‰È‰˜· Èχ¯˘È‰ ÈÓ„˜‡‰ Êίӯ اﳌﺮﻛﺰ اﻻﻛﺎدﳝﻲ اﻻﺳﺮاﺋﻴﻠﻲ ﻓﻲ اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة BULLETIN the israeli academic center in cairo

Irit Ziffer

THE FLOOR IN REALITY AND METAPHOR

Dr. Irit Ziffer is curator of the Ceramics and Nehushtan (metals) pavilions at the Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. She studied archaeology and ancient Near Eastern cultures at Tel Aviv University, where she received her Ph.D. in ancient Near Eastern art. She has curated, among others, the exhibits At That Time the Canaanites Were in the Land (1990); Islamic Metalwork (1996); O My Dove That Art in the Clefts of the Rock: The Dove Allegory in Antiquity (1998); The Corn Spirit (2002); and In the Field of the Philistines: Cult Furnishings from the Favissa of a Yavneh Temple (2007).

Food reflects society. Bread, the mechanized technologies, howev- technologies, nothing changed in staple food of all humankind, has er, traditional practices are gradu- the production of our daily bread. become synonymous with the sus- ally being abandoned and becom- tenance of life, as so well reflected ing extinct, to be found only in The Threshing Floor in the Egyptian word aysh, descriptions in ethno-archaeologi- derived from the root 'yš, ”to live.” cal literature, and the tools they According to biblical descriptions, No wonder, then, that from its used are being sold off as romantic the harvested grain crop was early beginnings bread production relics of a dying tradition. brought to the threshing floor – was likened to human life, and The present discussion focuses gøren in Hebrew – where the grain each stage in grain husbandry be- on a stage in bread production that was separated from the and came synonymous with a human is not often dealt with: threshing winnowed (Numbers 18:30; Ruth stage. Fecundity, procreation, and and the lore that evolved around 3:2). and small, delicate reproduction of the fields – and of the threshing floor. The interplay garden were threshed there human life – belong to a timeless, of ethnographic descriptions with as well (Isaiah 28:27). boundary-crossing, instinctive tra- written sources and with visual The Hebrew root grn is cognate dition both in popular belief and in material from various periods with Akkadian g/qarãnu – ”to formal ritual. permits the reconstruction of a full stack up, pile on” , tribute, Ways of life in the picture of how work was done on etc., or ”to store up grain, oil, have persisted since antiquity the threshing floor, from its earliest wealth, goods”1 – and its deriva- and can be traced in archaeology. beginnings – which can be traced tive magrattu, ”grain storage place, Living analogies help us under- in art to the second half of the threshing floor,” also the name of a stand ancient practices, and no fourth millennium BCE – through month.2 Another cognate is Arabic interpretation of the past can go the present day. In examining the jrn, ”crush, cut, grind,” from which beyond our consciousness learnt significance of the threshing floor derive the threshing surfaces jurn from the present. In other words, within the broad cultural frame- (Egyptian gurn), both the grinding ancient work methods, as depicted work of traditional Middle Eastern stone and the threshing floor. In in art and literature, can be recon- , biblical and ancient Arabic the threshing floor is also structed on the basis of surviving descriptions and terms may be called baydar, a loan word from traditional methods and customs, cited along with citations from Aramaic idra, as in Daniel 2:35: which, conversely, shed light literature and art from later peri- ”broken in pieces ... like the chaff on ancient visual and written ods, since, basically, until the in- of the summer threshing-floors material. With the adoption of troduction of modern mechanized [’idrey qayi].” ’Idra’ yields bit

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of use granted to local peasants.6 In present-day traditional vil- lage societies with individual- ized cultivation and raising of , each family that grows grain crops has its own threshing floor near the house, or near its plot of land if that is too far from the house, since it is easier to trans- port sacks of grain than bound sheaves of or barley. The threshing floor is not plas- tered or paved with stones; it is a Fig. 1: Village threshing floors, Judea. Photo: . Amit flat piece of land in a place where the ground dries quickly. Leveled from time to time with a wooden ’idrey – ”house of threshing”– and When fields were owned jointly board,7 it is kept clean and hard by thence bi darey, from which baydar by the inhabitants of a village, long use.8 After the bound sheaves derives in turn. These terms are a level rocky outcrop or a plot of of grain are brought to the thresh- land that could be leveled was set ing floor, their ties are undone, and aside as a threshing floor.4 Each the stalks of grain are spread over family was allotted a space on the circular threshing area. Thresh- the threshing floor, which could ing separates all the elements of the serve a village community for crop: The grains separate from the hundreds of years and was also hulls – the chaff – and the straw is used as a place of social gathering crushed. The crop can be threshed (Fig. 1).5 The public threshing floor by beating with a flail (Judges was also known in ancient times. 6:11; Ruth 2:17; Fig. 2). More usu- A fifteenth-century BCE document ally, however, it is done by draft from Nuzi mentions threshing animals, mainly young heifers that areas (magrattu) that were con- have not yet been trained to the tiguous to one another, with rights yoke (Hosea 10:11) and are guided Fig. 2: Agricultural scene. In the middle register farmers are shown winnowing with a winnowing fork and shovel, as well as by beating. In the lower register a scribe records the amount of grain delivered to the granaries. , Old Kingdom, 2575–2134 BCE. Collection of the Bible Lands Museum, Jerusalem. also related to Akkadian adru, adratu, “threshing floor,” and also “fields” or “houses” in Neo- Assyrian.3 Two place names on the ancient southern border of the tribe of Judah, Addar (Joshua 15:3), and Hazzar-addar (Numbers 34:4; also mentioned in the Kar- nak lists of Pharaoh Shoshenq I, 945–924 BCE), also seem to be Fig. 3: Nineteenth-century threshing scene. From: C.W. Wilson, Picturesque , called after the threshing floor. Sinai and Egypt, London 1880, I, p. 201.

4 5 ‰È‰˜· Èχ¯˘È‰ ÈÓ„˜‡‰ Êίӯ اﳌﺮﻛﺰ اﻻﻛﺎدﳝﻲ اﻻﺳﺮاﺋﻴﻠﻲ ﻓﻲ اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة BULLETIN the israeli academic center in cairo

around the floor with a goad, as away the bloodshed illustrated in Egyptian wall paint- and impurity of this ings from the New Kingdom; or house and carry them by means of a threshing sledge far across the sea.” (Hebrew: môrag) drawn by a team A finer sifting of of oxen, donkeys, horses, or cam- the grain from chaff els (Fig. 3); or sometimes by only and pebbles was one animal.9 done with a sieve or Most likely, the use of animal winnowing-fan power for drawing the threshing (Hebrew: na$pp$h, sledge dates to the second half of kˇeb$r$h). In the Uga- the fourth millennium BCE, when ritic Baal epic, the de- animals were first used to pull struction of the god a plow. In the ancient Near East Mot by the goddess and in the Bible, the crushing of Anat is depicted in the the crop by an animal's hooves or imagery of thresh- Fig. 4: Winnowing in the Hebron region. Photo: Yohanan a drawn implement symbolizes ing: Anat cleaves Ben Ya'akov. Man and His Work Collection, Eretz Israel distress, coming apart, and disin- Mot with a sword – Museum, Tel Aviv. tegration (Isaiah 21:10, 41:15–16; apparently a thresh- Amos 1:3; Micah 4:13; Habakkuk ing sledge13 – roasts his remains for God (Numbers 15:20, 18:27). 3:12). The same simile is found in in the fire, grinds them14 between When the Hebrew slave was set the annals of the kings of Assyria. millstones, and scatters them free in the seventh year, his master Tiglath-pileser III (744–727 BCE) in a field so that the birds will had to give him of his and declared that he had “threshed eat them. In Mot's complaint goats, and of the produce of his [name] as with a threshing tool” to Baal, the afflicted god adds threshing floor and wine-press (k≠ma dayašti adiš).10 winnowing with a riddle or (Deuteronomy 15:14). During the The threshed crop is heaped up sieve to his misfortunes.15 In the Sukkoth (Tabernacles) , in one or more piles, and when a Hittite-Hurrian myth ”The Song the crops were brought from the favorable wind blows, it is win- of Ullikummi,” Kumarbi, the grain threshing floor and the wine-press nowed to separate it into its vari- god, tells his son: ”Let him chop (Deuteronomy 16:13), a combina- ous components. The best time for him fine like chaff. Let him grind tion that symbolizes all of human- winnowing is at night when gentle him underfoot (like) an ant. ... ity's food (Numbers 18:27; 2 Kings breezes blow, for strong winds may Let him scatter all the gods down 6:27). blow the seeds into the chaff (Ruth from the sky like flour.”16 Sieves 3:2). Winnowing is performed (or fans) for sifting grains (Arabic: Social and Religious Functions outside the threshing floor. The minsaf) were standard household of the Threshing Floor straw and grains are tossed into equipment in rural Palestine into the wind with a winnowing fork the twentieth century. In the Bible, Because space was limited in the (Hebrew: ma'b¬r, mizreh, magôb; the term for winnowing (mizreh, towns, the threshing floor was Fig. 4) or shovel (raºat; Arabic: zˇeriyy$h) is also used in the sense situated outside the walls. The raºa). The heavy grains fall in one of scattering and exiling (Leviticus Mishnah (Baba bathra 2:8) states place and the chaff farther away 26:33, Isaiah 29:5, Jeremiah 15: explicitly that it was to be 50 cubits (Hosea 13:3; Psalms 1:4). Winnow- 7; cf. Job 21:18). Straw was burnt away from the city, since the chaff ing is described in a letter from for fuel, used for cattle feed and blown about during winnowing a peasant of the Old Babylonian fertilizer, or chopped fine for might be injurious to health. From period as zukku, “purification,”11 preparing building clay or mud. the story of Ruth, who went down and in this sense it seems to have The chaff was of no value and was from the city to the threshing floor stood behind a Hittite magical not used. (Ruth 3:3), the Jewish sages de- incantation: “As the wind chases At the conclusion of the duced that threshing floors ought away the chaff and carries it far season, an ”offering from to be in a low spot (Ruth rabbah across the sea, so also may it chase the threshing floor” was set apart 5:2). But according to 1 Kings 22:10,

4 5 BULLETIN the threshing floor of Samaria was shades (rapiuma) – the deceased of the have been next to the city gate,17 and Jeremiah ancestors – to Daniel’s threshing connected to the threshing floor. 15:7 has: ”And I fan [winnow] them floor to join in the summer’s drink- 21 ... in the gates of the land.” It seems, ing feast. Love and Marriage on the therefore, that threshing floors The Temple in Jerusalem was Threshing Floor were commonly near the city gate. erected on the site of a threshing The Ugaritic texts, too, give the floor. The story of the appear- In most cultures, the agricultural impression that threshing floors ance of an angel of destruction process of treading grain to ob- were near the city gate (b’p µgr).18 to David at the threshing floor of tain has a transferred sexual The threshing floor near the city Arauna, high above its surround- meaning: to ”tread” a woman. served as a place for large gath- ings; the purchase of the place The threshing floor as the arena erings; it was a site of public and the raising of an altar there of lovemaking is well apparent ceremonies and rituals. King to stay the plague from the people in religious literature. Ahaziah of Israel and King (2 Samuel 24:16–25; 1 Chronicles In the Old Babylonian Agushaya Jehoshaphat of Judah sat on 21:15–30); and Solomon's subse- Hymn, Ea, god of water and of on the threshing floor before the quent construction of the Temple wisdom, copulates with Ishtar on city gate of Samaria and ”prophets there (2 Chronicles 3:1) suggest the threshing floor after she has prophesied before them” (1 Kings that the threshing floor preserved perhaps made a sexual assault 22:10; 2 Chronicles 18). its religious functions among the upon him: ”He had her bend over The Ugaritic Aqhat epic relates and Israelites as well. the threshing floor.”25 Letters from that Daniel sat on the threshing Cultic activities seem to have Assyrian officials, a love song, floor among the mighty of the land been performed at the threshing and a hymn to the gods Nabu and to judge the cause of widows and floor of the Iron Age IIA city gate Tashmetu make clear the role of orphans: of Betsaida.22 In first-millennium the threshing floor in the Sacred Assyria, the god Nabu owned his Marriage. The course of the ritual, Now Daniel, man of Rapiu, own threshing floor; a man would which took place at the beginning The hero, man of the Harnemite, bring barley produced by his field of the month of Iyyar (II) in the city Gets up and sits by the gateway, Among the chiefs on the threshing ”to give the barley [paid for the of Kalah, can be sketched in broad floor; field] to Nabu on his threshing outline. The nuptial bedchamber Takes care of the case of the floor.”23 (b¬t erši), situated in the inner widow, Mourning rituals for the dead parts of the temple, is prepared for Defends the need of the orphan. also took place on the threshing the erotic meeting of the gods, who floor. Genesis 50:10–11 relates that are conveyed there in a procession Perhaps the expression ”to sit on the sons of Jacob who returned (hamm†tu). The divine couple the threshing floor” in the Nuzi from Egypt to bury their father stays˘ in the bedchamber for documents means something like in the Land of Canaan made such several days, from the 5th to the ”to claim justice.” Another inter- a great mourning at ”the thresh- 10th of the month, during which pretation sees the threshing floor ing-floorgøren [ ] of Atad, which is the offerings of the royal family mentioned in the Aqhat epic as beyond the Jordan” that the are brought before the gods, and a referring merely to an open space; Canaanites called the place royal banquet – that is, a sacrificial to judge the cause of widows and Abel-mizraim – “the Mourn- meal – is served. On the 11th day, orphans, in this view, refers not to ing of Egypt.” At the end of the Nabu comes out of the bedchamber, the actual passing of judgments on nineteenth century, Arabs still first to the threshing floor (adru) them, but rather to extending social conducted wakes and weddings of the palace and thence to the justice by allocating them portions at the threshing floor, and Egyp- garden (kiriu), where a is of grain at the threshing floor. This tian peasants kept the common performed, after which he returns custom is still in force in modern bier in its place near the gurn to his dwelling.26 Going to the rural Arab societies, in which grain outside the village into the twen- garden belongs to the standard is distributed (qi‘ah) to the needy tieth century.24 For thousands of imagery of Mesopotamian and at the threshing floor.20 Ugaritic years, it seems, many aspects of biblical love poetry and is acted texts also tell of the journey of the the ethnography of the peoples out ritually in the celebrations of

6 7 ‰È‰˜· Èχ¯˘È‰ ÈÓ„˜‡‰ Êίӯ اﳌﺮﻛﺰ اﻻﻛﺎدﳝﻲ اﻻﺳﺮاﺋﻴﻠﻲ ﻓﻲ اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة BULLETIN the israeli academic center in cairo

divine love. The threshing floor or grain. At the outset of the story, that Nabu visits prior to entering famine has driven Elimelekh the garden should be regarded as and his family to leave their part of this standard imagery of native town for Moab. When food love poetry. again becomes available in Judah, In the Song of Songs, the round the family's surviving members, form of the threshing floor and Elimelekh's widow Naomi and her the mounded sheaves of grain are widowed daughter-in-law Ruth, metaphors for the beauty of the return there at the beginning of Shulammite: ”Thy navel is like a the barley harvest (Ruth 1:22). round goblet, wherein no mingled Ruth and Boaz become acquainted wine is wanting; thy belly is like during the harvesting of his field a heap of wheat set about with (Chapter 2), and the sexual dimen- lilies” (7:3). Perhaps her golden- Fig. 5: medallion designed by sion begins to open. Naomi thinks hued skin, evoking the ripe ears of Zeev Raban, depicting Ruth in the fields that Boaz, a relative of hers, ought grain, shines through her diapha- of Bethlehem, produced at the Bezalel to take Ruth as his wife, in a kind nous garment.27 The heap of wheat Academy in the 1940s. Shlomo Mous- of levirate marriage that will also surrounded by lilies seems to be an saieff Collection. enable him to take possession of erotic image, for the kisses of the the family's abandoned plot of beloved are likened to lilies: ”My According to Hosea 9:1, reli- land. She gives Ruth instructions beloved is mine, and I am his, that gious prostitution rituals took on how to approach him: ”Wash feedeth among the lilies” (2:16); place at the threshing floor: ”O thyself..., and anoint thee, and put ”His lips are lilies dropping with Israel... thou hast gone astray from thy raiment upon thee, and get flowing myrrh” (5:13). Both the thy God, thou hast loved a harlot's thee down to the threshing floor,” navel and the belly may indicate hire upon every corn-floor. The and there, at night when he lies the pudenda; in talmudic Hebrew, threshing floor and the wine-press down to sleep, ”go in, and uncover ”chambers of the belly” is a euphe- shall not feed them.” Perhaps Ho- his feet, and lay thee down, and mism for a woman's intimate parts sea's threshing floor was the site he will tell thee what thou shalt (BT Shabbat 31b). In the conceits of the Sacred Marriage rite.29 The do” (3:3–4; Fig. 5).31 As Josephus of this love poetry, surround- Babylonian Talmud (Nedarim 50a) (Antiquities V:328) has it: ”Naamis ing the heap of wheat with lilies relates that one of the greatest sag- schemed to bring Ruth to his side, reflects the custom of surrounding es, Rabbi ’Aqiva (second century deeming that he would be gracious the threshing floor – especially the CE), who started out as a poor, ig- to them after consorting with the mound of threshed grain – with norant shepherd, slept with his be- child.” Ruth does as Naomi has in- brambles (Hebrew: ’atad) as a loved wife on the threshing floor. structed her, in a manner designed protective measure: ”as a thresh- He is described as pulling straw to suggest that Boaz, having com- ing floor surrounded by thorns” out of her hair and saying that if pleted his agricultural treading on (Mishnah Sotah 13:61). Conceiv- he could afford it, he would crown the threshing floor, should ”tread” ably, the name of the threshing her with a ”Jerusalem of ” her. In the morning, though no floor of Atad (Genesis 50:10), – an expensive piece of headgear carnal relations apparently have where Jacob was mourned by his shaped like the battlements or taken place, she slips away be- sons, echoes this practice. The towers of a city, which was worn fore the outside world is awake, Church Fathers interpreted ”thy by women of high status (later, following Boaz's warning: ”Let belly” as the belly of the Virgin, when he achieved greatness, he it not be known that the woman likened to a field, and the grains is said to have bought her this came to the threshing floor” (3:14). of wheat as the fruit of her womb, ornament). 30 The sexually charged context of Christ. In Christian iconography The erotic implications of what the story, and Boaz's secrecy about from the fourteenth century on, was done on the threshing floor Ruth's nocturnal visit, invite an this image was made graphic, in are also suggested in the Book understanding of the deeper signif- the form of the Virgin's dress deco- of Ruth. The story takes place in icance of Ruth's visit to the thresh- rated with sheaves.28 Bethlehem – the ”place of bread” ing floor.32 In an act of repressed

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dedicate his threshing sledge to the day of his death, when his body would be laid out on the sledge and he would be mourned. In the marriage ceremonies of Syrian Arabs, both Muslims and Christians, held in the spring month of March, the threshing sledge was brought out from the , where it was kept during the winter, to the threshing floor, which was covered with spring Fig. 6: Threshing with a n†rag, Lower Egypt. Photo: David Amit. flowers. A stage two cubits high was erected on the floor, and eroticism, Boaz says to her: ”Bring (the place of threshing) as the place the sledge was placed upon it. the mantle that is upon thee, and where the virile member performs A colorful rug was draped over hold it”; he pours six measures of intercourse – that is, the vulva.36 the sledge, and on it were set two barley into her kerchief and sends Boaz took Ruth and she became cushions (martabah) embroidered her away (3:15).33 Boaz's generous his wife, and the Lord gave her with gold thread and filled with gift represents the product of the conception. She bore a child, ostrich feathers, like the cushions threshing process, and also the fer- Obed, who begot Jesse, and Jesse on a royal . Throughout tility of the couple's future union,34 begot David. The threshing floor the seven days of the wedding the treading of her as a heap of of Bethlehem was the place where celebration, the bridal pair sat on grain in the sense suggested in the the Davidic dynasty (also said to the sumptuous threshing sledge Song of Songs. have produced Christ; cf. Matt. 1: (nuraj), crowned in royal style What really happened on the 1–17) was established. (Fig. 6). The invitees acted the threshing floor? The fourth-cen- In the romance of Daphnis and parts of a royal entourage (diwan), tury CE Palestinian Rabbi Yudan Chloë by Longus (ca. the turn of headed by a wazir (”minister”), the had no doubt that Boaz could not the third century CE), the shep- villager who brought the sledge to fall asleep until the morning. In herd, Daphnis, asks the hand of the stage. War songs were de- a midrash (Ruth rabbah 6:8), he Chloë of her parents, Dryas and claimed in which the groom was relates that Boaz did not succumb Nape, as they work on the thresh- represented as a king vanquishing to his desires and did not touch ing floor. Daphnis commends a fortress, and songs and dances Ruth. But earlier, the same mid- himself as being knowledgeable were performed before the couple. rash (6:3) has it that Ruth ”took about cutting and planting vines, On the seventh day a festive meal hold of him like a skin-rash,” and plowing the ground, and win- was served, which the groom at- that he stroked her hair, asking nowing grain in the wind. Nape, tended in his regular clothes, his whether she was spirit or woman, Chloë's mother, is described as face smeared with a paste contain- and whether she was pure, where- driving her oxen on the threshing ing chopped straw for good luck. upon she responded that she floor to crush the stalks with her The customs observed by the was a woman and pure – and threshing sledge, encrusted with German consul seem to reflect so, ”permitted.” Judah Hadassi, sharp stones.37 an antecedent depicted in seals a Karaite sage in twelfth-century In 1873, the German consul in of the Uruk-Jemdet Nasr style Constantinople, accused the rab- Damascus, Dr. J.G. Wetzstein, (ca. 3100–2900 BCE), on which bis of luridly imagining that published a detailed ethnographic a figure bespeaking noble status Boaz copulated with Ruth on the study on the threshing sledge and is seated on a sledge pulled by threshing floor.35 The choice of its varied uses in Syria.38 He noted an ox. On a seal impression from the threshing floor as the arena for the cultural connotations of the Arslantepe-Malatya in easern Naomi's scheme becomes clear in threshing sledge, which was used Anatolia (Fig. 7)39 and on a view of a talmudic expression (BT in wedding ceremonies as well as in the Jonathan Nidah 41b) referring to mqm dšh in funerary rituals. A man would Rosen collection in New York

8 9 ‰È‰˜· Èχ¯˘È‰ ÈÓ„˜‡‰ Êίӯ اﳌﺮﻛﺰ اﻻﻛﺎدﳝﻲ اﻻﺳﺮاﺋﻴﻠﻲ ﻓﻲ اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة BULLETIN the israeli academic center in cairo

but it may also suggest a kerchief for tying one's hair such as those worn by Egyptian peasants, both men and women, when work- ing on the threshing floor.43 On a steatite plaque in the British Museum, a man is depicted with a hair style characteristic of the EN, the priest-king of the Uruk period (Fig. 9). Apparently, both men and women were conveyed in Fig. 7: Seal impression from Arslantepe-Malatya, late third millennium BCE, show- the threshing sledge-litter, perhaps ing a figure sitting cross-legged in a litter dragged by an ox. M. Frangipane and A. to sacred weddings conducted on Palmieri, ”Perspectives on the Protourbanization in Eastern Anatolia: Arslantepe- Malatya – An Interim Report on the 1975–1985 Campaigns,” Origini, 12 (1983), the threshing floor. fig. 67. The Jewish sages dubbed the threshing sledge “bed of turbal” (Mishnah Parah 12:10), possibly because of its resemblance to a bed; or perhaps the term pre- serves a similar early concept of the sledge with a seat upon it as a vehicle for sacred marriages. The word turbal, in the language of the sages, derived from tribu- lum – ”the dragged one.”44 In Res rusticae (”On Agriculture,” first Fig. 8: Cylinder seal from the Jonathan Rosen Collection, Jemdet Nasr period, showing a century BCE), Varro mentions two pigtailed figure carried in a threshing sledge litter. From: W. Nagel and E. Strommenger, types of threshing sledges (I:52): ”Der frühdynastische Kultschlitten: Ein Vorläufer des Wagens?” in P. Calmeyer et al. the board sledge, which has sharp (eds.), Beitr ge zur altorientalischen Archäologie und Altertumskunde: Festschrift Barthel stones or iron spikes inserted into Hrouda, Wiesbaden 1994, fig. 2. it and an upturned front end to ease the dragging (tribulum); and (Fig. 8),40 sharp protrusions can in the Rosen collection has hair the Punic threshing sledge (plostel- be seen clearly at the bottom of falling down its back, which may lum punicum), a board moving on the conveyance, showing that the indicate that the figure is a woman, small, serrated iron wheels. This scene is to be regarded as a ritual latter type, still in use in primi- involving a canopied litter on tive Arab agriculture (Fig. 10),45 is a threshing sledge. Amiet postu- alluded to in Isaiah 28:27–28: ”For lated that the dragged litter was the black cumin is not threshed an early transport vehicle used in with a threshing sledge, neither ancient religious ritual contexts is a cart-wheel turned about upon – perhaps some sort of fertility the cumin. ... And though the rite associated with the harvest.41 roller of his wagon and its sharp Ceremonial sledges of this kind, edges move noisily, He doth not the Early Dynastic Sumerian crush it.” It seems that the types H AR-h a -da, were made of exotic of dragged threshing implements ˘ ˘ wood˘ and belonged to princesses. have not changed from ancient An actual sledge was found in Fig. 9: The priest-king riding in a cano- times almost to our day. Of course, 42 pied litter dragged by an ox. From: P. Queen Pu-abi’s grave at . Amiet, La Glyptique Mésopotamienne in modern, mechanized agricul- Identifying the seated figure on Archaïque, Paris 1961 (reprinted 1980), ture, the combine harvester reaps, the seals is problematic. The one no. 662. threshes, winnows, and sifts the

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on the wall. The bride sits against a backdrop of blue cloth with a crown suspended over her, remi- niscent of the hanging Sassanian crown that passed to the West by way of Byzantium.48 The crown hanging over the bride, who sits with crossed hands and an inane expression on her face, seems to be a parody of the simple peasant girl represented as a queen on her wedding day.49 Fascination with the threshing floor is also much in evidence in the Hebrew literature of early Zionist settlement in Eretz Israel. In the novel Belo niv by Zvi Schatz (who was killed together with the Fig. 10: Egyptian n†rag. Man and His Work Collection, Eretz Israel Museum, Tel Aviv. writer J.H. Brenner in May 1921), an impossible love affair between grain, and loads it automatically.46 er unrestrained joyous behavior. Uri and Hadas, a married woman, In the sixteenth century, wed- They eat lustily, drink to excess, is played out on threshing floors in ding feasts and ceremonies and generally are rambunctious the Galilee. David Shimoni's idyll were popular motifs in the art of and quite unhygienic – not at all Yovel ha'eglonim describes the las- Germany and the Netherlands. like their more cultivated, refined civious lovemaking of the crowd Pieter Brueghel's ”The Peasant urban contemporaries. But they participating in the celebrations of Wedding Feast” (ca. 1565) is set live real lives, free of sophistry and fifty cart drivers on the swelling at the threshing floor, where the pretensions.47 In the background is mound of a threshing floor, under grain is heaped to wall height an additional group that wants to a silvery moon. The popular song (Fig. 11). The villagers display rath- join in the fun. Two sheaves hang ”I Heard a Tale” by Yirmiyahu Rosenzweig, a veteran of the settlement of Menahemiya in the Jezreel valley (Fig. 12), recalls the old Syrian custom of the bridal pair seated on the :

I heard a tale of a moonlit night, said the lad to the maiden on a star- lit night. Lovers whispered on the moonlit threshing floor. The boy said to her: Come along, and tu-lu- lu, she replied. On a threshing floor under a bright moon eyes spar- kled, lips stuck together. ... Lovely Esterika, fair and cheeky, ... come sit with me on the threshing board, and I ll tell you how it whirls – on the moonlit night on the threshing floor. Fig. 11: Pieter Brueghel, “The Peasant Wedding Feast,” c. 1565. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Reproduced by permission.

10 11 ‰È‰˜· Èχ¯˘È‰ ÈÓ„˜‡‰ Êίӯ اﳌﺮﻛﺰ اﻻﻛﺎدﳝﻲ اﻻﺳﺮاﺋﻴﻠﻲ ﻓﻲ اﻟﻘﺎﻫﺮة BULLETIN the israeli academic center in cairo

V:6; Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (above, note 15), p. 58. Threshing floors near a city gate are possibly- at tested in Hittite texts, too. One of the city gates at Hattusha, capital of the Hittites, was named KÁ KISLAH be- cause of its proximity to a threshing floor; see H.A. Hoffner, Jr.,Alimenta “ Revisited,” in G. Wilhelm (ed.), Akten des IV. Internationalen Kon- gresses für Hethitologie, Würzburg, 4.–8. Oktober 1999 (Studien zu den Boğazköy-Texten, 45), Wiesbaden 2001, p. 20. 19 CAT 1.17 V:4–8, 68; CAT 1.18 I:21–25; Parker, Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (above, note 15), p. 58. 20 Smith, “Meaning of Goren” (above, note 3), p. 43; J. Gray, “The Goren at Fig. 12: The threshing floor at Menahemiya, early twentieth century. Courtesy ofthe the City Gate: Justice and the Royal Municipality of Menahemiya. Office in the Ugaritic Text ‘Aqhat,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly (1953), p. 121. 1 A. Black, Andrew George, and (above, note 4), p. 105. 21 CAT 1.20 I, II; Parker, Ugaritic Nar- Nicholas Postgate (eds.), A Concise 9 Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte (above, rative Poetry (above, note 15), p. Dictionary of Akkadian, Wiesbaden note 5), pls. 13, 14. 197–199. 2000 (second corrected printing), p. 10 P. Steinkeller, “Threshing Imple- 22 Gray, “The Goren” (above, note 20), 285, s.v. qarânu. ments in Ancient : p. 121; M. Bernett and O. Keel, Mond 2 Martha T. Roth (ed.), Chicago Assyr- Cuneiform Sources,” , 52 (1990), Stier und Kilt am Stadttor: Die Stele ian Dictionary (CAD), X: M, Part 1, p. p. 20. von Betsaid (et-Tell) (OBO, 161), Fri- 46. 11 C.J. Gadd, “The Fan of Ba-ba,” Iraq, bourg–Göttingen 1998 3 S. Smith, “The Threshing Floor at 10 (1948), p. 94, note 5. 23 CAD, I: A, Part 1, p. 130, s.v. adru; E. the City Gate,” Palestine Explora- 12 H. Hoffner, Alimenta Hathaeorum: Matsushima, “Le ritual de hiéroga- tion Quarterly (1946–1947), pp. 9, 12; Food Production in Hittite Asia Mi- mie de Nabu,” Acta Sumerologica, 9 idem, “On the Meaning of Goren,” nor, New Haven, CT, 1974, p. 53. (1987), pp. 132, 134, 161. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 13 J.F. Healy, “Burning of the Corn: 24 H.H. Ayrout, The Egyptian Peasant (1953), pp. 44–45; CAD, I: A, Part 1, New Light on the killing of Motu,” (1963; English transl. by John Alden pp. 129–130; Concise Dictionary of Orientalia, 34 (1984), pp. 248–251. Williams of Moeurs et coutumes des Akkadian (above, note 1), p. 5. 14 M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. fellahs, 1938), Cairo–New York 2005, 4 L. Turkowski, “Peasant Agriculture Sanmartín, Die keilalphabetischen p. 101. in the Judean Hills,” Palestine Explo- Texte aus Ugarit (AOAT, 24/1), 25 A. Draffkorn Kilmer, “An Ideal Ani- ration Quarterly, 101 (1969), p. 105. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1976 (KTU), 1.6.II mal Totem/Model for Inanna/I štar? 5 Smith, “Meaning of Goren” (above, 30–37. Problems of Geography and Time,” note 3), p. 45; G. Dalman, Arbeit und 15 KTU 1.6.V 11–19; S.B. Parker (ed.), in L. Milano et al. (eds.), Landscapes, Sitte in Palästina, I, Gütersloh 1964 Ugaritic Narrative Poetry, Atlanta Territories, Frontiers and Horizons (reprint), pl. 12. 1997, pp. 156–171. in the Ancient Near East (Rencontre 6 T. Richter, “Die Tenne in den Texten 16 Hoffner, Alimenta (above, note 12), Assyriologique Internationale, 44), aus Nuzi,” Studies on the Civiliza- p. 53. Padua 2000, p. 54, note 7. tion and Culture of Nuzi and the 17 Smith, “Threshing Floor” (above, 26 Smith, “Threshing Floor” (above, Hurrians, 7 (Edith Porada Memorial note 3), p. 5; J. Gray, “Tell el Far‘a note 3), p. 10; M. Nissinen, “Akka- Volume), Bethesda, MD, 1995, p. 75. by Nablus: A ‘Mother’ in Ancient Is- dian Rituals and the Poetry of Divine 7 The Farmer’s Almanac, ll. 94–95, in rael,” Palestine Exploration Quarterly Love,” in R.M. Whiting (ed.), My- B. Hruška, “Das landwirtschaftliche (1952), p. 112. thology and Mythologies: Methodical Jahr im alten Sumer: Versuch einer 18 M. Dietrich, O. Loretz, and J. Approaches and Intercultural Influ- zeitlichen Rekonstruktion,” Bulletin Sanmartín, The Cuneiform Alphabetic ences (Melammu Symposia, 2), Hel- on Sumerian Agriculture, 5 (1990), Texts from Ugarit, Ras Ibn Hani and sinki 2001, pp. 98–99. pp. 105–114. Other Places (CAT; second, enlarged 27 One is reminded of the ancient Egyp- 8 Turkowski, “Peasant Agriculture” edition of KTU), Münster 1995, 1.17 tian paintings in which the ideal skin

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color of women is a brownish hue. “Der frühdynastische Kultschlitten: to Islam: On Some Symbols of Roy- See M.H. Pope, The Song of Songs Ein Vorläufer des Wagens?” in P. alty,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and (Anchor Bible), New York 1977, p. Calmeyer et al. (eds.), Beiträge zur Islam, 7 (1986), p. 76; A.S. Melikian- 621; O. Keel, Das Hohelied, Zurich altorientalischen Archäologie und Chirvani, “The Iranian Bazm in Early 1992, p. 216. Altertumskunde: Festschrift Barthel Persian Sources,” in R. Gyselen (ed.), 28 A. Thomas, in E. Kirschbaum (ed.), Hrouda, Wiesbaden 1994, figs. 2, 6. Banquets d’Orient (Res Orientales, 4), Lexikon der christlichen Ikonogra- 41 P. Amiet, La Glyptique Mésopo- Bures-sur-Yvette 1992, p. 113. phie, Freiburg 1994, I, pp. 82–85, s.v. tamienne Archaïque, Paris 1961 49 E.H. Gombrich, The Story of Art, Ährenkleidmaria; U. Nefzger, “Korn (reprinted 1980), pp. 88, 92. London 1972, pp. 297–298. in der Kunst: Ein hundertfältiges 42 Steinkeller, “Threshing” (above, note Gleichnis,” in H. Küster et al., Korn: 10), pp. 21–23, pl. IIIa. Kulturgeschichte des Getreides, Salz- 43 As suggested by M. Bietak in the dis- burg–Munich 1999, pp. 135–137. cussion following my lecture at the in G.J. Israeli Academic Center in Cairo on ”,גורן“ .G. MŸnderlein, s.v 29 Botterweck and H. Ringgren (eds.), February 22, 2005. Moreover, it has Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten been pointed out to me that children Testament, II, Stuttgart–Cologne– are often mounted on the threshing Mainz 1977, p. 69. sledge to augment its weight for 30 S. Paul, “Jerusalem: A City of Gold,” more efficient threshing. These may Israel Exploration Journal, 17 (1967), be identified with the figures de- p. 260. picted on the threshing board in the 31 Y. Zakovitch, Ruth: Introduction Rosen seal. and Commentary (Miqra leYisra’el), 44 Pliny, Historia Naturalis I:298. Tel Aviv–Jerusalem 1990 (Hebrew), 45 Dalman, Arbeit und Sitte (above, p. 89. note 5), pp. 78–91; L.A. Moritz, s.v. 32 C.M. Carmichael, “‘Treading’ in the “Dreschen,” in K. Ziegler and W. Book of Ruth,” Zeitschrift für alttes- Sontheimer (eds.), Der Kleine Pauly, tamentliche Wissenschaft, 92 (1980), Stuttgart 1965–1975, II, pp. 162–163; p. 259. G.C. Hillman, “Traditional Hus- 33 Zakovitch, Ruth (above, note 31), bandry and Processing of Archaic p. 91. in Recent Times: The Opera- 34 Carmichael, “Treading” (above, note tions, Products and Equipment that 32), p. 259. Might Feature in Sumerian Texts II: 35 Eshkol hakofer 118:45, quoted in A. The Free-threshing Cereals,” Bulletin Kosman, “What Really Happened on Sumerian Agriculture, 2 (1985), at the Threshing Floor?” Ha’aretz: p. 8. Tarbut vesifrut, June 10, 1997 (special 46 M. Kadour and H. Seeden, “Busra issue for Shavuoth eve, 5757). 1980: Reports of an Archaeologi- 36 Carmichael, “Treading” (above, note cal and Ethnographic Campaign,” 32), p. 249. Damaszener Mitteilungen, 1 (1983), 37 Longus, Daphnis and Chloë (English p. 97; J.C. Whittacker, “The Ethnoar- transl. by G. Thornley, 1657; revised chaeology of Threshing in Cyprus,” by J.M. Edmonds), Cambridge, MA Near Eastern Archaeology, 63 (2000), (Loeb Classical Library), 1916, pp. pp. 62–69. 29–30. 47 E.M. Kavaler, Pieter Bruegel: Parables 38 J.G. Wetzstein, “Die syrische Dresch- of Order and Enterprise, Cambridge tafel,” Zeitschrift für Ethnographie, 5 1999, pp. 155–162. (1873), pp. 287–294. 48 R. Ettinghausen, “The Throne and 39 M. Frangipane and A. Palmieri, “Per- the Banquet Hall of Khirbat al-Maf- spectives on the Protourbaniztion jar,” in idem, From Byzantium to Sas- in Eastern Anatolia: Arslantepe- sanian Iran and Islamic Iran, Leiden Malatya – An Interim Report on 1972, pp. 28–29; H. Erdmann, “Die 1975–1985 Campaigns,” Origini, 12 hängende Krone des Berk-Yaruk (1983), fig. 67. Ibn Malik Schahs,” in R.M. Boehmer 40 M.A. Littauer and J.H. Crouwel, and H. Hauptmann (eds.), Beiträge “Ceremonial Threshing in the An- zur Altertumskunde Kleinasiens: cient Near East,” Iraq 52 (1990), pl. Festschrift für Kurt Bittel, Mainz IIa; W. Nagel and E. Strommenger, 1983, p. 173; S. Shaked, “From Iran

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