Wittmack — Our Present Knowledge of Ancient Plants. 5 



The grains which were first noticed seem all to have been 

 common wheat, Triticimi vuJgare. But about ten years ago 

 Prof. Schweinfurth and last year the German Oriental 

 Society found another species, which is called " Emmer " in 

 German,] Triticum dicoccum (syn. TriL amyUum). This 

 wheat has, like Spelt, Triticum Spelia and single-corn, 

 Tr. monococcum, the peculiarity that the ear breaks into 

 pieces when it is thrashed and the grains remain covered by 

 their husks. 



This character, that the axis of the ear or panicle is brittle 

 in the ripe state, we find in all wild grains. Therefore we 

 must assume that the so-called Speltwheats are the primitive 

 species of the genus wheat. 



Of barley, there has been found mostly the so-called small, 

 barley, which has 6 rows in the ear instead of 2 as the large 

 barley. Grains of naked barley are also found and these 

 resemble common wheat. They have sometimes been taken 

 for wheat, but they have 3 rows of albuminoid cells under 

 the shell, which is a characteristic of barley. Wheat, rye, 

 corn, etc., have but one. 



The barley served for making beer. Strange to say brew- 

 ing is not the invention of the Germans but of the Pharaohs. 

 It also served for bread making, and as such for that bread 

 enclosed in the caskets with the dead. Prof. Schweinfurth 

 is of the opinion that even in later times when the Egyptians 

 ate the fine wheat bread, they followed the old custom of 

 placing coarse barley bread in the sarcophagi of their 

 mummies . 



Such bread was placed at my disposal for investigation.* 

 It was about 4500 years old and did not at all look like 

 bread. It had had the form of a little cone, but had fallen to 

 pieces. 



The color was quite black, resembling asphalt. But when. 

 I subjected small portions to microscopic investigation and 

 added ammonia, it turned lighter in color and I could see the 

 epidermis-cells of the husk of the barley, which are so char- 



* Wittmack in Sitzungs-Berichte dor Gesellschaft naturforscbendejr 

 Freunde, Berlin, 1896, p. 70 with figures. Compare errata, p. 105. 



