The history of bread : from pre-historic to modern times / by John Ashton.

  • Ashton, John, 1834-1911.
Date:
1904
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The history of bread : from pre-historic to modern times / by John Ashton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

    30/198 (page 24)
    historic man—and in the British Museum are two wooden models, which show the first process of con- verting the cereal into meal ; and then we have two figures of men kneading dough—from the Museum at Ghizeh (formerly at Boulak). The bread itself was both leavened and unleavened—as may be seen by the many examples—round, triangular, and square— in the British Museum, some of which must have been a foot across, and over an inch thick; the three examples given on page 27 being 5in. in diameter, and •jin. thick ; 7 ditto and £ ditto ; whilst the ornamented cake is 3^in. in diameter and fin. thick. But there were professional bakers in Egypt, as we see in some of the tomb-pictures. In the Biblical story of Joseph we find that ‘the butler of the King of Egypt and his baker had offended their lord the King of Egypt’; and the Rabbi Solomon says their offences were the butler not having perceived a fly in Pharaoh’s cup, and the baker having got a stone into the royal bread, so that Pharaoh thought they were conspiring against his life. We know they were put in prison with Joseph, and related their dreams to him. The dream of the Opheh, or chief baker, was that he ‘ had three white baskets on his head, and in the uppermost basket there was all manner of bake meats for Pharaoh.’ The Bible story of Joseph goes on to tell us how, in the years of plenty, he providentially stored up the excess of corn to meet the years of famine, and how the Israelites sent to Egypt for food, and subsequently abode in that land. Thanks to Assyrian art, and to the enduring qualities of bronze, we are able to see how that