was the first mechanism or "lock" invented to facilitate the firing of a hand-held firearm. This design removed the need to lower by hand a lit match into the weapon's flash pan and made it possible to have both hands free to keep a firm grip on the weapon at the moment of firing,...
s for guns, which in France were called
briquetBriquet may refer to:*Charles Moїse Briquet - Swiss paper merchant and scholar of watermarks.*Artois Hound or Briquet, a rare breed of dog, and a descendant of the Bloodhound...
s, literally in archaic French:
«Petite pièce d’acier don't on se sert pour tirer du feu d’un caillou.» (today, synonym of
briquetteA briquette is a block of flammable matter which is used as fuel to start and maintain a fire. Common types of briquettes are charcoal briquettes and biomass briquettes.-Constituents of charcoal briquettes:...
or flammable matter, but also refers to a
lighterA lighter is a portable device used to create a flame. It consists of a metal or plastic container filled with a flammable fluid or pressurized liquid gas, a means of ignition, and some provision for extinguishing the flame.-History:...
) for the
early firearmsA firearm is a device which projects either single or multiple projectiles at high velocity through a controlled explosion. The firing is achieved by the gases produced through rapid, confined burning of a propellant. This process of rapid burning is technically known as deflagration...
(
FlintlockFlintlock is the general term for any firearm based on the flintlock mechanism. The term may also apply to the mechanism itself. Introduced about 1630, the flintlock rapidly replaced earlier firearm-ignition technologies, such as the matchlock and wheellock mechanisms...
s,
arquebusThe arquebus is an early muzzle-loaded firearm used in the 15th to 17th centuries. The word was originally modelled on the German: Hackenbüche, this produced haquebute...
es,
musketA musket is a muzzle-loaded, smooth bore long gun, which is intended to be fired from the shoulder.Usually, the musket is thought to be the weapon that replaced the arquebus, and was in turn replaced by the rifle...
s...). It is therefore plausible that foreign gunsmiths introducing firearms in the Iberian Peninsula created an important colony in Cantalejo, although it is difficult to determine their origin
In any case, with time Cantalejo opted for peaceful and productive crafts such as the making of diverse agricultural implements, including threshing-boards. By the 1950s, Cantalejo had reached 400 workshops producing more than 30,000 threshing-boards each year; this suggests that more than half the population was dedicated to this occupation. The threshing-boards were then distributed throughout the entire Meseta Central of Spain.
This article concentrates on threshing-boards made only with flint chips, although there were threshing-boards made with metal teeth or according to other, less common designs.
Making the wooden frame
At the end of summer, or in the autumn, work began with the selection of
black pinesThe European Black Pine Pinus nigra , is a variable species of pine, occurring across southern Europe from Spain to the Crimea, and also in Asia Minor, Cyprus, and locally in the Atlas Mountains of northwest Africa...
, which they cut and carefully smoothed with a device called a
tronzador until the trunks were formed into cylinders nearly two meters in length; these log sections were called
tozas. They also prepared long, straight planks to serve as transverse headpieces. They carried the log sections to the sawmill, where they cut slats as wide as the log permitted (no less than 20 centimeters), of some five centimeters in thickness and with a curved shape (just like a
skiA ski is a long, flat device worn on the feet designed to help the wearer slide smoothly over snow. Originally intended as an aid to travel in snowy regions, they are now primarily used for recreational and sporting purposes...
) on the end that would eventually be in front. The planks were dried in the sun for several months, turned over every so often. The village during this period took on a peculiar appearance, as many buildings had their façades covered with drying planks. Afterwards, these were piled in
castillos, crossing some slats with others in order to make the pile more stable.
Once the slat was in the right conditions, the next process was chiseling: using a
hammerA hammer is a tool meant to deliver an impact to an object. The most common uses are for driving nails, fitting parts, forging metal and breaking up objects. Hammers are often designed for a specific purpose, and vary widely in their shape and structure. The usual features are a handle and a head,...
and chisel to prepare the slots (
ujeros) for the chips of flint (
chinas or lithic flakes). The chiseling was done with the slats front-on, guided by pencil-marks so the workman wouldn't err. Before beginning, the workman made sure that the slat had not warped since being cut, as that would make it unusable.
The next pass took place in the mechanical presses; the Spanish language term for these was
"cárceles", "jails". The three, four, or five planks had to be perfectly joined: spread with glue and pressed, using small reinforcement jigs, called
tasillos (wooden cylinders glued and nailed with a mallet at the edges of a slat), and wedges. When the slats were well-aligned and fixed in place, the
cabezales (headers), or crosspieces, were nailed in place with big nails known in Spain as
puntas de París (although, at least in the 19th and 20th centuries, they came from
BilbaoBilbao is the largest city in the Basque Country in northern Spain and the capital of the province of Biscay ....
).
Once the basic structure of the threshing board is ready, it must be smoothed. This is first done by "working" it with an adze lengthwise, along the grain. Then the final finishing is done with various specialized carpenter's
planeA plane is a tool for shaping wood. Planes are used to flatten, reduce the thickness of, and impart a smooth surface to a rough piece of lumber or timber. Planing is used to produce horizontal, vertical, or inclined flat surfaces on workpieces usually too large for shaping...
s, on both top and bottom; first going across in a transverse direction, and later lengthwish.
The final phase of the work consisted of covering the junctions of the slats on the top side, which is done with thin strips at the front, tacked on with a board called the "frontpiece", and on the rest using long thin little boards (
tapajuntas or stopgaps). On the front header they attached a strong hook for the
barzón, or iron ring with a strap or a long rod for tying on the drafthorses or oxen.
Working the stone flakes
To create the lithic flakes used to cover threshing-boards, the
briqueros in Cantalejo used a manufacturing technique similar to prehistoric methods of making tools, except that they used metal hammers rather than percussors made of stone, wood, or antler.
The raw materials preferred by these artisans was a whitish flint imported from the province of
GuadalajaraGuadalajara is a province of central/north-central Spain, in the northern part of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha. It is bordered by the provinces of Cuenca, Madrid, Segovia, Soria, Zaragoza, and Teruel....
. When they had to repair threshing-boards at home, if they did not have any other raw materials, they would use rounded river pebbles, made of homogeneous, high-grade
quartziteQuartzite is a hard metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts...
, which they selected during their travels. The flint from Guadalajara was extracted from quarries in large blocks, which were split by hand with hammers of various sizes until the stone reached a size small enough to be comfortably held in the hand.
Knapping: Once manageable chunks of flint were obtained, knapping to obtain lithic flakes was performed using a very light hammer (called a
pickaxe) with a narrow handle and a pointed head. Knapping was considered "men's work." To work quartzite pebbles, they used a hammer with a head that was rounded and slightly wider. During the process of removing stone flakes, they sometimes resorted to a mormal hammer to crack the stone and achieve perussion plains inaccessible with the pickaxe alone.
The
briquero held the
stone coreIn archaeology, a lithic core is a distinctive artifact that results from the practice of lithic reduction. In this sense, a core is the scarred nucleus resulting from the detachment of one or more flakes from a lump of source material or tool stone, usually by using a hard hammer percussor such...
in the left hand, protected with a piece of leather and with the palm upward, and struck rapid blows using a pick held in the right hand. The stone flakes would fall into the palm of the right hand, on top of the leather protector, which allowed the worker to evaluate them during fractions of a second: if they were acceptable, the
briquero allowed them to fall into a tin; if not, he threw them into a reject pile. This pile was also where the
briquero threw used-up stone cores —that is, stone blocks incapable of producing more chips; pieces of stone broken by accident;
corticalIn lithic analysis in archaeology the cortex is the outer layer of rock formed on the exterior of raw materials by chemical and mechanical weathering processes. It is often recorded on the dorsal surface of flakes using a three class system: primary , secondary , and tertiary...
flint flakes, useless fragments, and debris.
The working of pebbles was similar to the working of flint, except that with pebbles only the outside layer was chipped off. Thus, the pebbles were essentially "peeled" and discarded (unlike flint stones, whose interiors were worked until they were used up); using only the cortical flakes.
Covering the board with stone flakes was mainly the work of women called
enchifleras. The task is monotonous and repetitive. Up to three thousand lithic flakes may be pounded into a large threshing-board. In addition, it is necessary to sort the flakes: small ones in the front, medium-sized in the middle, and the largest on the sides and in the back. It is necessary to pound in each flake without damaging its sharp edge, although it was impossible to avoid leaving at least some small mark (a "spontaneous
retouchRetouch - the work done to an edge of a flint implement in order to make it into a functional tool, or to reshape a used tool. In the case of a core-tool, such as a hand-axe, retouch may simply consist of roughly trimming the edge by striking with a hammerstone, but on smaller, finer flake or blade...
" in technical terms). The tool used was a light hammer with a cylindrical head and flat or concave ends. The flakes are inserted into the cracks at their thickest part (technically, the percussion zone, that is, the proximal heel of the flake as it is struck off.)
Distribution
Threshing-boards from Cantalejo captured nearly all the sales in
Castile and LeónCastile and León , known formally as the Community of Castile and León, is one of the 17 autonomous communities of Spain. It was constructed from Old Castile and León in 1983...
,
MadridThe Community of Madrid is one of the seventeen autonomous communities of Spain. It is located at the center of the country, the Iberian peninsula, and the Meseta Central or Central Plain. The community is also conterminous with the province of Madrid and contains the capital of Spain, which is...
,
Castile-La ManchaCastile-La Mancha is an autonomous community of Spain.Castile-La Mancha is bordered by Castile and León, Madrid, Aragon, Valencia, Murcia, Andalusia, and Extremadura...
,
AragonAragon is an autonomous community of Spain. Located in northeastern Spain, the region comprises three provinces from north to south: Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza .Aragon's northern province of Huesca borders France and is positioned in the middle of the Pyrenees...
and Valencia. They sometimes also reached
AndalusiaAndalusia Andalusia Andalusia ' onMouseout='HidePop("89893")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Cantabria">Cantabria
Cantabria is a Spanish province and autonomous community with Santander as its capital city. It is bordered on the east by the Basque Autonomous Community , on the south by Castile and León , on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea.Cantabria belongs to...
. At first, artesans from Cantalejo travelled with large carts loaded with selected threshing-boards, winnowing bellows, grain
measuresDry measures are units of volume used to measure bulk commodities which are not liquid. They are typically used in agriculture, agronomy, and commodity markets to measure grain, dried beans, and dried and fresh fruit ; formerly also salt pork and fish...
(of different traditional dry units:
celemín is a wooden case with 4,6 L,
cuartilla has 14 L, and
fanega equivalent to 55.5 L...) and other implements for threshing or winnowing, which they peddled from town to town. They also carried flint chips, and tools and supplies for repairing damaged threshing-boards and farming implements. In later times, they traveled by train to pre-arranged stations, and then in small trucks. They typically brought their entire families along; combined with their strange manner of speaking and unusual occupation, this gave the
briqueros an air of mystery. They began selling threshing-boards as soon as the threshing-boards were complete, beginning in April and lasting until August. The
briqueros would then return to their home town (the
Vilorio) to celebrate the festivals of the
Assumption of MaryThe Assumption of Mary is a belief held by Christians of the Catholic Church as well as some Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Anglicans, that the Virgin Mary, at the end of her life, was physically taken up into heaven...
(August 15) and
Saint RochSaint Roch or Rocco ; lived c.1348 - 15/16 August 1376/79 , also known as Rock or Rocco in English, was a Christian saint, a confessor whose death is commemorated on 16 August; he is specially invoked...
(August 16) with their families.
Gacería
Gacería is a slang or
argotArgot is a secret language used by various groups—including, but not limited to, thieves and other criminals—to prevent outsiders from understanding their conversations...
used by makers and vendors of threshing-boards in Cantalejo and some other parts of Spain. It is not a technical vocabulary, but rather a code made up of a small group of words that allows the speakers to communicate freely in the presence of strangers without others understanding the content of the conversation.
Gacería was purely verbal, colloquial, and associated with the selling of threshing-boards; as a result, it largely disappeared with the mechanization of agriculture. Nevertheless, a number of studies have attempted to record its varied aspects. There are many doubts regarding the origin of the words that make up the vocabulary of
Gacería, including the word
Gacería itself, which may derive from the
BasqueBasque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is the mother tongue of approximately one fifth of Basques, 632,000 out of nearly 3,000,000...
word
gazo, which means "ugly" or "good-for-nothing". The most commonly-accepted opinion is that most of the words derive from
FrenchFrench is a Romance language globally spoken by about 65 million people as a first language , by 50 million as a second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired foreign language, with significant speakers in 57 countries. Most native speakers of the language live in France,...
, with additions from other languages including
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe...
, Basque, Arabic,
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
, and even
CalóCaló or Spanish Romani is a dialect spoken by the Spanish Romanies, Gitanos or Zincarli originating from Spain: Caló blends native Romani vocabulary with Spanish grammar, as Spanish Romanies lost the full use of their ancestral language.Gitanos used Caló to communicate discreetly in their...
. What is certain is that the makers and vendors of threshing-boards took words from any area they visited regularly, creating a linguistic mishmash.
Related threshing implements
In general, the term "threshing-board" is used to refer to all the different variants of this primitive implement. Technically, we should distinguish at least the two main types of threshing-boards: the
"threshing sledge," which is the subject of this article, and the
"threshing cart."
The "threshing sledge" is the most common type. As its name indicates, it is dragged over the ripe grain, and it threshes using cutting pieces made of stone or metal. This is what is referred to in Hebrew as
mogag (מורג) and in Arabic as
mowrej. Strictly speaking, the threshing-boards of the
Middle EastThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, southeastern Europe, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East...
have characteristics that render them easily distinguishable from those found in Europe. On the
Iberian peninsulaThe Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes modern-day Spain, Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar and a very small area of France. It is the westernmost of the three major southern European peninsulas—the Iberian, Italian, and Balkan peninsulas...
, cutting blades found on the bottom part of the threshing-board are arranged on end and in rows roughly parallel to the direction of threshing. In contrast, the
mogag and
mowrej found to the Middle East have circular holes (made with a special short, wide
drillA drill is a tool with a rotating drill bit used for drilling holes in various materials. The drill bit is gripped by a chuck at one end of the drill and rotated while pressed against the target material...
) into which are pressed small round, semicircular stones with sharp ridges. (See a detail photo of a
Middle-Eastern threshing-board).
As mentioned previously, not all threshing-boards are equipped with stones: some have metal knife blades embedded along the full length of the threshing board, and others have smaller blades encrusted here and there. Threshing sledges with metal knives usually have a few small wheels (four to six, depending on the size) with eccentric axes. These wheels protect the blades. They also make the threshing board wobble, causing parts of the board to rise and fall at random in an oscillating motion that improves the effectiveness of the threshing.
A second model, which the classic sources refer to as plostellum punicum (literally, the "Punic cart"), ought to be called "threshing cart". Although the Carthaginians, heirs of the Phoenicians, brought this model to the Western Mediterranean, this implement was known at least since the second millennium BC, appearing in the Babylonian textsAkkadian is an extinct Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian, an unrelated language isolate...
with a name that we can transliterateTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
as gīš-bad. Both variants continued to be used well into the 20th century in Europe, and continue to be used in the regions where agriculture has not been mechanized and industrialized. Museums and collectors in Spain retain some threshing carts, which were once highly prized in areas such as the province of ZamoraZamora is a Spanish province of western Spain, in the western part of the autonomous community of Castile and León.Actual Zamora province was born in 1833 when the country was organised into 49 provinces ....
, where they were used to thresh garbanzos.
External links
- Early Agricultural Remnants and Technical Heritage (EARTH)
- Patricia C. Anderson, Sound and Science: an approach to the ethnoarchaeology of threshing cereals and pulses, on the EARTH site.
- Reconstruction of a Mesopotamian threshing sledge, reprint from EARTH tribulum: reconstitution d'un traineau à dépiquer mésopotamien: "Threshing board: Reconstruction of a Mesopotamian threshing sledge" (drawings), Centre d'études Préhistorique, Antiquité, Moyen Âge (CEPAM), University of Nice
- Threshing sledges from the Bronze Age and today (CEPAM / Centre de Recherches Archéologiques - CNRS) Día del Mundo Rural 2000 (Rural World Day 2000). Pictures from Miranda de Arga (Navarre, Spain). Laureano Molina Gómez, El trillo del abuelo ("Grandfather's Threshing-board"), etnografo.com. Amparo Siguera Los trilleros ("The threshers"), Revista de Folklore; includes some illustrations