PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR SEEDS. 363 



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 x that 

 the Greeks first called spelt olyra, afterwards zeia, names 

 which we find in Herodotus and Homer. Dioscorides 2 

 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. 3 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, 4 

 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. 5 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, 6 nor has it been found in the 

 ancient monuments. This is what led me to suppose 7 

 that the Hebrew word kussemeth, which occurs three 

 times in the Bible, 8 ought not to be attributed to spelt, 

 as it is by Hebrew scholars. 9 I imagined it was perhaps 

 the allied form, T. monococcum, but neither is this grown 

 in Egypt. 



1 Fraas, Syn. Fl. Class., p. 307 ; Lenz, Bot. der Alien, p. 257. 



2 Dioscorides, Mat. Med., ii., 111-115. 



* Pliny, Hist., lib. xviii. cap. 7 ; Targioni, Cenni Storici, p. 6. 



4 Heer, Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, p. 6 ; linger, Pflanzen des Alien 

 Mgyptens, p. 32. 



5 Delile, PI. Cult, en Egypte, p. 5. 



* Reynier, Econ. des Egyptiens, p. 337 ; Dureau de la Malle, Ann. Sc. 

 Nat., ix. p. 72; Schweinfurth and Ascnerson, Aufzah. Tr. spelta of 

 Forskal is not admitted by any subsequent author. 



7 Qtogr. Bot. Rais., p. 933. 



8 Exod. ix. 32 ; Isa. xxviii. 25 ; Ezek. iv. 9. 



9 Rosenmiiller, Bibl. Alterth., iv. p. 83 j Second, Trans, of Old Test., 

 1874 



