"6 Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



acteristically undulated along the margins. When I washed 

 out the ammonia with water, and added iodine, I found to my 

 greatest surprise that the crumbs turned blue just as is the 

 case with modern starch. When I noted this I exclaimed: 

 Well, indeed, then does starch deserve its name, meaning 

 strength, and most wonderfully has it retained that property 

 for more than 4000 years. 



Besides these cereals there were also found lentils, dates, 

 Acacia seeds, the fruits of the Doum-palm, Hyphaene 

 thebaica, etc. 



About 1860 the Austrian botanist. Prof. Unger, conceived 

 the brilliant idea of examining the unburnt bricks mixed with 

 hashed straw of ancient Egyptian buildings. He dissolved 

 them in water and by that means found many barley, wheat 

 and small seeds as well as straw, etc.* The best brief ac- 

 count of Egyptian vegetable relics was given by Alex. Braun 

 in a lecture before the Berlin Anthropological Society, pub- 

 lished b}^ hi^j pupils, Ascherson and Magnus, in"/' Zeitschrift 

 fiir Ethnologie, Berlin," IX (1877), p. 289. 



In our day Schweinfurthf has published new researches 

 and has collected quite a number of new specimens other than 

 grain, especially vegetable ornaments of the mummies. Often 

 a wreath is found hung round the neck or lying on the 

 breast of the mummy. This wreath is made in a peculiar 

 manner. A strip of a palm leaf was taken and the single 

 leaves of flowers, especially of the blue water lily, were strung 

 on this strip so that the leaves hung down like the individual 

 parts of many modern necklaces. 



I may add that subsequently the ancient Egyptians did not 

 take real bread for their mummies, but made the bread of 

 burnt clay or marble. We find also epitaphs in marble on 

 which different forms of bread are represented, also fruits, a 

 roasted goose, etc. They must therefore have arrived at the 

 conception that this was only a symbol. 



* Unger in Sitzungsberichte der Akadetnie der Wissenschaften in Wien, 

 Math.-Naturw. CI., bd. 45, abth. II, p. 75; bd. 54, abth. I, p. 33. 



t Schweinfurth, Pflanzenreste aus alt-aegyptischen Griibern. Berichte 

 der deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft, Berlin, 1884, p. 357. 



