THE "WILD "WHEAT OF PALESTINE 2Y9 



Settled communities based on agriculture, as we know 

 from ancient records, were already established many 

 thousands of years ago. A glimpse into the life of one 

 such community is given us by an inscription upon an 

 obelisk set up by Mannichtousan, King of Sis, who lived 

 near Susa about one hundred miles north of the mouth of 

 the Euphrates. The obelisk in question was set up be^ 

 tween 4000 b. c. and 3500 b. o., and the inscription 

 upon it records the price of a sale of land. The price of 

 the land was fixed by the value of the crop. The king 

 bound himself to nourish, clothe, and protect the serfs 

 and slaves who were attached to the estate and who were 

 obliged to cultivate it. Near the place where the obelisk 

 was discovered, the accumulated refuse was found to be 

 fifty feet deep. The King of Sis evidently ruled over a 

 community which had advanced a long way in the cultiva- 

 tion of the soil and in general civilization.^ 



II. The Antiquity and Origin of Wheat 



Archseologists have discovered wheat in the rubbish 

 heaps of the lake dwellings of both Swi.tzerland and Italy, 

 so that we have the clearest evidence that this cereal was 

 cultivated by prehistoric man. Unger found wheat in a 

 brick of the pyramid of Dashur in Egypt, to which he 

 assigned the date 3359 b. o. ; and the Chinese grew wheat 

 as long ago as 2700 b. o.^ The ancient civilizations of 

 Babylonia, Egypt, Crete, Greece, and Rome were un- 

 doubtedly based on wheat as one of the principal food 

 plants. 



Wheat has been found in the sarcophagi of ancient 



iG. F. Scott Elliott, Prehistoric Man and His Story, London, 

 1915, p. 216. 



2 Alphonse de CandoUe, Origin of Cultivated Plants, London, 1884, 

 p. 355. 



