CLA 035 - Mediterranean Triad Quiz

What three crops make up the Mediterranean Triad?

Grains (cereals), grapes, and olives.

What goods are produced from the Mediterranean Triad crops?

Grain produces bread and beer; grapes produce wine; olives produce olive oil.

What two foods were staples in Egypt and West Asia?

Bread and beer.

Name three uses of the olive or olive tree besides making olive oil.

Olives as food; olive pits or wood as fuel; leaves or pits as animal fodder; olive wood for tools, vessels, furniture, or building materials. Any three.

What were four uses of olive oil?

Cooking, lighting lamps, personal hygiene or health, and possibly animal fodder according to the lecture slide.

How long do grapevines take to produce grapes?

About 5–10 years.

What were the large ceramic vessels used to ferment and store wine in the Roman world called?

Dolia; singular: dolium.

Which two cereals were cultivated in ancient Egypt?

Emmer wheat and barley.

What does it mean for grain to be hulled?

The grain remains enclosed in a tightly attached husk or chaff that must be removed before use.

Why must chaff be removed before grain is milled into flour?

If milled with the grain, tiny chaff pieces are difficult to remove from the flour.

What were the main steps for turning hulled emmer into flour in ancient Egypt?

Clean and sort the grain; dampen and pound it to loosen the husks; dry it; winnow and sieve to remove chaff; grind the clean grain into flour.

What tool was used to pound grain spikelets to free the grain?

A mortar and pestle.

What tool ground clean grain into flour before the rotary quern?

A saddle quern, using a hand stone rubbed back and forth over a larger stone.

What two major changes occurred in Egyptian cereal technology during Greco-Roman times?

Emmer was replaced by free-threshing wheat, and saddle querns were replaced by rotary querns.

What two ingredients are essential for making bread?

Flour, usually from cereal grain, and water.

Was leavening required for ancient Egyptian bread?

No. Yeast or sourdough was optional.

How were flat loaves baked in New Kingdom Egypt?

Dough was slapped onto the hot inner wall of a cylindrical mud-brick oven.

What roles did bread and beer play in ancient Egyptian society?

They provided nutrition, were used in trade or as rations/payment, and were used in rituals and offerings.

What were the main ingredients of ancient Egyptian beer?

Cereal grain (barley and/or emmer), water, and yeast; malt was also important.

What is malt?

Grain that has been allowed to sprout (germinate) and then dried.

Why was malt important in brewing?

Sprouting produces enzymes that break starch into sugars that yeast can ferment.

What does yeast do during brewing?

It ferments sugars into alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide.

What two-part brewing method has Samuel proposed for ancient Egyptian beer?

One batch of grain was cooked in water; another batch of coarsely ground malt was left uncooked. They were mixed, chaff was sieved out, and the liquid was fermented.

What are the basic steps of grain farming?

Plow, sow seeds, hoe, harvest with a sickle, thresh, winnow, and store or grind the grain.

How were seeds commonly sown in ancient Greece?

They were scattered by hand from a sack or basket.

How did Greeks usually propagate grapevines?

By planting cuttings.

What are the basic steps of Greek wine making?

Harvest grapes; tread or press them to release juice; collect the juice; ferment it in large vessels; then transfer the wine to jars for storage or transport.

What was a lenos in ancient Greek wine making?

A wooden pressing-board, often with a spout, used for treading grapes.

What were pithoi used for in wine making?

Large vessels in which grape juice (must) fermented.

What is the basic process for making olive oil?

Harvest olives, crush them, press the paste, and separate the oil from the water.

Why are olives crushed before pressing?

Crushing breaks open the fruit so the oil can be extracted.

How was oil separated from water after pressing olives?

The mixture was left to stand so the oil rose to the surface and could be skimmed off, or a vessel drained water from the bottom.

How were olives harvested in the Greek scene shown in the lecture?

People beat or shook the branches to bring olives down, while others gathered the fallen olives into baskets.

What evidence can help researchers study ancient farming and food production?

Art, written texts, archaeological tools and installations, residues, and comparisons with traditional farming or experiments.

Why do many ancient farm tools and presses remain poorly understood?

Many were made of wood, which rarely survives, and ancient art and texts often do not describe them precisely.