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This mural was found in Egypt. Does that look like American-style corn to you?

[attachment=0]EgyptianCornMural.jpg

Looks like corn to me.


I can't think of what else it could be.

No, not really.

Yep.....Most definitely Corn. Egyptian maize (corn) dates back to 4000 BC. Reapers cut the ripe corn with wooden sickles edged with sharp flints. Women and children followed behind the reapers to collect any fallen ears of corn. Cattle were used to trampled over the cut corn to remove the grain from the ears. Then the grain was tossed into the air so the breeze blew the light useless chaff away.....Doc:)

It sort of looks like a carrot, but I probably couldn't draw any better, especially if I had crappy drawing materials to do it with. I suspect they didn't have much better than crayons to draw this stuff with.

Dr. Snubnose wrote:Yep.....Most definitely Corn. Egyptian maize (corn) dates back to 4000 BC. Reapers cut the ripe corn with wooden sickles edged with sharp flints. Women and children followed behind the reapers to collect any fallen ears of corn. Cattle were used to trampled over the cut corn to remove the grain from the ears. Then the grain was tossed into the air so the breeze blew the light useless chaff away.....Doc:)

Ummm, is that the "voice of experience" talking or just a scholarly explanation of the process??? Hmmmmm??





:eek: :D :rolleyes: Sorry Doc...I just had to let my inner smarta** run loose for a moment. Forgive me, please.

Forgiven.....but you are astute....I'm am filled will useless trivia information....that no one needs to know.....ever! LOL Doc:)

Could be corn.
Could be a bunch of other stuff- Looks to me like the rhizome base of a bulrush or lily-pad reed, which were milled to make bread for 1000s of years all across the ancient world.
Could equally show winter barley or wheat (Long green stems above a clubbed seed head)- both of which were farmed in Egypt.

Got to remember that many of these paintings are figurative rather than literal- there is always an attempt to show what something does or it's behavior as well as what it is. In some cases both parts of the lifecycle of a plant are shown at once- something impossible in reality.

demoncase wrote: Looks to me like the rhizome base of a bulrush or lily-pad reed, which were milled to make bread for 1000s of years all across the ancient world.

Why in the world would you eat a bulrush if you have corn? Roasted corn on the cob, creamed corn, corn tortillas, corn bread, corn fritters, corn salsa.... (I like corn, btw)

Ken

From Wikipedia:

"Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacan Valley of Mexico.[3] The Olmec and Mayans cultivated it in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica, cooked, ground or processed through nixtamalization. Beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas.[4] The region developed a trade network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops. After European contact with the Americas in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, explorers and traders carried maize back to Europe and introduced it to other countries"

also on Wikipedia:

"The word "corn" outside North America, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple.[11][12] In the United States,[11] Canada,[13] Australia, and New Zealand,[citation needed] corn primarily means maize; this usage started as a shortening of "Indian corn".[11] "Indian corn" primarily means maize (the staple grain of indigenous Americans), but can refer more specifically to multicolored "flint corn" used for decoration.[14]"


it does look like it could be stored in a big pointy grain silo though

awa54 wrote: it does look like it could be stored in a big pointy grain silo though

Lol that guy is crazyyyyyyyyy :p

kbuzbee wrote:

demoncase wrote: Looks to me like the rhizome base of a bulrush or lily-pad reed, which were milled to make bread for 1000s of years all across the ancient world.

Why in the world would you eat a bulrush if you have corn? Roasted corn on the cob, creamed corn, corn tortillas, corn bread, corn fritters, corn salsa.... (I like corn, btw)

Ken

Why?....Here's my reasoning:

1. It's a serious longshot that the Egyptians had corn....Like Thunderball-on-the-lottery-twice-in-a-row longshot

2. An imported grain stuff would be 'high status' food for the posh lot at the top. Humble mudlarks like me would scrape by on what we could grub up....which generally means 'what no-one else wants to eat'

3. Ancient Egypt's 3 seasons centred around the flood plain of the Nile- the 'Inundation' meaning that it was impossible to have year round fields of corn waving in the breeze. As they'd be underwater for a third of the year.

4. It's only with a real understanding of chemical properties of food in 20th century that we consume food for real nutrition and/or pleasure.
While that's always been true about the enjoyment part- Up until the early mid 19th century there was an additional need to consume certain foods to demonstrate status (Witness the middle ages recipes with meat crammed with so much sugar and spices you'd think they were deserts...These were to show you could afford the more expensive imported items) and for dubious medicinal benefits linked to astrology and other hocum- (Doctrine Of Signatures is a great case in point.).....Some bright spark claims that eating bulrush rhizomes helps with sore feet because they look a bit like your toes and they'd all be eating them for medicine.

Egypt was one of the first cultures to have a surplus of grain (corn, wheat, oats, barley or Puffa-puffa rice?). Along with the grain surplus storage came the rats & mice. They found that cats were a pretty good idea around the silo for rodent control. Domestic cats were an offshoot of grain, trade & necessity, as the trade routes were established out of Egypt.

I'm no expert, but, no, it doesn't look like corn to me. I was lucky enough to know one of the men who discovered the prehistoric maize in Tehuacan and Oaxaca, Mexico (C. Earle Smith, one of my wife's advisors) and saw the specimens in Tehuacan. The corn grown in the New World at that time was much smaller than the plant in the picture seems to me. The big hybrids were developed in Europe in the mid twentieth century. The middle plant in the left picture looks like it may have an immature inflorescence coming out of the top of it, and, if that's true, it couldn't have an ear of corn (another inflorescence) coming out of the bottom... but there's not much in the picture to get true perspective from, the pictures look stylized as Demon implied, I don't know jack about Egyptian plants, let alone the ones growing there thousands of years ago, and there's a heck of a lot we don't know about ancient Egypt

demoncase wrote:

kbuzbee wrote:

demoncase wrote: Looks to me like the rhizome base of a bulrush or lily-pad reed, which were milled to make bread for 1000s of years all across the ancient world.

Why in the world would you eat a bulrush if you have corn? Roasted corn on the cob, creamed corn, corn tortillas, corn bread, corn fritters, corn salsa.... (I like corn, btw)

Ken

Why?....Here's my reasoning:

Okay, I give. It was just a poor attempt at humor (my wife reacts to my jokes the same way)

Ken

kbuzbee wrote: Okay, I give. It was just a poor attempt at humor (my wife reacts to my jokes the same way)

Ken

I think we can always use a some humor, even if it's a little corny....

DougC-3 wrote:

kbuzbee wrote: Okay, I give. It was just a poor attempt at humor (my wife reacts to my jokes the same way)

Ken

I think we can always use a some humor, even if it's a little corny....

Nice!

Ken

for myself to think what i see is corn or not makes me ask myself 1 question and that is could corn [maize] get to Egypt in the first place before 1492 . after a lot of research i came up with the answer yes it is possible that corn was in Egypt before 1492 .its a proven fact that Egyptians was going back and forth to Australia during the pharaoh dynasty which was 12,509 give or take a few Km away . when north america or otherwise known as west indies back in Christopher Columbus time was only 10,723 Km give or take a few Km away from Egypt .and we cant forget about Leif Erickson from Iceland that traveled to Portland main in america which was around 4965 Km give or take a few of course .this is all a conversion from nautical miles to Km . People were travailing all over the wold in boats thousands of years ago for trade and exploration . so if we can do it today why couldn't the ancients travel where every they wanted too. so YES i see corn because it was possible for them to possess corn aka maize from the Americas .

They are truly only scratching the surface concerning many mysteries of Ancient Egypt. There are a couple of scholars I follow that believe that the pyramids were constructed by a race of giants>> I don't necessarily believe that myself because I think that guy that built "Coral Castle" in southern Florida actually discovered how Ancient Egyptians moved those mega-ton stones. But the theory that slaves slid the quarried stones that came from a long ways away up on a giant ramp is hogwash in my opinion.

It wasn't long after Howard Carter discovered the Tomb of King Tut that some other archaeologists determined that the Ancient Egyptians actually did brain surgeries on some of the mummies they found. Egypt is still a Pandora's Box of so many mysteries that I doubt we'll ever know most of it for sure.

One of the more recent claims about the Pyramids were being used as some sort of energy source and/or a type of power plant I do find rather interesting>> but far from being convinced. Egyptology is a study that could consume many lifetimes of study needless to say.

demoderby wrote: ↑

Tue May 28, 2019 5:48 pm

yes it is possible that corn was in Egypt before 1492 .its a proven fact that Egyptians was going back and forth to Australia during the pharaoh dynasty

Proven fact? Sources?
Which dynasty do you mean. There were many over centuries.

Regards,