"Corn" in medieval Europe
Deane Geiken
What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
corn that we in the US are familiar with. I was under the impression
that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
about then?
Deane
--
Deane
AMICUS CONSTANTINI
In article <dgeiken-3001...@edmonton-14.slip.uiuc.edu>,
dge...@uiuc.edu (Deane Geiken) wrote:
"Corn" was originally (still is in Britain, maybe) a general term for cereal
grains. i would guess it usually meant barley, but could refer to wheat,
rye, etc. Maize (the type of corn we in the US are familiar with) was
originally called "Indian corn" referring to American Indians, that is.
There is a lively debate in sci.archeology concerning the possibility of
maize being grown in the Indian subcontinent before, well, before 1492,
let's say.
AMICVS CONSTANTINI
-AVE SOL INVICTVS-
Konrad M. Higgins
> What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
>that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
>corn that we in the US are familiar with. I was under the impression
>that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
>American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
>about then?
themselves. In the states this general term has evolved to refer
specifically to the seed crop maize, it being the dominent cereal over
there. In other areas it refers to other dominent crops. Here in
England it generally means wheat, in scotland oats. The actual crop
refered to in your above reference could depend on the nationality of
both chronicler and translator. If, for example, in a french chronicle
the word wheat is used (in french) an English translator may translate
it corn, while a scot may translate oats as corn. Foreign languages may
have there own generic term for cereals that have regional specific
definitions.
--
Konrad M. Higgins
Lars Arnestam
In Swedish the word "korn" means barley, but it is also the generic word
for the physical seeds of any cereal. Thus, when taken off the cob, the
seeds of American "corn" ("majs" in Swedish) are called "majs-korn".
Lars Arnestam
Paul J. Gans
Deane Geiken (dge...@uiuc.edu) wrote:
: What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
: that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
: corn that we in the US are familiar with. I was under the impression
: that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
: American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
: about then?
: Deane
You are right. "Corn" is the generic England-English word for
"grain". It refers to wheat, rye, etc.
The stuff found in the New World is, technically, maize. But
the heads, especially the immature ones, somewhat resemble
those of wheat. Thus it too was referred to as "corn". The
name stuck, and in the U.S. the word "corn" refers to maize.
As someone once said, England and America are two countries
separated by a common language.
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Russell Miners
"AMICUS CONSTANTINI" <CO...@NOVAROMA.GOV> wrote:
>In article <dgeiken-3001...@edmonton-14.slip.uiuc.edu>,
>dge...@uiuc.edu (Deane Geiken) wrote:
>> What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
>> that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
>> corn that we in the US are familiar with. I was under the impression
>> that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
>> American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
>> about then?
>>
>> Deane
>>
>> --
>> Deane
>"Corn" was originally (still is in Britain, maybe) a general term for cereal
>grains. i would guess it usually meant barley, but could refer to wheat,
>rye, etc. Maize (the type of corn we in the US are familiar with) was
>originally called "Indian corn" referring to American Indians, that is.
>There is a lively debate in sci.archeology concerning the possibility of
>maize being grown in the Indian subcontinent before, well, before 1492,
>let's say.
>AMICVS CONSTANTINI
>-AVE SOL INVICTVS-
In Gerard's Herball, 1636, there is a description of Turkie Corne:
"These kinds of grain were first brought into Spaine, and then into
other provinces of Europe: not as some suppose out of Asia Minor,
which is the Turks dominion; but out of America and the Islands
adjoyning, as out of Florida, and Virginia or Norembega, where they
use to sow or set it to make bread of it, where it growes much higher
than in other countries. It is planted in the gardens of these
Northern regions, where it commeth to ripenesse when the summer
falleth out to be faire and hot; as my selfe have seen by proof in my
owne garden."
and
"Turky wheat is called of some Frumentum Turcicum, and Milium Indicum,
as also Maizum, and Maiz, or Mays. It in all probabilitie was
unknowne to the antient both Greeke and Latine Authors. In English it
is called, Turky corne, and Turky wheat. The inhabitants of America
and the Islands adjoyning, as also of the East and West Indies, do
call it Mais: the Virginians, Pagatowr."
(Just muddying the waters....)
Simon Trafford
: >"Corn" was originally (still is in Britain, maybe) a general term for cereal
: >grains. i would guess it usually meant barley, but could refer to wheat,
: >rye, etc. Maize (the type of corn we in the US are familiar with) was
: >originally called "Indian corn" referring to American Indians, that is.
: >There is a lively debate in sci.archeology concerning the possibility of
: >maize being grown in the Indian subcontinent before, well, before 1492,
: >let's say.
: >AMICVS CONSTANTINI
Certainly the more natural usage for me, brought up in a middle-class home
in the south of England, is to use "corn" to mean wheat, though this is
increasingly uncommon. Under US influence, "corn" is coming to mean maize
to most British people. If I were using a noun to describe that
particular crop, it would probably be "maize" (when it was in a field),
"corn" (when it was on the cob) and "sweetcorn" (when it comes out of a
tin or a freezer).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--Simon Trafford: Centre For Mediaeval Studies, University of York,
The King's Manor, Exhibition Square, York, YO1 2EP
(01904) 433931 sjp...@york.ac.uk http://www.york.ac.uk/~sjpt100
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yuri Kuchinsky
Russell Miners (rm...@iinet.net.au) wrote:
: In Gerard's Herball, 1636, there is a description of Turkie Corne:
:
: "These kinds of grain were first brought into Spaine, and then into
: other provinces of Europe: not as some suppose out of Asia Minor,
: which is the Turks dominion;
Russel,
None of the early European herbals ever mentioned the "fact" that maize
came to Europe from America. It was generally believed -- until a certain
point in time -- that it came out of Asia.
: "Turky wheat is called of some Frumentum Turcicum, and Milium Indicum,
: as also Maizum, and Maiz, or Mays. It in all probabilitie was
: unknowne to the antient both Greeke and Latine Authors. In English it
: is called, Turky corne, and Turky wheat.
Not only in English. Just about in all of the European languages maize is
known as "Turkish corn" -- including in Spanish! (Sometimes it's "Indian
corn", but here the association may well be with India proper.)
Now, Why would the Spanish call maize "Turkish corn" if they indeed
introduced it to Europe?
Any ideas?
Yours,
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky
AMICUS CONSTANTINI (CO...@NOVAROMA.GOV) wrote:
: Maize (the type of corn we in the US are familiar with) was
: originally called "Indian corn" referring to American Indians, that is.
Well, we don't know this for sure, Amicus. It may have been the reference
to India. Anyway, maize was much more often known as "Turkish" early on.
: There is a lively debate in sci.archeology concerning the possibility of
: maize being grown in the Indian subcontinent before, well, before 1492,
: let's say.
Yes, for sure, the debate can be described as "lively". (BTW, the correct
name for the newsgroup is sci.archaeology.) Theories about maize being
present in the Old World before Columbus were around for a long time. But
recently new evidence is emerging to strengthen this hypothesis, e.g. the
work of Carl Johannessen. He studied the many pre-Columbian stone carvings
in south India that seem to portray corncobs rather realistically.
With recent scientific advances in genetics, this "mystery" will most
likely not remain a mystery for too long, but will be resolved one way or
another.
Best,
Yuri.
Paul J. Gans
Russell Miners (rm...@iinet.net.au) wrote:
: "AMICUS CONSTANTINI" <CO...@NOVAROMA.GOV> wrote:
:
: >In article <dgeiken-3001...@edmonton-14.slip.uiuc.edu>,
: >dge...@uiuc.edu (Deane Geiken) wrote:
:
: >> What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
: >> that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
: >> that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
: >> American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
: >> about then?
: >>
: >> Deane
: >>
: >> --
: >> Deane
: >grains. i would guess it usually meant barley, but could refer to wheat,
: >originally called "Indian corn" referring to American Indians, that is.
: >maize being grown in the Indian subcontinent before, well, before 1492,
: >let's say.
:
: >-AVE SOL INVICTVS-
:
:
: "These kinds of grain were first brought into Spaine, and then into
: other provinces of Europe: not as some suppose out of Asia Minor,
: adjoyning, as out of Florida, and Virginia or Norembega, where they
: use to sow or set it to make bread of it, where it growes much higher
: than in other countries. It is planted in the gardens of these
: Northern regions, where it commeth to ripenesse when the summer
: falleth out to be faire and hot; as my selfe have seen by proof in my
: owne garden."
:
: and
: as also Maizum, and Maiz, or Mays. It in all probabilitie was
: unknowne to the antient both Greeke and Latine Authors. In English it
: and the Islands adjoyning, as also of the East and West Indies, do
: call it Mais: the Virginians, Pagatowr."
:
:
: (Just muddying the waters....)
Not at all. This is perfectly consistant with what is being
said here.
Russell Miners
yu...@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
>Russell Miners (rm...@iinet.net.au) wrote:
>: In Gerard's Herball, 1636, there is a description of Turkie Corne:
>:
>: "These kinds of grain were first brought into Spaine, and then into
>: other provinces of Europe: not as some suppose out of Asia Minor,
>: which is the Turks dominion;
>Russel,
>None of the early European herbals ever mentioned the "fact" that maize
>came to Europe from America. It was generally believed -- until a certain
>point in time -- that it came out of Asia.
>: "Turky wheat is called of some Frumentum Turcicum, and Milium Indicum,
>: as also Maizum, and Maiz, or Mays. It in all probabilitie was
>: unknowne to the antient both Greeke and Latine Authors. In English it
>: is called, Turky corne, and Turky wheat.
>Not only in English. Just about in all of the European languages maize is
>known as "Turkish corn" -- including in Spanish! (Sometimes it's "Indian
>corn", but here the association may well be with India proper.)
>Now, Why would the Spanish call maize "Turkish corn" if they indeed
>introduced it to Europe?
>Any ideas?
>Yours,
>Yuri.
Hi Yuri,
The Spanish use of the term "Turkish corn" is an interesting one, and
something I hadn't heard before. It does raise some questions. Perhaps
the words had (along with the product) moved from Spain to its
neighbours, and then come back into local usage later from these
foreign climes. Maybe somebody out there has some info about this.
re the American origins of corn: This wasn't my interpretation, but
simply a quote from the "The Herball or General Historie of Plantes."
by John Gerarde of London, Master in Chirurgerie.
It seems that in 1636 the author thought that it was worth mentioning
not only that there was a widely held belief that maize came from the
east, but also that it was wrong and that the grain came from the
americas..
Nobody has mentioned the much stated view that everything foreign got
the tag "Turkish", so I may as well toss it in now....
wvanh...@aol.com
In article <5ctenr$uej$1...@news.nyu.edu>, ga...@scholar.nyu.edu (Paul J.
Gans) writes:
>
>You are right. "Corn" is the generic England-English word for
>"grain". It refers to wheat, rye, etc.
>
>The stuff found in the New World is, technically, maize.
"Corn is certainly a generic word. When I was a kid in East Texas, in
addition to the usual maize type corn we also planted a "kafir corn" that
looked very much like sorghum. Also a "Broom corn" that as I remember
was used mainly for chicken feed.
It is easy enough to figure out what "corned gunpowder " was about. But
why would beef pickled in brine be called "Corned beef"?
W F VAN HOUTEN
Older. But wiser ?
wvanh...@aol.com
In article <5cvveg$6kb$1...@trends.ca>, yu...@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky)
writes:
>Theories about maize being
>present in the Old World before Columbus were around for a long time. But
>recently new evidence is emerging to strengthen this hypothesis, e.g. the
>work of Carl Johannessen. He studied the many pre-Columbian stone
carvings
>in south India that seem to portray corncobs rather realistically.
>
>With recent scientific advances in genetics, this "mystery" will most
>likely not remain a mystery for too long, but will be resolved one way or
>another.
>
>Best,
>
>Yuri.
The other side of the discussion on sci.archaeology is "find us some corn
cobs in a pre-fifteenth century "dig" and we'll believe your Temple
carvings"
Richard Shannon
> This is all further complicated by a grain that is commonly known as bird
> seed which has the Trademark designation Maize.
The Maize I am refering too is a hybred of Millet, I believe.
Richard Shannon
Humanities Research Center
University of Texas at Austin
Ricahrd Shannon
This is all further complicated by a grain that is commonly known as bird
seed which has the Trademark designation Maize.
Richard Shannon
AMICVS CONSTANTINI
In article <19970203150...@ladder01.news.aol.com>,
wvanh...@aol.com wrote:
>
> It is easy enough to figure out what "corned gunpowder " was about. But
> why would beef pickled in brine be called "Corned beef"?
>
Corns (crystals) of Salt (or peppercorns) added to the beef.
John Emery
> With recent scientific advances in genetics, this "mystery" [the presence
of maize in pre-Columbian Old World] will most
> likely not remain a mystery for too long, but will be resolved one way or
> another.
As far as the origin of maize goes, the work of John Doebly has already
shown it to be descended from a central Mexican grass, teosinte. Maize and
teosinte can be fertilly crossed. There are numerous differences between
maize and teosinte, (teosinte is multi-branched, the kernels are enclosed in
a hard shell, and there is only a single row of kernels in each cob). But
the genes which confer some of these traits have been isolated (see
references). This does not discount the possibility of maize being present
in the old world before Columbus, but if it was, it was certainly brought
there from the new world.
Some references:
11. Doebley J.
Mapping the genes that made maize.
Trends in Genetics, 1992 Sep, 8(9):302-7.
(UI: 95099570)
Abstract: George Beadle proposed that the striking morphological differences
between cultivated maize and its probable wild progenitor (teosinte)
were
initiated by a small number of mutations with large effects on adult
morphology. Recent genetic analyses using molecular markers provide some
support for this view and show where in the maize genome the putative
loci
are likely to be located. This work sets the stage for fine-scale
linkage
mapping of these genomic regions and the eventual cloning of the genes
involved in this remarkable evolutionary transformation.
2. Szabo VM; Burr B.
Simple inheritance of key traits distinguishing maize and teosinte.
Molecular and General Genetics, 1996 Aug 27, 252(1-2):33-41.
(UI: 96397507)
Abstract: The segregation of key traits distinguishing maize and teosinte
was
analyzed in three F2 and three backcross populations derived from
crosses
of the modern maize inbred T232 with Zea mays ssp. parviglumis. These
traits were (i) paired vs. single female spikelets; (ii) two-ranked vs.
many-ranked ears; (iii) non-indurated vs. indurated glumes; (iv)
inclination of the kernels toward the rachis, and (v) distichous vs.
polystichous central staminate spike. All traits showed a simple mode of
inheritance except for paired female spikes, which appeared to be
controlled by two genes. The loci controlling these major changes were
mapped with RFLP markers to four chromosomal regions. These results
support
the suggestion that maize became differentiated from teosinte with as
few
as five major gene changes.
4. Doebley J; Stec A; Gustus C.
teosinte branched1 and the origin of maize: evidence for epistasis and
the
evolution of dominance.
Genetics, 1995 Sep, 141(1):333-46.
Type D 4 AB to see abstract. (UI: 96042916)
10. Doebley J; Stec A.
Inheritance of the morphological differences between maize and
teosinte:
comparison of results for two F2 populations.
Genetics, 1993 Jun, 134(2):559-70.
(UI: 93314942)
J. Emery
Dept. of Plant Pathology
UC Davis
Paul J. Gans
wvanh...@aol.com wrote:
[deletions]
: "Corn is certainly a generic word. When I was a kid in East Texas, in
: addition to the usual maize type corn we also planted a "kafir corn" that
: looked very much like sorghum. Also a "Broom corn" that as I remember
: was used mainly for chicken feed.
:
: It is easy enough to figure out what "corned gunpowder " was about. But
: why would beef pickled in brine be called "Corned beef"?
I'd love to know this last myself.
Hu McCulloch
J. Emery writes, RE the discussion by Yuri Kuchinsky of Johannessen and
Parker, "Maize Ears Sculpted in 12th and 13th Century AD India as Indicators
of Pre-Columbian Diffusion", _Economic Botany_ 43(2) 1989 164-80,
>As far as the origin of maize goes, the work of John Doebly has already
>shown it to be descended from a central Mexican grass, teosinte. Maize and
>teosinte can be fertilly crossed. There are numerous differences between
>maize and teosinte, (teosinte is multi-branched, the kernels are enclosed in
>a hard shell, and there is only a single row of kernels in each cob). But
>the genes which confer some of these traits have been isolated (see
>references). This does not discount the possibility of maize being present
>in the old world before Columbus, but if it was, it was certainly brought
>there from the new world.
>[botanical details deleted]
>J. Emery
>Dept. of Plant Pathology
>UC Davis
This is precisely J&P's point -- if maize is accurately depicted in
pre-Columbian sculptures in India, there must have been some contact.
But _is_ maize what is being depicted? As a botanist, do you know of
anything else the photographs in their article could be depicting? Do
cucumbers or bananas have parallel rows of kernels, overlapping husks,
and/or silk? Pomegranates have been seriously suggested ...
Carl Johannessen is working on getting better color photos up on his U. Oregon
Geography Dept. web site. This may take several weeks, however, since
he is new at cybermatters. (He didn't even know he _had_ a web site until
last month!)
Please note that I have added sci.bio.misc and sci.anthropology, since
they were included in the previous discussion.
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept.
Ohio State U.
Domingo Martinez
Mr McCulloch,
I does not matter how beautiful are the photographs Mr Johannessen will
provide. The issue has been discussed for over two months, I believe, in
sci.arch.mesoamerican, and even for the unusual first proponent, the issue
cannot be demonstrated if corn cobs or kernels are not found in the right
contexts in Asia or wherever your imagination takes them. And they have not
been found in all the excavations.
That is it. The pictures of the objects you are pushing so hard as Maize are
subject to interpretation, and Indian archaeologists have reccognized them as
"an imaginary fruit bearing pearls known in Sanskrit as 'Muktaphala'". (Payak,
M.M., and Sachan, J.K.S. 1993 "Maize Ears Not Sculpted in 13th Century
Somnathpur Temple in India." Economic botany. APR 01 1993, vol. 47 no. 2, P.
202).
I posted. a molnth ago or so, all references I could find on the subject, and
you mention none of them except the one you like. Why?
Having been trained as an economist myself, I do know about the temptation of
using assumptions here and there. But in archaeology the physical evidence
is the ultimate referee. And it is not there.
There are many. many, many more traits that suggest (practical, not absolute)
isolation of the Americas, than those indicating relevant contacts.
Domingo.
P.S. May I ask why is it that some people need so much that
post-Pleistiocene, pre-Columbian contact occured between the Americas and the
Old World? It escapes me.
Additional comments follow:
In article <hmccullo.3...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu (Hu McCulloch) wrote:
>> This does not discount the possibility of maize being present
>>in the old world before Columbus, but if it was, it was certainly brought
>>there from the new world.
>>[botanical details deleted]
>
>>J. Emery
>>Dept. of Plant Pathology
>>UC Davis
>
>This is precisely J&P's point -- if maize is accurately depicted in
>pre-Columbian sculptures in India, there must have been some contact.
>But _is_ maize what is being depicted? As a botanist, do you know of
>anything else the photographs in their article could be depicting? Do
>cucumbers or bananas have parallel rows of kernels, overlapping husks,
>and/or silk? Pomegranates have been seriously suggested ...
Not in the literature, unless you provide me with a reference mentioning
pomegranates. I have found references only to the 'Muktaphala' mentioned
above. Also, there seems to be many other representations that do not
resemble maize at all. In any case, the sculptures are subject to
interpretation, and that is a major obstacle to accepting Johannessen's point
of view as "evidence" of anything but his own reading of the objects.
>
>Carl Johannessen is working on getting better color photos up on his U. Oregon
>Geography Dept. web site. This may take several weeks, however, since
>he is new at cybermatters. (He didn't even know he _had_ a web site until
>last month!)
I hope he includes an unbiased sample of all the objects in the hands of the
deities, and not only those that looks just like maize. But I seriously doubt
it.
Domingo Martinez-Castilla
agd...@showme.missouri.edu
Yuri Kuchinsky
Domingo Martinez (agd...@showme.missouri.edu) wrote:
: Mr McCulloch, : : I does not matter how beautiful are the photographs
Mr Johannessen will : provide. The issue has been discussed for over two
months, I believe, in : sci.arch.mesoamerican, and even for the unusual
first proponent, the issue : cannot be demonstrated if corn cobs or
kernels are not found in the right : contexts in Asia or wherever your
imagination takes them. And they have not : been found in all the
excavations. : : That is it.
Well, I beg to disagree. Why should we see this issue in such
black-or-white, either/or way? This is a complex historical investigation
we're talking about. A legitimate hypothesis has been suggested, viz. that
maize (along with some other American crops) has been in the "Old World"
before Columbus. Plenty of evidence to support this has been accumulated,
and more is being accumulated all the time. The opponents of this
hypothesis have not been able to invalidate it so far. Moreover, the
opponents disagree with each other widely about what these Indian stone
carvings portray. There's confusion in their camp...
If fossilized corncobs are found in India, the argument will be over,
sure. Ditto if genetic research proves (or disproves) beyond doubt that
maize was ancient in India.
But until such time as decisive evidence shows up, the investigation
should continue and all further evidence should be considered. So the fact
that no fossils are available so far does not mean much. It's simply a
lack of evidence and is of little consequence.
On the other hand, if archaeological site reports could be found from
relevant areas and relevant time period, and these site reports indicated
that maize was not a staple for those communities, this should strengthen
the "opponents" case considerably. The fact that no such site reports have
been cited should speak for itself... (In other words, I'm suggesting here
that "negative evidence" can well be used by both sides!)
: The pictures of the objects you are pushing so hard as Maize are :
subject to interpretation, and Indian archaeologists have reccognized them
as : "an imaginary fruit bearing pearls known in Sanskrit as
'Muktaphala'". (Payak, : M.M., and Sachan, J.K.S. 1993 "Maize Ears Not
Sculpted in 13th Century : Somnathpur Temple in India." Economic botany.
APR 01 1993, vol. 47 no. 2, P. : 202).
So what? Half a dozen similar "explanations" have been offered. The
confusion among such interpretations speaks for itself.
Best regards,
Yuri.
Yuri Kuchinsky | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
-=- | is always Paradise: so say the most ancient
in Toronto | and the most modern serpents." F. Nietzsche
----- my webpage is for now at: http://www.io.org/~yuku -----
Yuri Kuchinsky
Russell Miners (rm...@iinet.net.au) wrote:
: yu...@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
: >None of the early European herbals ever mentioned the "fact" that maize
: >came to Europe from America. It was generally believed -- until a certain
: >point in time -- that it came out of Asia.
: >Not only in English. Just about in all of the European languages maize is
: >known as "Turkish corn" -- including in Spanish! (Sometimes it's "Indian
: >corn", but here the association may well be with India proper.)
:
: >Now, Why would the Spanish call maize "Turkish corn" if they indeed
: >introduced it to Europe?
: Hi Yuri,
: The Spanish use of the term "Turkish corn" is an interesting one, and
: something I hadn't heard before. It does raise some questions. Perhaps
: the words had (along with the product) moved from Spain to its
: neighbours, and then come back into local usage later from these
: foreign climes. Maybe somebody out there has some info about this.
I hope so, Russell. But the explanation you're suggesting seems
unnecessarily complicated. Do we really have any evidence that these
changes took place in Spanish? They should be quite easy to trace if they
indeed happened...
: Nobody has mentioned the much stated view that everything foreign got
: the tag "Turkish", so I may as well toss it in now....
Well, this is true in English, but is the same applicable in the same way
to other European languages? I'm not saying it isn't, just curious...
Best,
Yuri.
Hu McCulloch
Domingo Martinez (agd...@showme.missouri.edu) writes, concerning my
mention that Carl Johannessen was planning to put high-resolution color GIFs
of the figures in Johannessen and Parker, "Maize Ears Sculpted in 12th and 13th
Century AD India as Indicators of Pre-Columbian Diffusion," Economic Botany
1989, 164-80, on his web site at
http://www.uoregon.edu/~uogeog/faculty/johannessen.html,
>I does not matter how beautiful are the photographs Mr Johannessen will
>provide.
I never thought I would see the day when a scholar from Missouri would say,
in substance, "Don't even bother to show me!"
The photo reproductions in Economic Botany are grainy (pun intended),
and have been rendered as B&W. Figures 2-13 are perhaps adequate, but it's
hard to tell what J&P are trying to show with figures 14-16. I've seen his
color slides, and know that what his original photos are a lot more
convincing. EB could not afford to run color blow-ups of all his photos, but
this would be virtually free (to Johannessen) on the web, given that UO
supports his web site and has scanning facilities. Domingo's mind is made up,
so I'm sure he won't look at them, but perhaps other readers will take a peek.
Give Johannsessen several weeks to get these up, though.
> The issue has been discussed for over two months, I believe, in
>sci.arch.mesoamerican, and even for the unusual first proponent, the issue
>cannot be demonstrated if corn cobs or kernels are not found in the right
>contexts in Asia or wherever your imagination takes them. And they have not
>been found in all the excavations.
Certainly, if J&P are right, direct evidence of pre-Columbian maize should be
findable in archaeological sites in Hoysala horizons in Karnataka, and perhaps
elsewhere in the subcontinent. Can Domingo tell us where has been published
a survey article of all site reports on digs in Karnataka, showing which ones
might have found maize if it was present, whether maize would have
been reported if it had been found given the goals of the dig, how maize
was looked for, what flotation procedures were done to look for what types of
pollen, and what C-14 dates were run on any kernels or cobs that were found?
J&P's article should elicit such a survey article, but I strongly doubt that
it exists as yet, or even that anyone is even working on it.
If an American archaeologist were to dig into an Hopewellian mound and
find a stratum cluttered with beer cans, he or she would understandably
conclude that this stratum was contaminated with modern (post-WW II)
debris and of no archaeological interest. Perhaps someone will correct me,
but my guess is that the beer cans would not be catalogued and placed in a
permanent museum collection, and that the site report would not
enumerate the number, brand names, and condition of the cans.
No funds would be wasted C-14 dating beer residues. Indeed, the
site report might just report that the stratum was contaminated by "modern
debris", without even mentioning its character.
Now the Hoysala period terminated with the Moghul conquest of Karnataka, circa
1350. I head in a talk on recent excavations on a huge Moghul fortress in
India that very little work has been done on the Moghul period et seq. in
India, since from a Hindu-Indian perspective this is the modern period of
alien domination, and is considered to be of little if any interest,
culturally or archaeologically. A Hoysala horizon would be of interest, but
only if archaeologically intact and not contaminated with modern debris.
So if an Indian archaeologist looking for Hoysala garbage dumps were to
find a stratum full of corncobs, which in the past at least have been firmly
believed to solidly indicate a post-Columbian date, it would have been
completely understandable to conclude that the dump had been contaminated
with "modern" material. C-14 dates would be a waste of time and money,
if the corncobs themselves are regarded as conclusive indicators of
post-Columbian date.
So I'm not entirely convinced, pending publication of the hypothetical
survey I mentioned above, that no Hoysala period corncobs have been
found by Indian archaeologists.
> The pictures of the objects you are pushing so hard as Maize are
>subject to interpretation, and Indian archaeologists have reccognized them as
>"an imaginary fruit bearing pearls known in Sanskrit as 'Muktaphala'". (Payak,
>M.M., and Sachan, J.K.S. 1993 "Maize Ears Not Sculpted in 13th Century
>Somnathpur Temple in India." Economic botany. APR 01 1993, vol. 47 no. 2, P.
>202).
I am told by an Indian informant that Mukta means pearl, and phala means fruit.
Muktaphala therefore means pearl-fruit. If someone were to make up a name
for maize, pearl-fruit would be as like as any. J&P point out that the
Hoysala maize sculptures are modelled from individual, actual ears, rather
than from a stylized concept. But maize seems to have disappeared
from Karnataka sometime after the Hoysala period, since it was not
present, according to P&S, in 1960. My guess (which I posted several
weeks ago on a related thread) is that some sort of blight, smut or
mildew attacked it and wiped out cultivation of it. A century later,
and especially outside of Karnataka, the objects in the sculptures would
come to be thought of as being as imaginary as many of the other
objects in Hindu sculptures. So it's possible either that Muktaphala
was the actual name used for maize in Karnataka, which later came to
be viewed as the name of some imaginary edible, or that it was a
name applied later to the maize sculptures, not realizing that they
represented a food that was once actually raised.
John Emery had written earlier,
>>> This does not discount the possibility of maize being present
>>>in the old world before Columbus, but if it was, it was certainly brought
>>>there from the new world.
>>>[botanical details deleted]
>>
>>>J. Emery
>>>Dept. of Plant Pathology
>>>UC Davis
and I had replied,
>>This is precisely J&P's point -- if maize is accurately depicted in
>>pre-Columbian sculptures in India, there must have been some contact.
>>But _is_ maize what is being depicted? As a botanist, do you know of
>>anything else the photographs in their article could be depicting? Do
>>cucumbers or bananas have parallel rows of kernels, overlapping husks,
>>and/or silk? Pomegranates have been seriously suggested ...
Domingo reponds,
>Not in the literature, unless you provide me with a reference mentioning
>pomegranates. I have found references only to the 'Muktaphala' mentioned
>above. Also, there seems to be many other representations that do not
>resemble maize at all. In any case, the sculptures are subject to
>interpretation, and that is a major obstacle to accepting Johannessen's point
>of view as "evidence" of anything but his own reading of the objects.
Domingo evidently has not read even the Johannessen and Parker article.
On p. 173, J&P discuss B. Mundkur, "On pre-Columbian maize in India and
elephantine dieties in Mesoamerica", Curr. Anthropol., 1980, 676-9:
"Mundkur's other suggestion [ie other than a cornucopia] for the same maize-
ear-shaped object, [ie similar to the Hoysala object in J&P's Figure 8] carved
in an 8th century AD representation of the god Kubera, is that of a peeled
pomegranate with carved locules in parallel rows with 'no more than artistic
license on their normally disorderly distribution' (Mundkur 1980:677). How
the 'pomegranate' also came to have no placenta tissues showing and to have
a maize ear-like pointed tip stretches credulity."
Individual pomegranate seeds may create bulges in their skins indicating their
presence beneath the skins. J&P note that in about 10% of the Hoysala
objects, husks still enclose the entire ear (figs. 14-16.) Fig. 15 admittedly
isn't too clear in the article, but as I recall from J's slide presentation,
it represents a relatively young ear, in which the husks are so thin that
the kernels are visible through the husks, creating a pomegranate-
like texture. This is perhaps
what Mundkur had in mind. However, as J&P note, the shape is totally
wrong for pomegranates, pomegranates don't have curls of cornsilk
dangling down from the top as in Figure 15, and this is part of a sequence
of objects in the same temple, some of which are partially unhusked (figs
12-13), and most of which are completely unhusked (Figs 2-11.) J&P
claim that the edges of the husks are visible in some of the photos
reproduced in Figures 14-16, but the journal reproductions are inadequate
to see this. Perhaps this will be visible when Johannessen gets them
online. Domingo will not be interested in looking, but maybe others will.
I was just being facetious about bananas and cucumbers. Payek and
Sachan (Nature, Oct. 1988, p. 773-4) do suggest mangoes, however!
>>Carl Johannessen is working on getting better color photos up on his U. Oregon
>>Geography Dept. web site. This may take several weeks, however, since
>>he is new at cybermatters. (He didn't even know he _had_ a web site until
>>last month!)
>I hope he includes an unbiased sample of all the objects in the hands of the
>deities, and not only those that looks just like maize. But I seriously doubt
>it.
Hindu sculptures contain a myriad of objects that are clearly not maize --
eg lotuses. Why is it incumbent on him to catalogue all Hindu iconography?
P&S (Nature, Fig. 1) do show a photo of a male figure holding an interesting
beaded object which is clearly not maize, but which they argue is just a
variation on the "maize" objects. Perhaps they or Domingo could put
a clearer photo of this and related objects on a competing web site,
preferably with detailed blow-ups.
Please note that I have added soc.culture.indian to this post.
--- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept
Ohio State U
mccul...@osu.edu
Lars Arnestam
Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
>
.....
> But until such time as decisive evidence shows up, the investigation
> should continue and all further evidence should be considered. So the fact
> that no fossils are available so far does not mean much. It's simply a
> lack of evidence and is of little consequence.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Yuri.
>
> Yuri Kuchinsky | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
> -=- | is always Paradise: so say the most ancient
> in Toronto | and the most modern serpents." F. Nietzsche
> ----- my webpage is for now at: http://www.io.org/~yuku -----
I'm an absolute novice in the field, but I wonder: If someone seriously
wanted to prove that maize was grown in India (or "the Old World")
before Columbus, couldn't pollen analysis be one mean of at least either
strengthening or weakening that hypothesis? I realize that a very large
percentage of the land in India probably has been continually cultivated
for a very long time, but even so I don't think that it can be
impossible to find pollen deposits that are older than Columbus. Does
anyone know anything about this?
Lars Arnestam
kate
> It is easy enough to figure out what "corned gunpowder " was about. But
> : why would beef pickled in brine be called "Corned beef"?
>
> I'd love to know this last myself.
>
> ----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
salt) spread over the brisket during the corning process. Source: The
Culinary Institute of America "The New Professional Chef" Fifth Edition and
L Varenne Pratique by Anne Willan.
Kate
Peter van Rossum
In article <5dcjjo$dqt$1...@trends.ca> yu...@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
[deletions]
>If fossilized corncobs are found in India, the argument will be over,
>sure. Ditto if genetic research proves (or disproves) beyond doubt that
>maize was ancient in India.
Exactly, couldn't agree with you more.
>But until such time as decisive evidence shows up, the investigation
>should continue and all further evidence should be considered. So the fact
>that no fossils are available so far does not mean much. It's simply a
>lack of evidence and is of little consequence.
[deletions]
>Yuri.
All well and good. And as long as Precolumbian maize in India proponents
want to say that it is a possible, yet still unproven hypothesis I
don't know of anyone who would have a problem with this. Where the whole
thing gets out of hand is when individuals claim that the matter has
been definitely settled, that J&P's work proves for certain maize was in
India, and that anyone who disagrees with this is wrong and/or covering
up the truth.
Again if J&P or any of their followers feel that sufficient work has not
been done at relevant sites then I suggest that they go about organizing
a detailed archaeological investigation which will examine the cultural
and botanical remains at such sites. If they don't go about such work
then we'll just have to wait until Indian archaeologists get to such
work for their own reasons.
Peter van Rossum
PMV...@PSU.EDU
Chuck Blatchley
wvanh...@aol.com wrote:
>
> It is easy enough to figure out what "corned gunpowder " was about. But
> why would beef pickled in brine be called "Corned beef"?
>
Anything in small granular form was termed corn. What Americans call
rock salt was once called salt corn. Pickeling meat in rock salt
therefore "corned" it.
--
Chuck Blatchley
Larry Caldwell
In article <hmccullo.3...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu (Hu McCulloch) wrote:
> But maize seems to have disappeared
> from Karnataka sometime after the Hoysala period, since it was not
> present, according to P&S, in 1960. My guess (which I posted several
> weeks ago on a related thread) is that some sort of blight, smut or
> mildew attacked it and wiped out cultivation of it. A century later,
> and especially outside of Karnataka, the objects in the sculptures would
> come to be thought of as being as imaginary as many of the other
> objects in Hindu sculptures.
This is an interesting proposition. One of my objections to the
"maize in India" proposition was that maize was introduced into
Europe from the New World, not from India, even though traders
reached India long before the New World was discovered. Seeds of
a food crop are a very high profit item for traders. They are
a cheap commodity at their point of origin, will reproduce themselves,
and can be sold for a large profit where they are unknown. It seems
certain that maize would have been widely dispersed by European traders.
This does not explain why traders in the area did not disperse maize
throughout the east. I'm not familiar with the history of India of
700 years ago, but I have never heard of an agrarian society that did
not welcome trade. Maize in particular is one of the best adapted
crops for low moisture growing conditions, and will make a crop
in areas that are too dry for wheat, barley or millet. Substantial
portions of Asia are well suited for maize cultivation.
Another question I have is why maize would have been the only food
crop traded. North American natives also developed squash and beans
as food crops. Squash, in particular, are easy to grow, vastly
productive, and a great source of vegetable oils as well as food.
Squash cultivation was well established in the New World by 1000 ce.
Other vegetable candidates for trade include tobacco and potatoes,
though potatoes are perishable and more difficult to transport.
In any reasonably dry area, it should be easy to find the remains of
maize cultivation. Not only are the stalks and cobs quite woody and
persistant, but cobs have been used as raw material for manufacture
wherever they are available. Think of corncob pipes, for instance.
Even if tobacco was not traded as a seed crop, the Indians certainly
had plenty of other things to smoke. Cobs are also used as natural
abrasive tools, and as the basis for dolls and figurines. It might
be easy to dismiss a layer of maize cobs, but not so easy to ignore
a cob that had been used as a tool for polishing copper or silver.
Archaeology is an ongoing science, so we may all someday be surprised
by new discoveries. In the meantime, interpreting the temple
carvings as maize makes no sense in the larger context of history,
culture, and evidence.
-- Larry
Scott Begg
>Peter van Rossum
>PMV...@PSU.EDU
Perhaps I'm a bit new to this newsgroup and certainly to this thread.
However, I had the same question before, and got some decent answers
off sci.bio.evolution. I had seen in Bede and in Tacitus (and I
believe also in Seutonius) references made to "corn" crops and
"corn"supplies in Europe at dates much earlier than the medieval
period. However, I really think that the "corn" referred to is much
like a "barley-corn", and NOT a derivative of maize.
As far as I know, all genetic evidence (and by that, I mean nuclear,
chloroplast, and mitochondrial DNA evidence) indicates a Meso-American
or South American origin for maize, and an introduction to Europe
during the Age of Discovery. I do not believe that there is any good
genetic evidence to indicate that maize left the Americas and appeared
in Europe or the Indian subcontinent before then.
Scott.
Yuri Kuchinsky
Lars Arnestam (lars.a...@al.etx.ericsson.se) wrote:
: Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
: >
: .....
: > But until such time as decisive evidence shows up, the investigation
: > should continue and all further evidence should be considered. So the fact
: > that no fossils are available so far does not mean much. It's simply a
: > lack of evidence and is of little consequence.
: I'm an absolute novice in the field, but I wonder: If someone seriously
: wanted to prove that maize was grown in India (or "the Old World")
: before Columbus, couldn't pollen analysis be one mean of at least either
: strengthening or weakening that hypothesis? I realize that a very large
: percentage of the land in India probably has been continually cultivated
: for a very long time, but even so I don't think that it can be
: impossible to find pollen deposits that are older than Columbus. Does
: anyone know anything about this?
Well, Lars, this matter of pollen has certainly been considered by J&P.
In their ECONOMIC BOTANY article they summarize the evidence available.
Some ancient maize pollen in India has been apparently identified about 30
years ago. But it seems that there has not been any recent effort to
conduct further studies in this area. Please contact me by e-mail if
you're interested in further refs.
Yuri Kuchinsky
Larry Caldwell (lar...@teleport.com) wrote:
: In article <hmccullo.3...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
: hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu (Hu McCulloch) wrote:
:
: > But maize seems to have disappeared
: > from Karnataka sometime after the Hoysala period, since it was not
: > present, according to P&S, in 1960. My guess (which I posted several
: > weeks ago on a related thread) is that some sort of blight, smut or
: > mildew attacked it and wiped out cultivation of it. A century later,
: > and especially outside of Karnataka, the objects in the sculptures would
: > come to be thought of as being as imaginary as many of the other
: > objects in Hindu sculptures.
:
: This is an interesting proposition. One of my objections to the
: "maize in India" proposition was that maize was introduced into
: Europe from the New World, not from India,
But Larry, you're assuming that this is a well-established fact. This
certainly has been questioned, e.g. by Jeffreys in his MAN ACROSS THE SEA
article. He adduced considerable evidence that this cannot be assumed as
proven.
...
: Another question I have is why maize would have been the only food
: crop traded.
You would have been right to question this if this were so. But, in fact,
about a dozen of other plants have been suggested as possibly having been
dispersed from America across the Pacific pre-Columbus (and vice versa).
The sweet potato is the best known among the specialists. Coconut is
another one (going the other way). The bottle gourd, etc. (In the latter
two cases, reasonable arguments have been made that the transmission was
unaided by humans.) The diffusion of the domestic chicken (from Asia to
America) is another mystery.
: North American natives also developed squash and beans
: as food crops. Squash, in particular, are easy to grow, vastly
: productive, and a great source of vegetable oils as well as food.
: Squash cultivation was well established in the New World by 1000 ce.
: Other vegetable candidates for trade include tobacco and potatoes,
: though potatoes are perishable and more difficult to transport.
Best,
Paul J. Gans
I have written to Yuri Kuchinsky and asked him to stop
crossposting this stuff to soc.history.medieval. He
seems not to want to.
I ask soc.history.medieval folks NOT to respond to
these postings. If you are interested in the thread,
go to sci.archaeology or sci.archaeology.mesoamerican,
which are far more appropriate.
I'm not a net.cop, but this thread has engulfed several
other newsgroups and I'd like not to see it engulf this
one. This one is too good and to precious.
Thus I feel obligated to give a little background. What
I have to say is obviously somewhat colored. Folks should
not trust me implicitly; they can check DejaNews and see
for themselves.
This thread began on sci.archaeology or
sci.archaeology.mesoamerican. It was roundly derided in
both groups. The back-and-forthing has been going on in
those groups for MONTHS. Slowly the imbroglio has been
spreading to other newsgroups. It now infests eight or
more and shows no sign of ending.
The basic idea is this: for various reasons connected
with one book (cited below in the post I've included)
Kuchinsky feels that maize (corn in the U.S) known
in India in the middle ages. This is eventually based
on some Temple carvings that can be interpreted as being
ears of something resembling corn.
Indians who have responded in this thread have said that
there is no mention of corn being grown in India before
Columbus and that the carvings are something else, whose
name I have forgotten. No archaeological or written
evidence has been produced. Folks have produced references
to published papers listing crops found in digs in India
and corn is never mentioned.
Something similar occured in sci.archaeology earlier. It
may have occurred here as well, I do not remember. This
was the Great Discussion over certain church carvings in
England and France that looked like pineapples. Actually,
they look more like carvings of traditional hand-grenades
than pineapples, which should provide the clue.
Pineapples, of course, are native to the Hawaiian Islands
and were not known in Europe before the 16th century.
Hand grenades are sometimes called pineapples because they
resemble them. But hand grenades are called grenades because
they resemble pomegranites even more closely. And that's
what the carvings on the churches are: pomegranites.
The fruit has often been used as a symbol of christianity.
Why is another (long) story.
This fact was well-known to medievalists, but the Great
Discussion went on for months.
The great Corn Discussion has gone on even longer.
----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Yuri Kuchinsky (yu...@mail.trends.ca) wrote:
: Lars Arnestam (lars.a...@al.etx.ericsson.se) wrote:
: : Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
: : >
: : .....
: : > But until such time as decisive evidence shows up, the investigation
: : > should continue and all further evidence should be considered. So the fact
: : > that no fossils are available so far does not mean much. It's simply a
: : > lack of evidence and is of little consequence.
:
: : I'm an absolute novice in the field, but I wonder: If someone seriously
: : wanted to prove that maize was grown in India (or "the Old World")
: : before Columbus, couldn't pollen analysis be one mean of at least either
: : strengthening or weakening that hypothesis? I realize that a very large
: : percentage of the land in India probably has been continually cultivated
: : for a very long time, but even so I don't think that it can be
: : impossible to find pollen deposits that are older than Columbus. Does
: : anyone know anything about this?
:
: Well, Lars, this matter of pollen has certainly been considered by J&P.
: In their ECONOMIC BOTANY article they summarize the evidence available.
: Some ancient maize pollen in India has been apparently identified about 30
: years ago. But it seems that there has not been any recent effort to
: conduct further studies in this area. Please contact me by e-mail if
: you're interested in further refs.
:
: Yuri.
:
David Friedman
I don't know if this point has been raised in the discussion, but
according to Finan, John J., _Maize in the Great Herbals_, the reason
Maize was called "Indian Corn" was not, as one what would assume, a
connection with Amerinds, but a misidentification with an "Indian Corn"
described by Pliny. I don't know what Pliny's Indian corn was, but it
might be worth checking to see if it could be whatever is shown in the art
works being discussed.
David Friedman
Yuri Kuchinsky
Scott Begg (sco...@ucr.campus.mci.net) wrote:
: Perhaps I'm a bit new to this newsgroup and certainly to this thread.
: However, I had the same question before, and got some decent answers
: off sci.bio.evolution. I had seen in Bede and in Tacitus (and I
: believe also in Seutonius) references made to "corn" crops and
: "corn"supplies in Europe at dates much earlier than the medieval
: period. However, I really think that the "corn" referred to is much
: like a "barley-corn", and NOT a derivative of maize.
Scott,
The above certainly makes sense.
: As far as I know, all genetic evidence (and by that, I mean nuclear,
: chloroplast, and mitochondrial DNA evidence) indicates a Meso-American
: or South American origin for maize,
Yes, this is correct.
: and an introduction to Europe
: during the Age of Discovery.
And this is where you have a problem. First of all, such evidence as we
have in this area certainly doesn't indicate what you say it indicates.
We do not have too much evidence in this area to start with. And what we
do have indicates the opposite, viz. that maize was in India for a very
long time. This has been known to specialists for quite a while, but not
much effort to date has been expended to study maize lineages in the Old
World.
: I do no believe that there is any good
: genetic evidence to indicate that maize left the Americas and appeared
: in Europe or the Indian subcontinent before then.
See the work of Jeffreys in this area. Although he's somewhat dated by
now, he collected much useful information.
Regards,
Yuri Kuchinsky
Douglas Weller (dwe...@ramtops.demon.co.uk) wrote:
: On 8 Feb 1997 17:34:10 GMT, yu...@mail.trends.ca (Yuri Kuchinsky) wrote:
:
: [SNIP]
:
: >unaided by humans.) The diffusion of the domestic chicken (from Asia to
: >America) is another mystery.
: >
:
: It's this sort of claim that really upsets people, Yuri. You well know that
: explanations have been offered here. You just don't llike them, but that
: doesn't make it an accepted 'mystery'.
And it's this sort of unreasonable nitpicking that indicates that many
people feel their ideological agendas -- of whatever sort -- are
threatened by the research in this area.
I have made no claims above, Doug. Please reread what I wrote and tell me
exactly what was that "claim" that I made.
Yuri Kuchinsky
Paul, I did not start cross-postings to other groups. But then, on the
other hand, if a subject is appropriate in more than one group, I don't
see why it cannot be cross-posted, as long as the other group(s) is/are
relevant.
Paul J. Gans (ga...@scholar.nyu.edu) wrote:
:
: I have written to Yuri Kuchinsky and asked him to stop
: crossposting this stuff to soc.history.medieval. He
: seems not to want to.
...
: The basic idea is this: for various reasons connected
: with one book (cited below in the post I've included)
This is obviously incorrect. I don't even know what book you may be
referring to, because no book is cited in that post. Perhaps you may wish
to clarify...
: Kuchinsky feels that maize (corn in the U.S) known
: in India in the middle ages. This is eventually based
: on some Temple carvings that can be interpreted as being
: ears of something resembling corn.
This is wrong. The evidence for maize in the ancient Old World goes FAR
BEYOND these carvings.
...
: Pineapples, of course, are native to the Hawaiian Islands
: and were not known in Europe before the 16th century.
Paul, this is incorrect. Pineapples are native to America.
Here is an example of someone who wishes to cut off the discussion of this
subject matter while actually not being well-informed about the matter.
Ignorance is strength, Paul?
Regards,
vincent deluca
>
> Yuri.
>
> Yuri Kuchinsky | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
> -=- | is always Paradise: so say the most ancient
> in Toronto | and the most modern serpents." F. Nietzsche
> ----- my webpage is for now at: http://www.io.org/~yuku -----
Maybe someone can help me in regards to Corn.
The word for corn in Italian is "GranTurco"; this means, Turkish Corn.
The Italians also use the word Maize.
What the heck does Turkish Corn mean? My wife, who is Italian, refers
to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
speaking Italian.
Appreciate any information.
Vincent1.
J.B. Bandow
In article <5dtbpb$p...@sjx-ixn2.ix.netcom.com>,
vincent deluca <"Vinc...@ix.netcom"@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>> : As far as I know, all genetic evidence (and by that, I mean nuclear,
>> : chloroplast, and mitochondrial DNA evidence) indicates a Meso-American
>> : or South American origin for maize,
>> Yes, this is correct.
> Maybe someone can help me in regards to Corn.
> The word for corn in Italian is "GranTurco"; this means, Turkish Corn.
>The Italians also use the word Maize.
> What the heck does Turkish Corn mean? My wife, who is Italian, refers
>to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
>speaking Italian.
> Appreciate any information.
The linguistic aspect of "corn" means "main food" or 'cashcrop'. Hence, the
european word is 'culturally relative. Whatever your 'surplus' crop was
that you took to market was your 'corn'. It is a generic word used to
describe any number of crops and is NOT species specific. Hence, you must
keep this mind when reading primary historic documents.
jbb
Hu McCulloch
Scott Begg (sco...@ucr.campus.mci.net) wrote:
>> : Perhaps I'm a bit new to this newsgroup and certainly to this thread.
>> : However, I had the same question before, and got some decent answers
>> : off sci.bio.evolution. I had seen in Bede and in Tacitus (and I
>> : believe also in Seutonius) references made to "corn" crops and
>> : "corn"supplies in Europe at dates much earlier than the medieval
>> : period. However, I really think that the "corn" referred to is much
>> : like a "barley-corn", and NOT a derivative of maize.
This is quite right -- the original English meaning of the word "corn"
was "grain" (cp kernel, Ger. Kern = seed). The English colonists
in N. Am. originally called maize "Indian corn", since they got this "corn"
from the American Indians, but this later was
shortened to where now "corn" means maize in the U.S. In
the U.K., however, "corn" still means "grain", and that is how it should be
taken in translations of Bede and Tacitus.
Scott continues,
>> : I do no believe that there is any good
>> : genetic evidence to indicate that maize left the Americas and appeared
>> : in Europe or the Indian subcontinent before then.
Yuri Kuchinsky replied,
>> See the work of Jeffreys in this area. Although he's somewhat dated by
>> now, he collected much useful information.
Jeffreys' paper "Pre-Columbian Maize in Asia" was in CL Riley et al, eds,
_Man Across the Sea_, 1971.
Vincent Deluca then wrote:
> Maybe someone can help me in regards to Corn.
> The word for corn in Italian is "GranTurco"; this means, Turkish Corn.
>The Italians also use the word Maize.
> What the heck does Turkish Corn mean? My wife, who is Italian, refers
>to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
>speaking Italian.
> Appreciate any information.
If "Indian corn" is a grain the English colonists got from the
(American) Indians, then "Turkish corn" (or Turkish grain), ie maize,
was most likely obtained by the Italians, not from Spain or Portugal
in the West, but from Turkey in the East. I haven't read Jeffreys for
some time, but as I recall, he makes this point. I think he says there
are other European languages (Polish?) that call maize "Turkish grain."
Does anyone on soc.hist.med know when granturco was first mentioned
in Italian?
If Carl Johannessen and Anne Parker (Economic Botany 1989) are right that
maize is depicted in Hoysala sculptures in southern India dating to 1268 AD,
and thereabouts, then the Turks could have picked it up from India via
Persia etc. Jeffreys also points out that although maize is first reported in
China in the mid-16th century, the Chinese sources indicate that it was
introduced from the west, ie from central Asia, where it must have been
long established, and not from the eastern
seacoast where it might have been recently left by Portuguese traders.
Domingo Martinez has called my attention to a critique of J&P by T.
Veena and N. Sigamani in _Current Science_, a pub of the Indian
Academy of Sciences, 25 Sept. 1991, 395-7. It is most commendable
for an excellent glossy color photo of one of the sculptures on the front
cover of the issue. Even though the colors are mostly just brown tones,
this photo show how much color adds to the information in the photos.
Carl J. is currently at a Diffusionist conference in Seattle, but says he
will work on adding color gifs to his website,
www.uoregon.edu/~uogeog/faculty/johannessen.html,
after he gets back. The CS photo is of a sculpture that was not included
in the JP article. The kernels on its "corncob" are somewhat larger than
those in most of the JP photos, so it is a useful addition to their
sequence.
The V&S paper runs some statistical tests on three quantitative and one
qualitative attribute of the Hoysala sculptures, and concludes that what
is depicted is not maize. However, they are asking the wrong questions.
Maize is known to come in a variety of shapes, and sizes, with varying
kernel shapes and numbers of rows around each ear. They compile
data on the spectrum of all known varieties of maize,
from several sources, and then demonstrate that the Hoysala
sculptures do not depict this complete spectrum!
For example, they show conclusively that the mean diameter-
length (D/L) ratio of the Hoysala objects is significantly different than
the mean of their data on all types of maize ears. Given that most varieties
of maize are different than the average of all types of maize, this is not
an interesting question. The relevant issue is whether these objects
could have come from the known distribution of maize types, and as
far as the D/L ratio, number of rows, and qualitative shape, the answer is
clearly yes. The only problem, as J&P already indicated (their Fig. 5),
is the width/thickness ratio of the kernels (W/T): many of the Hoysala
kernels are distinctly squarer than known modern varieties.
However, J&P cogently point out that
this squarer shape is consistent with known ancient varieties from Bat Cave,
New Mexico, as cited by Mangeldorf and Smith, 1949. (See J&P Table 1). V&S
run a regression on the 6 observations in this table to demonstrate that there
is no significant correlation between shape and age (I've replicated this --
the t is 2.324, but with only 4 DOF, p = .081). But again this is not a
pertinent question. The issue is not whether there is a time trend in
favor of flatter kernels, but whether squarer kernels like those
in the Hoysala sculptures have ever been known. This answer, as
J&P have demonstrated, is clearly yes.
I'll probably get around to writing up a comment on the V&S paper for
Current Science. If anyone knows of any further discussion of
these issues there please let me know.
V&S go on to suggest that the Hoysala objects are "copy errors" of
objects called _Kalpa Vriksha_ that appear in Jain iconography.
An Indian student tells me that Vriksha in Hindi or Sanskrit means
tree, and that Kalpa Vriksha would be a mythological tree, or sacred
tree, or perhaps a tree of life. Can anyone on soc.culture.indian shed
any light on this?
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept.
Ohio State U.
Yuri Kuchinsky
[cross-posts reduced]
Hu McCulloch (hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
...
: If "Indian corn" is a grain the English colonists got from the
: (American) Indians, then "Turkish corn" (or Turkish grain), ie maize,
: was most likely obtained by the Italians, not from Spain or Portugal
: in the West, but from Turkey in the East. I haven't read Jeffreys for
: some time, but as I recall, he makes this point. I think he says there
: are other European languages (Polish?) that call maize "Turkish grain."
Well, actually, Hu, maize was known as "Turkish grain" in, I believe, most
European languages from early on. Certainly in Spanish. Jeffreys gives a
list of such names in his article that you've given the reference for.
: Does anyone on soc.hist.med know when granturco was first mentioned
: in Italian?
...
Thanks for posting this good analysis of some of the weaknesses in the
arguments of Johannessen's critics.
Best,
David Friedman
In article <hmccullo.3...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu (Hu McCulloch) wrote:
>The English colonists
> in N. Am. originally called maize "Indian corn", since they got this "corn"
> from the American Indians,
That seems plausible, but according to Finan, John J., _Maize in the Great
Herbals_, it is wrong. His claim is that Maize was misidentified with an
"Indian Corn" described by Pliny.
> > What the heck does Turkish Corn mean? My wife, who is Italian, refers
> >to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
> >speaking Italian.
An explanation I have seen is that in the 16th century, a number of new
things were coming in from both the Islamic world via Turkey and the New
World, and people sometimes confused the origin. This is one of several
possible explanation for why "Turkeys" are called that. Also, there is
apparently a refernce in a Hungarian source c. 1600 to growing "turkey
peppers" in the garden--presumably capsicum from the new world.
A variant explanation of "turkeys" is that the merchants who traded
between the Middle East and England were called "Turkey Merchants," and
they picked up turkeys in Spain and imported them to England. A third
explanation is that the turkey got confused with an old-world bird called
a "turkey fowl."
David Friedman (is this thread all economists?)
Julia E Smith
In article <5dut5q$q...@muss.CIS.McMaster.CA>,
>
>> Maybe someone can help me in regards to Corn.
>> The word for corn in Italian is "GranTurco"; this means, Turkish Corn.
>>The Italians also use the word Maize.
>>to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
>>speaking Italian.
>
>
>The linguistic aspect of "corn" means "main food" or 'cashcrop'. Hence, the
>european word is 'culturally relative. Whatever your 'surplus' crop was
>that you took to market was your 'corn'. It is a generic word used to
>describe any number of crops and is NOT species specific. Hence, you must
>keep this mind when reading primary historic documents.
However, the question was really about the Italian use of "Turkish corn"
for maize. In the 16th century, there appears to have been a great deal
of confusion regarding where New World objects came from, with Turkey
being a common attribution. I'm not sure whether this reflects Columbus'
attempts to convince himself that this was the Indes, or whether it
reflects a tendency (clearly continued in iconography and text) to
conflate American and Asian "traits" together. I've looked at
pictures of Native Americans on elephants and pictures of east Indians
with Brazilian feathered headdresses.
At any rate, note that "Turkish corn" and "turkey" (the bird) share an
etymological link. If you want to argue that "Turkish corn" came from the
East rather than the New World, I'd like a consideration of turkeys as
well.
Julia Smith
jes...@pitt.edu
Hu McCulloch
DD...@Best.com (David Friedman) writes:
>In article <hmccullo.3...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
>hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu (Hu McCulloch) wrote:
>>The English colonists
>> in N. Am. originally called maize "Indian corn", since they got this "corn"
>> from the American Indians,
>That seems plausible, but according to Finan, John J., _Maize in the Great
>Herbals_, it is wrong. His claim is that Maize was misidentified with an
>"Indian Corn" described by Pliny.
Very interesting! I've ordered Finan from cold storage, but haven't seen it
yet.
Vincent Deluca had written,
>> > What the heck does Turkish Corn mean? My wife, who is Italian,
refers>> >to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
>> >speaking Italian.
>An explanation I have seen is that in the 16th century, a number of new
>things were coming in from both the Islamic world via Turkey and the New
>World, and people sometimes confused the origin. This is one of several
>possible explanation for why "Turkeys" are called that. Also, there is
>apparently a refernce in a Hungarian source c. 1600 to growing "turkey
>peppers" in the garden--presumably capsicum from the new world.
This doesn't work. Maybe Columbus thought he was in India, but by
1620 the Puritans sure didn't think they were in Turkey or that the
American Indians were Turks.
>A variant explanation of "turkeys" is that the merchants who traded
>between the Middle East and England were called "Turkey Merchants," and
>they picked up turkeys in Spain and imported them to England. A third
>explanation is that the turkey got confused with an old-world bird called
>a "turkey fowl."
This makes more sense. According to Klein's _Etymological Dictionary of
the English Language_, turkey is the name "originally applied to the guinea
fowl,imported from Africa through traders who dealt chiefly with the Near East
(and for this reasons were called 'Turkey-merchants'); hence the birds sold by
these merchants came to be known as turkeys." So the Guinea-fowl was the
turkey-fowl, and the English colonists recognized that the American turkey
was similar (they're both related to pheasants), and called it the
turkey-fowl as well.
It is interesting that in French, according to the Larousse Etymologique,
dinde f, dindon m (turkey) originally was applied to the guinea-fowl (pintade),
and derives from coq/poule de l'Inde. Later this was extended to the
American turkey.
But the puzzle remains why maize in Italian and other European languages
is "Turkish Grain". As Julia Smith notes, this may be parallel to the Guinea-
fowl nomenclature.
>David Friedman (is this thread all economists?)
Just you, me and Domingo. Yuri and the others are normal!
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept.
Ohio State U.
Dido dina, dit-on,
du dos d'un dindon dodu.
-- anon.
David Friedman
In article <mcculloch.2...@osu.edu>, mccul...@osu.edu (Hu
McCulloch) wrote:
> This doesn't work. Maybe Columbus thought he was in India, but by
> 1620 the Puritans sure didn't think they were in Turkey or that the
> American Indians were Turks.
But do we know that the Puritans called it "indian corn" rather than (say)
"maize?"
I can easily imagining someone seeing a reference to "Indian corn,"
deducing that the Puritans must have called it that, stating the
conjecture as a fact, ... .
David Friedman
Yuri Kuchinsky
Hu McCulloch (mccul...@osu.edu) wrote:
: DD...@Best.com (David Friedman) writes:
: >A variant explanation of "turkeys" is that the merchants who traded
: >between the Middle East and England were called "Turkey Merchants," and
: >they picked up turkeys in Spain and imported them to England. A third
: >explanation is that the turkey got confused with an old-world bird called
: >a "turkey fowl."
: This makes more sense. According to Klein's _Etymological Dictionary of
: the English Language_, turkey is the name "originally applied to the
guinea : fowl,imported from Africa through traders who dealt chiefly with
the Near East : (and for this reasons were called 'Turkey-merchants');
hence the birds sold by : these merchants came to be known as turkeys."
So the Guinea-fowl was the : turkey-fowl, and the English colonists
recognized that the American turkey : was similar (they're both related to
pheasants), and called it the : turkey-fowl as well.
Yes, this is reasonable. It should be noted that while in most European
languages maize was known as "Turkish corn", turkey the bird is known
mostly as "Indian bird" (including in French, as Hu says below, and also
in Russian and other East European languages). So the two name sequences,
for maize and for the bird, don't really provide good parallels. The
explanations why maize is linked with Turkey, but the bird with India must
be different. I think the connection with "guinea-fowl" provides a good
reason why the bird is linked with Turkey in English. Why the bird is
linked with India in other European languages can be straightforward: it
came from "West Indies".
But why maize is linked with Turkey in so many languages, and especially
in Spanish, remains to be explained...
Also, Jeffreys, who is certain that maize was in Turkey before Columbus,
bases his claims in part on the fact that there's a great variety of names
for maize in Turkey, and in the Middle East in general -- this usually is
a sign of antiquity.
Let's not lose track of the fact that none of the early European herbals
suggest American origin for maize... This is important.
: It is interesting that in French, according to the Larousse
Etymologique, : dinde f, dindon m (turkey) originally was applied to the
guinea-fowl (pintade), : and derives from coq/poule de l'Inde. Later this
was extended to the : American turkey.
: But the puzzle remains why maize in Italian and other European languages
: is "Turkish Grain".
Yes.
: >David Friedman (is this thread all economists?)
It's a conspiracy! Especially when you consider that much of this
research was published in ECONOMIC BOTANY journal...
: Just you, me and Domingo. Yuri and the others are normal!
Yuri? Normal? What a concept!
Cheers,
Julia E Smith
In article <DDFr-17029...@ddfr.vip.best.com>,
David Friedman <DD...@Best.com> wrote:
>In article <mcculloch.2...@osu.edu>, mccul...@osu.edu (Hu
>McCulloch) wrote:
>
>> This doesn't work. Maybe Columbus thought he was in India, but by
>> 1620 the Puritans sure didn't think they were in Turkey or that the
>> American Indians were Turks.
>
>But do we know that the Puritans called it "indian corn" rather than (say)
>"maize?"
Note, of course, that maize is the anglicization of maiz, which is the
Hispanicization of what Webster's gives as the Taino work mahiz. This is
unlikely to be the word the Puritans used (though their translator,
"Squanto", had spent some time in Spain). I haven't looked at any Puritan
sources to find out what they did call maize, but there are plenty of
16th and 17th century sources written by people who had settled in the New
World. So, anyone know what they did call it?
Julia Smith
jes...@pitt.edu
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
On Wed, 12 Feb 1997 16:12:30 -0500, vincent deluca
<"Vinc...@ix.netcom"@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Maybe someone can help me in regards to Corn.
> The word for corn in Italian is "GranTurco"; this means, Turkish Corn.
>The Italians also use the word Maize.
> What the heck does Turkish Corn mean? My wife, who is Italian, refers
>to Corn as Granturco" and rarely uses the work Maize when she is
>speaking Italian.
Grano turco for "maize" fits in with the Catalan names for the cereal,
"blat de moro" (Moorish wheat), the usual term in Barcelona, Girona
and Lleida, "moresc" (Moorish [wheat]) in Tarragona, "blat de les
Indies" (wheat from the Indies) in Valencia and the Balears, "blat
d'India, blat-indi" (wheat from India) in Rossello. Compare "gall
d'India, gall dindi" for "turkey". And English "turkey" itself.
Before 1492, the term "(blat) moresc" seems to have been used to
denote a very different kind of cereal, probably buckwheat ("trigo
morisco" or "trigo sarraceno" in Castillian).
==
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
m...@pi.net |_____________|||
========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
Julia E Smith
In article <5ea56l$3...@usenet.srv.cis.pitt.edu>, Julia E Smith
<jes...@pitt.edu> wrote:
>In article <DDFr-17029...@ddfr.vip.best.com>,
>David Friedman <DD...@Best.com> wrote:
>>But do we know that the Puritans called it "indian corn" rather than
>>(say) "maize?"
>
>New World. So, anyone know what they did call it?
Well, I answered my own question. The Puritans seem to have used the term
Indian corn (though they more commonly called it corn). Of course, they
didn't think that they were in India, but they were calling the people
Indians. Of course, this doesn't help us with the Turkish corn problem.
Julia Smith
jes...@pitt.edu
Hu McCulloch
I stand corrected. I had written,
>>The English colonists
>> in N. Am. originally called maize "Indian corn", since they got this "corn"
>> from the American Indians,
David Friedman replied,
>That seems plausible, but according to Finan, John J., _Maize in the Great
>Herbals_, it is wrong. His claim is that Maize was misidentified with an
>"Indian Corn" described by Pliny.
I've now had a chance to look at Finan's excellent 1950 book, based on his
interdisciplinary (Botany, Romance Languages, Classics, and Art and
Archaeology) master's thesis at Washington University. It is a survey
of the treatment of maize in 16th and 17th century herbals. It's only
33 pages long, but for some reason the pages are numbered 149-181.
Finan concludes that in the 16th century, there were two principal varieties
of maize in Europe. Tabernaemontanus (1588) actually describes both
in separate chapters.
The first, generally called Frumentum Turcicum or Tuerkische Korn (Turkish
grain) has no prop roots or "flag leaves", and is the only type described in
the earlier herbals. It was said to have been introduced from the Turkish
domains to the east. Recall that the Turks were deep into Europe, and
beseiging Vienna in 1529, so these were not just abstract generic
"foreigners".
The second, which has prop roots and flag leaves, and apparently a
larger ear, was not depicted until 1576. It was generally called
Frumentum Indicum (Indian grain or Indian corn, using corn in the UK
sense), and said to have been brought from the W Indes by the
Spanish.
Finan notes that "prop roots" tend to appear on Caribbean
maize when it is transported to temperate climates. The "Turkish"
variety, on the other hand, more resembles the flint corn that
was being grown in eastern N. Am. when the English arrived.
This is not positively its source, however, since he notes that some
Amazonian maizes likewise do not produce prop roots.
In 1570 one herbalist argued that the Turkish Grain in fact came
from the W. Indes, but Finan is of the view that this writer was not
differentiating the two varieties.
In any event, I was wrong to assume that the English colonists in Mass.
made up the expression "Indian Corn". It was already established in the
herbals to which they had access, and long cultivated in the Netherlands,
where the Pilgrims sojourned prior to moving to Massachusetts, if not
in England itself. The Pilgrims may never have actually grown it
themselves, and certainly were not accustomed to depending on it,
so in that sense the American Indians "introduced" it to them, but they
already would have known what it was, and that should be called "Indian
corn".
Finan notes that some of his herbalists thought that maize was
the same as the black, large kernelled millet that Pliny had reported as
coming from India, since they observed that maize often had dark, almost
black kernels. This was called Milium Indicum or Pliniarium by
Dodonaeus and L'Obel. This is an interesting angle, but an entirely
different story. Unfortunately, Finan does not indicate where to find this
in Pliny, or what "typha" means in the discussion.
According to Finan (p. 150 n3), in the report of his 3rd Voyage, Columbus
describes the maize he found in the New World, and reports that it was
already widely cultivated in Castille, claiming that he himself had introduced
it after one of his earlier voyages. This is very interesting, since it
sounds like perhaps the Castillians were already growing "Turkish grain",
and Columbus just took credit for it. Recall that he was an Italian, not a
Spaniard, and so would have had little knowledge of Spanish agriculture
prior to his first voyage. Unfortunately, Finan supports this with a
secondary source, rather than a direct cite of Columbus. (For a botanist,
he's an outstanding historian!)
So Finan lends a little suppport to the Johannessen and Parker (Economic
Botany, 1989) contention that maize appears in 12th and 13th c AD Hoysala
sculptures from So. India. This could then be the source of the Corn
that was introduced into Europe by the Turks. The Indians (of India) may have
gotten it either from eastern N. Am - note that the Hoysala were the rulers
of Kannada! - or maybe from the Amazon - Johannessen, in _Person, Place
and Thing_, edited by Shue Tuck Wong, 1992, notes that Maka/Makai/
Makki/Makka/Makkai/Mokkajonna, etc, used in most parts of India and the Guinea
coast of Africa for maize, is similar to the Amazonian Arawak terms
Makanatsi, Makanazi, Makanadzi, Maiki. The Spanish got
their Maiz from the Hispanola form of this word, Mai.
(On the other hand, an Andhra student tells me that in Telugu, a Dravidian
language, Mokka just means any kind of plant that is not a tree.)
There was some dispute in the herbals about whether or not maize
was fit for human consumption. So perhaps the Turkish/Indian Corn
distinction corresponded to our modern Field Corn/Sweet Corn distinction.
The latter is eaten off the cob, frozen, or canned, by humans, whereas
the former is grown primarily as fodder for livestock. Any farmer
can tell at a glance which is being grown.
Finan does not indicate whether there were herbals prior to 1539 that
would have described Turkish Corn if it was present then, or if there
simply were no herbals prior to that date. The Turks were into Europe
from 1453 on, at least.
(Vincent Deluca started all of this with his query about his
wife's modern Italian term, granturco, for maize.)
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept
Ohio State U.
mccul...@osu.edu
Julia E Smith
In article <hmccullo.4...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
Hu McCulloch <hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
...
>
>The first, generally called Frumentum Turcicum or Tuerkische Korn (Turkish
>grain) has no prop roots or "flag leaves", and is the only type described in
>the earlier herbals. It was said to have been introduced from the Turkish
>domains to the east. Recall that the Turks were deep into Europe, and
>beseiging Vienna in 1529, so these were not just abstract generic
>"foreigners".
[snip]
>
>Finan notes that "prop roots" tend to appear on Caribbean
>maize when it is transported to temperate climates. The "Turkish"
>variety, on the other hand, more resembles the flint corn that
>was being grown in eastern N. Am. when the English arrived.
>This is not positively its source, however, since he notes that some
>Amazonian maizes likewise do not produce prop roots.
This isn't surprising. Much of the early exploration of the New World
involved "Brazil," that is the Atlantic coast of South America. Most of
the people who were brought to Europe during the first few decades of
exploration, and many of the artifacts were Brazilian. So, a variety of
maize from Brazil would fit in nicely with an early introduction date.
Julia Smith
jes...@pitt.edu
Yuri Kuchinsky
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal (m...@pi.net) wrote:
: Grano turco for "maize" fits in with the Catalan names for the cereal,
: "blat de moro" (Moorish wheat), the usual term in Barcelona, Girona
: and Lleida, "moresc" (Moorish [wheat]) in Tarragona,
This is quite interesting, Miguel. So the connection with Turkey was made
in Spanish in two ways, both as "Moorish wheat", and as "Turkish wheat"...
: "blat de les
: Indies" (wheat from the Indies) in Valencia and the Balears, "blat
: d'India, blat-indi" (wheat from India) in Rossello. Compare "gall
: d'India, gall dindi" for "turkey". And English "turkey" itself.
:
: Before 1492, the term "(blat) moresc" seems to have been used to
: denote a very different kind of cereal, probably buckwheat ("trigo
: morisco" or "trigo sarraceno" in Castillian).
This is also very interesting. It is becoming more clear now that two
basic types of maize were present in Europe in the aftermath of Columbus'
journeys (see the informative latest article by Hu). So you may be
partially right. "Blat moresc" may have been indeed used to denote a
different kind of cereal, but that cereal may have been (rather than
buckwheat) an archaic variety of maize that arrived to the Old World many
centuries before Columbus, and arrived to Europe via Turkey.
Best regards,
Hu McCulloch
On 17 Feb, in sci.arch, William Sburgfort Smith
wrote, concerning the ongoing discussion of evidence of maize
in the Old World, particularly India, before 1492,
>Here's a different slant on the maize in the Old World discussion. This
>one doesn't involve India. Last summer I visited Scotland and came across
>evidence of "maize" in the Old World prior to Columbus. Here's what I
>wrote at the time:
>We drove south of Edinburgh to the tiny village of Penicuik and the Rosyln
>Chapel. The chapel was built in the early 1400's by Sir Henry Sullivan, who
>is buried there. He was a Knights Templar and the chapel has many mason
>marks and stone carvings indicating ties to the Knights and to the Freemasons.
>For the small price of admission you are loaned a 30 page, typewritten guide
>to the chapel for a self conducted tour. Each guide is in one of six or
>seven languages, and you wander around the small chapel looking at the
>carvings and features mentioned in the guide.
>One of the most remarkable stories is that Sir Henry arranged financing for
>20 ships to voyage to the New World around 1420, nearly 80 years before
>Columbus. They are said to have met Micmac Indians, the natives of what
>is now Nova Scotia, and taught them to fish with nets and to sow certain
>crops. The Micmac in turn introduced the Scots to American crops. The
>chapel was completed before 1447 when Sir Henry died and the stone
>carvers decorated the arches with many varieties of flowers and vegetable,
>including, according to some, maize and an American cactus.
>The cactus is three lobed and does look like some succulents I've seen. As
>with so many other things, there must be different species of New World
>and Old World cactuses, but I'm ignorant on the subject. There is no telling
>what else it could be, possibily a succulent from the Near East or North
>Africa. It would make sense if Sir Henry was campaigning with the Crusades.
>The corn is more interesting. A single row of kernels is exposed between
>two leaves, the tops of which are turned down. Another single row is
>exposed along the other edge of the leaves and the whole motif of leaves,
>then row of beady-looking things, then leaves is repeated so that it wraps
>around the stone. Another bunch of leaves and kernels is stacked on top,
>and the pattern of "corn ears" repeated along the entire length of the arch.
>I wasn't sure what to make of it. It would have been more convincing if
>there had been a whole ear with several rows of kernels exposed and a
>leaf or two on the side. I know that the corn we're accustomed to seeing,
>hybrids developed this century, aren't like the corn Indians grew. They
>grew several varieties, but all had smaller ears and smaller kernels, and
>while we would recognize it as corn we'd probably pass it by at Safeway's.
>It could be some other plant, but I can't think what.
>The claim for a New World voyage is provocative, but not convincing.
>These arches could have been carved after 1500, instead of while Sir
>Henry was still alive. Countering that is the fact that corn really wasn't
>well known in Europe until the 1600's, when it was reintroduced from the
>Near East. I've never heard of expeditions sponsored by Sir Henry, but
>they could be in books about all the Europeans who were here before
>Columbo himself. A curious puzzle naytheless.
>William Sburgfort Smith
>______________________________________________________________________________
_>William Smith will...@mhpcc.edu
>Maui High Performance Computing Center WWW: http://www.mhpcc.edu
>_______________________________________________________________________________
This sounds a lot like Henry _Sinclair_, but if so your dates are
a little off. Henry Sinclair was the subject of a book by Frederick J. Pohl
_Prince Henry Sinclair, his Expedition to the New World in 1398_ (pub.
1974). My library catalogue gives Prince Henry's dates as 1345-c1400.
I haven't read Pohl's book, but I've seen a video based on it, and this
sounds like the same story.
Can anyone on soc.history.medieval fill us in? Do the sculptures in
Roslyn chapel clearly date to pre-1492? Do they look a little like maize?
A lot? Has anyone studied them closely? Has anyone torn apart
Pohl's book?
Sinclair was fictionalized by Richard White , _Sword of the North_,
1983, so it's possible that some of the details surrounding him
based on this novel. I haven't read this either, but one should be
cautious.
Are the cactuses "prickly pear"? If so, I think they occur in the
OW as well as the NW. I"m told that Israelis born in Israel are called
"Sabras", which means prickly pear -- partly because they're products
of the desert, and partly because they're supposed to be
prickly on the outside but sweet on the inside. The Micmacs live
along the St. Lawrence. Does anyone on sci.bio.misc know if cactus
grows there?
Yuri Kuchinsky
Hu McCulloch (hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu) wrote:
: I've now had a chance to look at Finan's excellent 1950 book, based on his
: interdisciplinary (Botany, Romance Languages, Classics, and Art and
: Archaeology) master's thesis at Washington University. It is a survey
: of the treatment of maize in 16th and 17th century herbals. It's only
: 33 pages long, but for some reason the pages are numbered 149-181.
:
: Finan concludes that in the 16th century, there were two principal varieties
: of maize in Europe. Tabernaemontanus (1588) actually describes both
: in separate chapters.
Thanks for this very useful article, Hu, and to David Friedman for posting
this ref. I wonder where David got the ref for Finan's publication, and if
Jeffreys or Johannessen are aware of it. Finan's publication doesn't seem
to be available in Toronto. I found only a couple of books by him dealing
with recent Latin American history.
: The first, generally called Frumentum Turcicum or Tuerkische Korn (Turkish
: grain) has no prop roots or "flag leaves", and is the only type described in
: the earlier herbals. It was said to have been introduced from the Turkish
: domains to the east. Recall that the Turks were deep into Europe, and
: beseiging Vienna in 1529, so these were not just abstract generic
: "foreigners".
: The second, which has prop roots and flag leaves, and apparently a
: larger ear, was not depicted until 1576. It was generally called
: Frumentum Indicum (Indian grain or Indian corn, using corn in the UK
: sense), and said to have been brought from the W Indes by the
: Spanish.
...
: In 1570 one herbalist argued that the Turkish Grain in fact came
: from the W. Indes, but Finan is of the view that this writer was not
: differentiating the two varieties.
...
: Finan notes that some of his herbalists thought that maize was
: the same as the black, large kernelled millet that Pliny had reported as
: coming from India, since they observed that maize often had dark, almost
: black kernels. This was called Milium Indicum or Pliniarium by
: Dodonaeus and L'Obel. This is an interesting angle, but an entirely
: different story. Unfortunately, Finan does not indicate where to find this
: in Pliny, or what "typha" means in the discussion.
The ref in Pliny should be easy enough to track down. Perhaps someone
should ask in a classical studies newsgroup or list.
: According to Finan (p. 150 n3), in the report of his 3rd Voyage,
Columbus : describes the maize he found in the New World, and reports that
it was : already widely cultivated in Castille, claiming that he himself
had introduced : it after one of his earlier voyages. This is very
interesting, since it : sounds like perhaps the Castillians were already
growing "Turkish grain", : and Columbus just took credit for it.
Makes sense to me...
: Recall that he was an Italian, not a
: Spaniard, and so would have had little knowledge of Spanish agriculture
: prior to his first voyage. Unfortunately, Finan supports this with a
: secondary source, rather than a direct cite of Columbus. (For a botanist,
: he's an outstanding historian!)
A ref for what Columbus said exactly would be a little bit harder to
find, I imagine.
: So Finan lends a little suppport to the Johannessen and Parker (Economic
: Botany, 1989) contention that maize appears in 12th and 13th c AD Hoysala
: sculptures from So. India. This could then be the source of the Corn
: that was introduced into Europe by the Turks.
Yes, this seems right.
I have previously suggested in these discussions that Columbus may have
brought a whole different (and more productive) type of maize from
America, so the "old" type of maize existing in Europe previously may
have just dropped out of sight and was forgotten. What I see posted
recently may be adding weight to this hypothesis.
: The Indians (of India) may have : gotten it either from eastern N. Am -
note that the Hoysala were the rulers : of Kannada! - or maybe from the
Amazon - Johannessen, in _Person, Place : and Thing_, edited by Shue Tuck
Wong, 1992, notes that Maka/Makai/ : Makki/Makka/Makkai/Mokkajonna, etc,
used in most parts of India and the Guinea : coast of Africa for maize, is
similar to the Amazonian Arawak terms : Makanatsi, Makanazi, Makanadzi,
Maiki. The Spanish got : their Maiz from the Hispanola form of this word,
Mai.
: There was some dispute in the herbals about whether or not maize
: was fit for human consumption. So perhaps the Turkish/Indian Corn
: distinction corresponded to our modern Field Corn/Sweet Corn distinction.
: The latter is eaten off the cob, frozen, or canned, by humans, whereas
: the former is grown primarily as fodder for livestock. Any farmer
: can tell at a glance which is being grown.
Again, I agree.
: Finan does not indicate whether there were herbals prior to 1539 that
: would have described Turkish Corn if it was present then,
This would be very interesting to find out.
: or if there
: simply were no herbals prior to that date.
Perhaps medieval specialists can help with this?
: The Turks were into Europe
: from 1453 on, at least.
Well, it's been well before this. This is just the date for the fall of
Constantinople (traditionally seen as the ending of the Middle Ages
period).
I think somewhere I've seen a suggestion that maize was brought to Europe
by solders returning home after one of the Crusades.
Paul Broeker
Hu McCulloch (hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu) said this about that:
:
: According to Finan (p. 150 n3), in the report of his 3rd Voyage, Columbus
: already widely cultivated in Castille, claiming that he himself had introduced
: it after one of his earlier voyages. This is very interesting, since it
: sounds like perhaps the Castillians were already growing "Turkish grain",
: and Columbus just took credit for it. Recall that he was an Italian, not a
: Spaniard, and so would have had little knowledge of Spanish agriculture
: prior to his first voyage. Unfortunately, Finan supports this with a
: secondary source, rather than a direct cite of Columbus. (For a botanist,
: he's an outstanding historian!)
Columbus himself was a great navigator but a miserable botanist, and often
made major errors when speaking of plants. He never had any sort of
botanist with him on any of his voyages. So we must remain skeptical of
botanical evidence attributed to Columbus.
--
--Paul Broeker ***********************************************
Santa Maria CA ** What if no one ever asked rhetorical **
** questions? **
pbro...@slonet.org ***********************************************
David Friedman
> Let's not lose track of the fact that none of the early European herbals
> suggest American origin for maize... This is important.
Is it a fact? The source I cited says that it was called Indian corn
because of a misidentification with Pliny's Indian corn; it doesn't say
(as far as I recall--I don't have the book here) that none of the early
herbals identified it as new world.
David Friedman
David Friedman
> Finan does not indicate whether there were herbals prior to 1539 that
> would have described Turkish Corn if it was present then, or if there
> simply were no herbals prior to that date. The Turks were into Europe
> from 1453 on, at least.
Tacitatus Sanitatem, versions of which exist in at least two modern
printings (_The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti_ and _A Medieval
Health Manual_, as I recall), is pre-Columbian, has lots of pictures of
plants, and is based on an Arabic source. I am fairly sure there is
nothing that looks like maize.
David Friedman
Hu McCulloch
I had written, RE possible Turkish introduction of "GranTurco"
aka "Tuerkische Korn" aka "Blat de Moro", aka Maize into Europe
in the 16th or even 15th century,
>> Finan [_Maize in the Great Herbals_]
>> does not indicate whether there were herbals prior to 1539 that
>> would have described Turkish Corn if it was present then [in 1492],
>> or if there
>> simply were no herbals prior to that date. The Turks were into Europe
>> from 1453 on, at least.
David Friedman replies,
>Tacitatus Sanitatem, versions of which exist in at least two modern
>printings (_The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti_ and _A Medieval
>Health Manual_, as I recall), is pre-Columbian, has lots of pictures of
>plants, and is based on an Arabic source. I am fairly sure there is
>nothing that looks like maize.
This would be _Tacuinum Sanitatis_, by Ibn Botlan, d. c. 1068. The
1984 translation _The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti_ is in
our rare books room, proxying for the original, I guess -- I'll have a
look at it soon.
Finan reports numerous European herbals from 1539 (the first one that
describes maize) on, and indicates that prior to 1570 all attribute the
introduction of this "Turkish grain" to Turkey and/or Turkish domains.
However, he does not mention any herbals before that. What I am
wondering is whether there were any European herbals that would have
been likely to have mentioned maize between say 1453 and 1539, if
it had been around, or if there just weren't any.
It would also be
interesting to know if there were any Turkish or Persian herbals from
this era, and what they had to say about maize, if anything. Ibn Botlan
actually antedates Somnathpur (1268), the So. Indian temple that
has some of the most maize-like sculptures, according to Johannessen
and Parker (Economic Botany 1989), so it's pushing it to expect
him to be describing it already. This is usually called Turkish
grain, not Saracen grain, so it's possible it bypassed the Arabs altogether,
although Miguel Vidal's Catalan term "Blat de Moro" is
intriguing.
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept.
Ohio State U
Check out my new website
www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/jhm.html
(This has nothing to do with this thread, but has some snazzy MATLAB
images under "Skew-Stable Investment Opportunity Set")
Yuri Kuchinsky
David,
I posted a post including the following a week ago in s.h.m (without
cross-posting). As I see it, the evidence is clear that European herbals
said nothing about the supposed American origin of maize until Matthiolus
in 1570 -- very late!
Best,
Yuri.
[begin quote]
...
I will be basing this posting on the article PRE-COLUMBIAN MAIZE IN ASIA,
by M. D. W. Jeffreys, in MAN ACROSS THE SEA, U. of Texas Press, 1971. What
this material indicates is that the evidence for the antiquity of maize in
the Old World is based on genetic, as well as linguistic and historical
research. This evidence appears to be very strong.
...
In any case, the evidence for pre-Columbian _European_ corn is what
impresses me most in this article. Indeed, what we seem to have discovered
here is a whole process of a _construction_ of a big "modern myth" of
"Columbus Bringing Back the Corn to Europe and the World"! How's this for
amazing?
The story, as Jeffrey gives it, is that maize really came to Europe
from Asia before Columbus. So, here are the key quotes:
Among the early botanists who were convinced of the Asiatic
origin of maize were Ruellius, Fuchs, Bock, Tragus, and
Dodoens. Some of these men were contemporaries of Columbus. To
this list Mangelsdorf and Oliver (1951: 264) add Sismondi,
Michana, Gregory, Loncier, Amoreux, Regnier, Viterbo, Doncier,
Taberna-montanus, Bonafous, St. John de Turre, Daru, de
Herbelot, and Klippart. Bertagnolli is another. (op. cit.
p.399)
This is quite a list! Jeffreys (on p. 397) even quotes from the diaries of
Leonardo da Vinci to indicate that corn was a staple in Italy at that
time, in 1495-97. Further on he says,
Until 1570 all commentators on maize were agreed that it
reached Europe via Asia. On this unanimity of opinion Finan
(1950: 156) remarked: "For the first thirty years in which
maize is discussed in the herbals, there is no mention that it
had been brought in from America. [!!!] ... During this period
the general opinion among the herbalists was that maize came
to Europe from the Orient. It was not until 1570, with the
herbal of Matthiolus (1570, p. 305) who had seen the text in
Oviedo's GENERAL AND NATURAL HISTORY, that an American origin
for maize is suggested." (p. 399)
[end quote]
David Friedman (DD...@Best.com) wrote:
Yuri Kuchinsky | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
David Friedman
In article <hmccullo.4...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu (Hu McCulloch) wrote:
> This would be _Tacuinum Sanitatis_, by Ibn Botlan, d. c. 1068. The
> 1984 translation _The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti_ is in
> our rare books room, proxying for the original, I guess -- I'll have a
> look at it soon.
The Arab original is early, but I think the European versions are c. 14th
c., so they might well have illustrated maize if it was around, whether or
not the original actually described something that was maize. I'm pretty
sure they don't.
David Friedman
August Matthusen
Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
[snip]
> I will be basing this posting on the article PRE-COLUMBIAN MAIZE IN ASIA,
> by M. D. W. Jeffreys, in MAN ACROSS THE SEA, U. of Texas Press, 1971. What
> this material indicates is that the evidence for the antiquity of maize in
> the Old World is based on genetic, as well as linguistic and historical
> research. This evidence appears to be very strong.
>
> ...
>
> In any case, the evidence for pre-Columbian _European_ corn is what
> impresses me most in this article. Indeed, what we seem to have discovered
> here is a whole process of a _construction_ of a big "modern myth" of
> "Columbus Bringing Back the Corn to Europe and the World"! How's this for
> amazing?
>
> The story, as Jeffrey gives it, is that maize really came to Europe
> from Asia before Columbus. So, here are the key quotes:
>
> Among the early botanists who were convinced of the Asiatic
> origin of maize were Ruellius, Fuchs, Bock, Tragus, and
> Dodoens. Some of these men were contemporaries of Columbus. To
> this list Mangelsdorf and Oliver (1951: 264) add Sismondi,
> Michana, Gregory, Loncier, Amoreux, Regnier, Viterbo, Doncier,
> Taberna-montanus, Bonafous, St. John de Turre, Daru, de
> Herbelot, and Klippart. Bertagnolli is another. (op. cit.
> p.399)
>
> This is quite a list! Jeffreys (on p. 397) even quotes from the diaries of
> Leonardo da Vinci to indicate that corn was a staple in Italy at that
> time, in 1495-97. Further on he says,
This seems to post-date the early voyages of Columbus.
> Until 1570 all commentators on maize were agreed that it
> reached Europe via Asia. On this unanimity of opinion Finan
> (1950: 156) remarked: "For the first thirty years in which
> maize is discussed in the herbals, there is no mention that it
> had been brought in from America. [!!!] ... During this period
> the general opinion among the herbalists was that maize came
> to Europe from the Orient. It was not until 1570, with the
> herbal of Matthiolus (1570, p. 305) who had seen the text in
> Oviedo's GENERAL AND NATURAL HISTORY, that an American origin
> for maize is suggested." (p. 399)
If I remember correctly, Columbus died believing and avowing he had
discovered a route to the Orient or India. If he brought back
plants, why wouldn't people believe the plants had come from the
Orient or India until they learned better?
Regards,
August Matthusen
william r smith
I wrote:
The chapel was built in the early 1400's by Sir Henry Sullivan...
One of the most remarkable stories is that Sir Henry arranged
financing for 20 ships to voyage to the New World around 1420,
nearly 80 years before Columbus.
Hu McCulloch <hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
This sounds a lot like Henry _Sinclair_, but if so your dates
are a little off. Henry Sinclair was the subject of a book by
Frederick J. Pohl _Prince Henry Sinclair, his Expedition to the
New World in 1398_ (pub. 1974). My library catalogue gives
Prince Henry's dates as 1345-c1400.
You could well be right about the name SINCLAIR instead of SULLIVAN.
The brochure they handed out was "rented", that is you had to give
it back after the self-guided tour of the Chapel. I didn't write
the name down because it was in my purchased guide books. Then I
left my guide books in Scotland. I probably misremembered his name.
The dates I copied down since they weren't in my guide books, but
I don't know how accurate they were in the Chapel's handout. I was
very curious about the New World "expedition" because I'd never heard
of it before.
The wording of the Chapel guide pamphlet indicated that Sir Henry
financed the trip, but there was no mention that he personally
went.
If the stories are similar, it's probably a singular person and
a singular event. The dates may be messed up, but they are fairly
close. My only source is my hand notes I made from the Chapel
guide pamphlet. An admittedly erro-prone process.
I just did a web search for Henry Sinclair and found some interesting
things.
At http://www.twrsoft.com/hist08.htm
Nova Scotia Historic Notes...
Possible landing of Prince Henry Sinclair at Chedabucto Bay,
Nova Scotia, June 2 1398
At http://www.mids.org/sinclair/gif/henry.html
A short genological chart with the following notations:
Prince Orkney, Earl Sinclair Henry Sinclai, Voyaged to America
b. Abt 1345, Rosslyn Castle, Midlothian, Scotland
d. 1400 or 1404, Hamildon Hill, Orkney, Scotland.
|
(son)
|
Prince Orkney, Earl Sinclair, Admiral of Scotland Henry Sinclair
b. 1369, Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland
d. 1420
|
(son)
|
Earl of Rosslyn William Sinclair, Builder of Rosslyn Chapel
b. Abt 1415, Roslin, Midlothian, Scotland
d. 1482, Scotland?
According to this William, grandson of Henry, built Rosslyn Chapel.
None of this jives with the date I copied for the death of Henry in
1447. Maybe I was confusing Henry and William, but with my first
name William, I think I would have made some connection.
Who was, I now wonder, the Knight Templar and went crusading in the
Near East?
William Sburgfort Smith
_______________________________________________________________________________
sas...@worldnet.att.net
In article <5ehqdt$d3a$1...@trends.ca>, Yuri Kuchinsky, writing as
yu...@mail.trends.ca, says...
>> Paul J. Gans (ga...@scholar.nyu.edu) wrote:
>>
>> : As the discussants in this immortal thread, now cluttering
>> : soc.history.medieval well know, the entire subject of Henry
>> : Sinclair, the church carvings, etc., was done to death in
>> : sci.archaeology last year. Indeed, the questions asked above
>> : were answered there.
>>
>>
>> Can detailed carvings of what look suspiciously like corncobs be seen
>as
>> archaeological evidence? (I refer of course to Somnathpur carvings.)
>If
>> not, why not?
>>
>> : So you are not dealing with dewey-eyed innocents here. You are
>> : dealing with folks with an agenda who have found sci.archeology
>> : too filled with folks who know some archaeology.
>>
>>
>>
Again I find a good use for my "Bozo Filter."
Welcome to the Bozo Box, Yuri. You have Whitaker for company.
--
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
Izaak Walton, "The Compleat Angler" (1653)
voice: 718.421.4598 + http://www.webcom.com/sasohn + fax: 718.421.4098
Hu McCulloch
Yuri Kuchinsky had written,
>> I will be basing this posting on the article PRE-COLUMBIAN MAIZE IN ASIA,
>> by M. D. W. Jeffreys, in MAN ACROSS THE SEA, U. of Texas Press, 1971. What
>> this material indicates is that the evidence for the antiquity of maize in
>> the Old World is based on genetic, as well as linguistic and historical
>> research. This evidence appears to be very strong.
>> ...
>> The story, as Jeffrey gives it, is that maize really came to Europe
>> from Asia before Columbus. So, here are the key quotes:
>>
>> Among the early botanists who were convinced of the Asiatic
>> origin of maize were Ruellius, Fuchs, Bock, Tragus, and
>> Dodoens. Some of these men were contemporaries of Columbus. To
>> this list Mangelsdorf and Oliver (1951: 264) add Sismondi,
>> Michana, Gregory, Loncier, Amoreux, Regnier, Viterbo, Doncier,
>> Taberna-montanus, Bonafous, St. John de Turre, Daru, de
>> Herbelot, and Klippart. Bertagnolli is another. (op. cit.
>> p.399)
>>
>> This is quite a list! Jeffreys (on p. 397) even quotes from the diaries of
>> Leonardo da Vinci to indicate that corn was a staple in Italy at that
>> time, in 1495-97.
August Matthusen replied,
>This seems to post-date the early voyages of Columbus.
Yes, but not by much. Columbus returned from his first voyage in 1493, so
this gives it only 2-4 years to have spread to Italy where, as we have seen,
maize is called granturco, the "Turkish grain".
However, what Leonardo
actually said (according to Jeffreys) was "... ducati 2 -- fave -- melica
biaca -- melica rossa -- panica -- miglio -- figiuoli -- fave -- pisegli."
L's translator, Richter, renders this as "2 ducats, beans, white maize,
red maize, millet, buckwheat, kidney beans, beans, peas." Jeffreys
thinks this is reasonable, since maize comes in colors, and since
melica, which might be thought to refer to millet or buckwheat, cannot
mean either of these here, since they are pre-empted by panica and miglio.
This is a rather close call. I would prefer to see a nice maize plant in
a Turkish or Persian herbal of the 14th or 15th century. Does anyone
know about such sources?
Yuri continues
>> Further on he says,
>> Until 1570 all commentators on maize were agreed that it
>> reached Europe via Asia. On this unanimity of opinion Finan
>> (1950: 156) remarked: "For the first thirty years in which
>> maize is discussed in the herbals, there is no mention that it
>> had been brought in from America. [!!!] ... During this period
>> the general opinion among the herbalists was that maize came
>> to Europe from the Orient. It was not until 1570, with the
>> herbal of Matthiolus (1570, p. 305) who had seen the text in
>> Oviedo's GENERAL AND NATURAL HISTORY, that an American origin
>> for maize is suggested." (p. 399)
August replies,
>If I remember correctly, Columbus died believing and avowing he had
>discovered a route to the Orient or India. If he brought back
>plants, why wouldn't people believe the plants had come from the
>Orient or India until they learned better?
Columbus never though he was in Turkey, so this cannot explain why
all maize was believed to have come from Turkey prior to 1570, as
Finan established. See my post on this thread several days ago.
John J. Finan's little 1950 booklet _Maize in the Great
Herbals_, incidentally, first appeared as an article in the _Annals of the
Missouri Botanical Garden_, vol. 35, 1948, pp. 149-191. This is perhaps
more likely to be in a university library than Finan's booklet itself.
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept
Ohio State U
Yuri Kuchinsky
August Matthusen (matt...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
: Yuri Kuchinsky wrote:
: > This is quite a list! Jeffreys (on p. 397) even quotes from the diaries of
: > Leonardo da Vinci to indicate that corn was a staple in Italy at that
: > time, in 1495-97. Further on he says,
:
: This seems to post-date the early voyages of Columbus.
August,
True. But the idea was that if it was already a staple at that time, it
must have been introduced a long time ago. New crops don't usually spread
and become accepted so quickly.
: > Until 1570 all commentators on maize were agreed that it
: > reached Europe via Asia. On this unanimity of opinion Finan
: > (1950: 156) remarked: "For the first thirty years in which
: > maize is discussed in the herbals, there is no mention that it
: > had been brought in from America. [!!!] ... During this period
: > the general opinion among the herbalists was that maize came
: > to Europe from the Orient. It was not until 1570, with the
: > herbal of Matthiolus (1570, p. 305) who had seen the text in
: > Oviedo's GENERAL AND NATURAL HISTORY, that an American origin
: > for maize is suggested." (p. 399)
: If I remember correctly, Columbus died believing and avowing he had
: discovered a route to the Orient or India. If he brought back
: plants, why wouldn't people believe the plants had come from the
: Orient or India until they learned better?
Well, this is possible, I suppose. But we need to know if what Columbus
believed was also believed generally at the time, or was his a minority
view?
Yuri.
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Some further remarks on European cereal names.
The main cereals known in Europe since the Neolithic are barley and
wheat (both originally from the Near East), and the locally
domesticated oats and rye. Rye was specifically Northern European,
and Basque does not have a native word for it. By the time of the
Roman Empire, two further cereals were known: millet (foxtail millet
from China, finger millet from Egypt/Ethiopia), and rice (from SE Asia
by way of India).
At the start of the Modern era, three further cereals were introduced:
buckwheat by the Turks (it originates in Central Asia), sorghum
(Guinea corn, from West Africa) and maize (from Mesoamerica) through
the Portuguese and Spanish voyages to Africa and America. Of the
three, maize is by far the most useful and the most widely cultivated
everywhere.
Apart from the Arawak word "mahiz", which was adopted through Spanish
in French, English, Dutch, German and the Sandinavian languages, we
have the following names given to the plant in Europe:
[Turkish]:
Ita. granturco, Fr. ble' de Turquie, Bret. ed Turki, Germ. tuerkischer
Weizen
[Moorish]:
Cat. blat de moro, moresc
[Indian]:
Cat. blat de les Indies, blat d'India; Fr. ble' d'Inde; Ir. arbhar
Indiach, Welsh indrawn (ind- + grawn), gwenith India; Eng. Indian corn
> Am.Eng. corn
[Arabian]:
Greek aravositos
[Egyptian]:
Turk. mIsIr bug~day
[Syrian]:
Eg.Arab. dhura shaamii (and in Syria it's: dhura s.afraa` "yellow
sorghum").
The Slavic word, Russ. (> Lith., Latv.) kukuruza, Pol. kukurydza, Cze.
kukur^ice, Serb-Croat kukuruz, is of unknown origin, possibly a
loanword from Turkish?
Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek and Italian also use words derived
from "pigeon". Cf. Spa. "palomitas" = popcorn.
Finally, there is also some confusion with words for "millet", as in
Fr. mil gros, Basque arto (orig. "millet", now "maize", "millet" now
being artatxiki "little millet").
Note also the words for "sorghum": Fr. petit mil, Eng. milo, Egyptian
corn, great millet, Indian millet, Guinea corn. Relevant words for
"buckwheat" are: Spa. trigo sarraceno, trigo morisco; Fr. ble'
sarrasin. In Dutch, "boekweit" is first attested in 1441, "mais" in
1581 ("mais van Peru").
Resuming, I'd say the chronology must have been:
1. buckwheat ("Turkish/Moorish/Sarrasin corn") introduced by the Turks
and Mongols from the 13th century onwards, first to the Russians and
Poles (where buckwheat "kasha" is still a staple food).
2. sorghum ("Guinea corn", "great millet") introduced by the
Portuguese exploration of the West African coast in the 15th c.,
certainly earlier in the Arab world (13th c.? gold trade with Ghana
and Mali empires).
3. maize ("Indian corn", "mahis") introduced after Columbus' voyages,
in the 16th. century.
Given the success of maize cultivation, maize usurped some of the
names for the barely established "buckwheat" and "sorghum" cereals.
Hence such names as Ital. "granturco" (Turkish corn), Basque "arto
(handi)" ([great] millet) or Arabic "dhura s.afraa`" (yellow sorghum).
Yuri Kuchinsky
Hu McCulloch
Yuri Kuchinsky had written,
>>> I will be basing this posting on the article PRE-COLUMBIAN MAIZE IN
>ASIA,
>>> by M. D. W. Jeffreys, in MAN ACROSS THE SEA, U. of Texas Press,
>1971. What
>>> this material indicates is that the evidence for the antiquity of
>maize in
>>> the Old World is based on genetic, as well as linguistic and
>historical
>>> research. This evidence appears to be very strong.
>>> ...
>>> The story, as Jeffrey gives it, is that maize really came to Europe
>>> from Asia before Columbus. So, here are the key quotes:
>>>
>>> Among the early botanists who were convinced of the Asiatic
>>> origin of maize were Ruellius, Fuchs, Bock, Tragus, and
>>> Dodoens. Some of these men were contemporaries of Columbus. To
>>> this list Mangelsdorf and Oliver (1951: 264) add Sismondi,
>>> Michana, Gregory, Loncier, Amoreux, Regnier, Viterbo, Doncier,
>>> Taberna-montanus, Bonafous, St. John de Turre, Daru, de
>>> Herbelot, and Klippart. Bertagnolli is another. (op. cit.
>>> p.399)
>>>
>>> This is quite a list! Jeffreys (on p. 397) even quotes from the
>diaries of
>>> Leonardo da Vinci to indicate that corn was a staple in Italy at that
>>> time, in 1495-97.
August Matthusen replied,
>>This seems to post-date the early voyages of Columbus.
Yes, but not by much. Columbus returned from his first voyage in 1493,
so
this gives it only 2-4 years to have spread to Italy where, as we have
seen,
maize is called granturco, the "Turkish grain".
However, what Leonardo
actually said (according to Jeffreys) was "... ducati 2 -- fave --
melica
biaca -- melica rossa -- panica -- miglio -- figiuoli -- fave --
pisegli."
L's translator, Richter, renders this as "2 ducats, beans, white maize,
red maize, millet, buckwheat, kidney beans, beans, peas." Jeffreys
thinks this is reasonable, since maize comes in colors, and since
melica, which might be thought to refer to millet or buckwheat, cannot
mean either of these here, since they are pre-empted by panica and
miglio.
This is a rather close call. I would prefer to see a nice maize plant
in
a Turkish or Persian herbal of the 14th or 15th century. Does anyone
know about such sources?
Yuri continues
>>> Further on he says,
>>> Until 1570 all commentators on maize were agreed that it
>>> reached Europe via Asia. On this unanimity of opinion Finan
>>> (1950: 156) remarked: "For the first thirty years in which
>>> maize is discussed in the herbals, there is no mention that it
>>> had been brought in from America. [!!!] ... During this period
>>> the general opinion among the herbalists was that maize came
>>> to Europe from the Orient. It was not until 1570, with the
>>> herbal of Matthiolus (1570, p. 305) who had seen the text in
>>> Oviedo's GENERAL AND NATURAL HISTORY, that an American origin
>>> for maize is suggested." (p. 399)
August replies,
>>If I remember correctly, Columbus died believing and avowing he had
>>discovered a route to the Orient or India. If he brought back
>>plants, why wouldn't people believe the plants had come from the
>>Orient or India until they learned better?
Columbus never though he was in Turkey, so this cannot explain why
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Julia E Smith
In article <hmccullo.4...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
Hu McCulloch <hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>Yes, but not by much. Columbus returned from his first voyage in 1493, so
>this gives it only 2-4 years to have spread to Italy where, as we have seen,
>maize is called granturco, the "Turkish grain".
>
>However, what Leonardo
>actually said (according to Jeffreys) was "... ducati 2 -- fave -- melica
>biaca -- melica rossa -- panica -- miglio -- figiuoli -- fave -- pisegli."
>L's translator, Richter, renders this as "2 ducats, beans, white maize,
>red maize, millet, buckwheat, kidney beans, beans, peas." Jeffreys
>thinks this is reasonable, since maize comes in colors, and since
>melica, which might be thought to refer to millet or buckwheat, cannot
>mean either of these here, since they are pre-empted by panica and miglio.
I think that it is worth noting here that in what appears to be an early
reference to maize, the name granoturco is *not* used. If the name
appeared at some point after its introduction, then it isn't useful to
assume that its actual point of origin had anything to do with its name.
Maybe Turks really liked to eat it, or maybe they had some great way to
cook it. Or maybe all exotic things were associated together, whether they
came from the east or the west (before you laugh, take a look at some
pictures of Africans with Brazilian headdresses or Native Americans in
Arab garments).
May I also observe that its presence in a shopping list does not make
maize a staple in Italy. Leonardo might just have been curious about this
exotic substance.
We need to be careful in how we make sense out of what is admittedly a
very confusing set of data.
Julia Smith
jes...@pitt.edu
Hu McCulloch
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal writes:
If blat de moro is Catalan for maize, that would suggest, to me at
least, that it was in Iberia before the Christian consolidation under
Ferdinand and Isabella, and therefore before Columbus.
In Morocco, however, maize is Tshurkiya (according to Jeffreys,
in _Man Across the Sea_, p. 399), so that even the "Moors" attribute
a Turkish, not Spanish or American Indian, origin to it.
>The Slavic word, Russ. (> Lith., Latv.) kukuruza, Pol. kukurydza, Cze.
>kukur^ice, Serb-Croat kukuruz, is of unknown origin, possibly a
>loanword from Turkish?
>Romanian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Greek and Italian also use words derived
>from "pigeon". Cf. Spa. "palomitas" = popcorn.
>Finally, there is also some confusion with words for "millet", as in
>Fr. mil gros, Basque arto (orig. "millet", now "maize", "millet" now
>being artatxiki "little millet").
Particularly in Portuguese, where today milho is maize, but surely
this word must have started off as millet (L milium, proso millet =
panicum miliaceum). Jeffreys cites some evidence that milho,
and in particular milho grosso, was already maize in the early
16th century.
>Note also the words for "sorghum": Fr. petit mil, Eng. milo, Egyptian
>corn, great millet, Indian millet, Guinea corn. Relevant words for
>"buckwheat" are: Spa. trigo sarraceno, trigo morisco; Fr. ble'
>sarrasin. In Dutch, "boekweit" is first attested in 1441, "mais" in
>1581 ("mais van Peru").
Milo, although it sounds like millet, actually comes from Sesuto
(a Bantu language) maili, according to the MW 2nd Unabridged
Dictionary. It is the English name of one variety of sorghum.
Sorghum itself, according to Klein's Comprehensive Etym. Dict.,
comes from Italian sorgo, from ML surgum, surcum, suricum,
from L. Syricum, ie grass of Syria.
>Resuming, I'd say the chronology must have been:
>1. buckwheat ("Turkish/Moorish/Sarrasin corn") introduced by the Turks
>and Mongols from the 13th century onwards, first to the Russians and
>Poles (where buckwheat "kasha" is still a staple food).
What is your evidence that buckwheat was ever "Turkish corn"?
This is crucial, since in the 16th century, according to Finan,
_Maize in the Great Herbals_,
"Frumentum Turcicum/ Tuerkischer Korn" designates one of the two
varieties of maize grown in Europe, the older one, thought to have come from
Turkish domains.
Buckwheat/boekweit is supposed to mean "beech wheat",
after the tree. I don't see what the connection would be. Perhaps
the buckwheat kernels taste like beech nuts? The American
beech has an abundant nut, but I'm not sure about the European
beech. Buckwheat was a major staple in the US in the 19th century,
particulary for pancakes, but has lot a lot of its popularity.
It is not a true grain, but is used as one.
Kasha, according to MW, is Russian for a mush made from buckwheat,
millet, or barley, and therefore indicates a generic product rather than a
specific crop, even if in today's supermarkets it primarily indicates
a pilaf made from buckwheat.
>2. sorghum ("Guinea corn", "great millet") introduced by the
>Portuguese exploration of the West African coast in the 15th c.,
>certainly earlier in the Arab world (13th c.? gold trade with Ghana
>and Mali empires).
If sorghum is "Syrian grass", perhaps it was in Italy etc. before the
African explorations, even if it ultimately of African origin, and even
if other varieties were later introduced directly from Africa.
>3. maize ("Indian corn", "mahis") introduced after Columbus' voyages,
>in the 16th. century.
Not if it is depicted in 12th and 13th c AD So. Indian sculptures, per
Johannessen and Parker, _Economic Botany_, 1989!
>Given the success of maize cultivation, maize usurped some of the
>names for the barely established "buckwheat" and "sorghum" cereals.
>Hence such names as Ital. "granturco" (Turkish corn), Basque "arto
>(handi)" ([great] millet) or Arabic "dhura s.afraa`" (yellow sorghum).
Durra is a modern variety of sorghum that must have gotten its name
from dhura. But what evidence do you have that granturco was ever
buckwheat?
>==
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal ~ ~
>Amsterdam _____________ ~ ~
>m...@pi.net |_____________|||
>========================== Ce .sig n'est pas une .cig
-- Hu McCulloch
Econ Dept.
Ohio State U.
mccul...@osu.edu
Beverly Erlebacher
In article <hmccullo.5...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu>,
Hu McCulloch <hmcc...@ecolan.sbs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>
>Buckwheat/boekweit is supposed to mean "beech wheat",
>after the tree. I don't see what the connection would be. Perhaps
>the buckwheat kernels taste like beech nuts? The American
>beech has an abundant nut, but I'm not sure about the European
>beech.
The seeds of the "copper beech", at least, resemble buckwheat in size,
shape and colour. The "copper beech" is a purple-leaved cultivar of a
European beech (Fagus sylvatica?).
Beverly Erlebacher
Toronto, Ontario Canada
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
>If blat de moro is Catalan for maize, that would suggest, to me at
>least, that it was in Iberia before the Christian consolidation under
>Ferdinand and Isabella, and therefore before Columbus.
Not necessarily. "Moro" in Catalan (and Castillian) can mean
Maghrebin, Arab or Turkish (reflecting the political status of Northen
Africa, which was under Arab and then Turkish control). It can also
stand for "muslim" in general. Note also that ".... de moro" in
Catalan is a general expression for things exotic. For instance:
"figa de moro" (Moorish fig), which is the name for the cactus fruit
("higo chumbo" in Castilian), also known as figa d'Indi in Eivissa
(Ibiza) and Alguerese Catalan (Sardinia, Italy).
And even if the name is pre-1492 (conquest of Granada), what did the
name mean? One other thing I have found: the catalan name "moresc"
for maize (Tarragona province) is also used in Gascon ("morisco"), in
the Vall d'Aran (Catalonia) and in French SE Gascogne (Luchon).
However, Gascon "morisco" means "buckwheat" [J. Coromines, Diccionari
Etimologic i Complementari de la Llengua Catalana].
>Particularly in Portuguese, where today milho is maize, but surely
>this word must have started off as millet (L milium, proso millet =
>panicum miliaceum). Jeffreys cites some evidence that milho,
>and in particular milho grosso, was already maize in the early
>16th century.
>
>>Note also the words for "sorghum": Fr. petit mil, Eng. milo, Egyptian
>>corn, great millet, Indian millet, Guinea corn. Relevant words for
>>"buckwheat" are: Spa. trigo sarraceno, trigo morisco; Fr. ble'
>>sarrasin. In Dutch, "boekweit" is first attested in 1441, "mais" in
>>1581 ("mais van Peru").
>
>Milo, although it sounds like millet, actually comes from Sesuto
>(a Bantu language) maili, according to the MW 2nd Unabridged
>Dictionary. It is the English name of one variety of sorghum.
>Sorghum itself, according to Klein's Comprehensive Etym. Dict.,
>comes from Italian sorgo, from ML surgum, surcum, suricum,
>from L. Syricum, ie grass of Syria.
Thanks. Those are interesting clarifications and additions.
>>Resuming, I'd say the chronology must have been:
>
>>1. buckwheat ("Turkish/Moorish/Sarrasin corn") introduced by the Turks
>>and Mongols from the 13th century onwards, first to the Russians and
>>Poles (where buckwheat "kasha" is still a staple food).
>
>What is your evidence that buckwheat was ever "Turkish corn"?
Only the origin of buckwheat itself in Central Asia, the Turkic
homeland. Buckwheat was *surely* introduced by the Turks, and it is
reasonable to assume that one of its names should have been "Turkish
grain" or some such word. And indeed it is consistently called
Turkish/Sarracen where it has an "ethnic" denomination (Spanish,
French). Gascon "morisco" is ambiguous (as it can mean all of
Berber/Arab/Turkish). The fact that "moresc/blat de moro" is "maize"
in Catalan suggests, to me at least, that the name was transferred to
a new kind of exotic cereal, maize, when that became available and
proved to be much more useful than buckwheat.
But I have no Italian etymological dictionary to trace the origin of
the word "granturco". Nor Greek aravositos.
>If sorghum is "Syrian grass", perhaps it was in Italy etc. before the
>African explorations, even if it ultimately of African origin, and even
>if other varieties were later introduced directly from Africa.
Who knows what the cereal the Romans called "suricum" would have been
called nowadays. Some variety of millet/sorghum probably. Sorghum is
not indigenous to West Africa, but was introduced from the
Egypt/Sudan/Ethiopia area. What makes it specifically the "Guinea
corn" is the fact that it was the main staple in West Africa before
the introduction of maize. Wheat and barley, the staples of the Near
East, were apparently not grown there (climate question?), and the
West African neolithic/Iron Age was based on sorghum (and cattle).
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
Some further digging in Coromines' Catalan Etymological dictionary:
The common catalan word for "buckwheat", fajol, is derived from faig
"beech". "Fajol" is first documented in 1617. Coromines says:
... comes from the word for beech because of the likeness
between the buckwheat grain and the form of the beech nut,
which has given origin to the international appellations:
cast. trigo-haya, occ. bla fбtse (which the ALF records in the
Tarn area, point 763), lomb. faina (Bellinzona), fraнna (Como,
Milan), modern lat. fago-pyrum, germ. buch-weizen.
The introduction of buckwheat from Eastern Europe is modern,
and came to us [Catalonia] by way of Eastern France (where it
first turns up in the 15th. century) where it had arrived from
Tartary through Russia and Germany: hence the name fr. blй
sarrasin, and germ. heide-korn "heathen corn".
jdub...@gmail.com
The Horny Goat
>Thanks for the info guys. That really helps. I'm reading a book on the Black Death and the author mentions corn several times.
what's now the UK for centuries as a collective term for grain of all
sorts.
You surely don't think the British Corn Laws were primarily about
maize do you?
Tiglath
In everyday use 'corn' means 'maize' in England primarily, rather than generic for grain.
On Friday, January 31, 1997 3:00:00 AM UTC-5, Paul J. Gans wrote:
> Deane Geiken (dge...@uiuc.edu) wrote:
> : What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
> : that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
> : corn that we in the US are familiar with. I was under the impression
> : that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
> : American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
> : about then?
> :
> : Deane
>
> You are right. "Corn" is the generic England-English word for
> "grain". It refers to wheat, rye, etc.
>
> The stuff found in the New World is, technically, maize. But
> the heads, especially the immature ones, somewhat resemble
> those of wheat. Thus it too was referred to as "corn". The
> name stuck, and in the U.S. the word "corn" refers to maize.
>
> As someone once said, England and America are two countries
> separated by a common language.
>
> ----- Paul J. Gans [ga...@scholar.chem.nyu.edu]
Bill
wrote:
>
>In everyday use 'corn' means 'maize' in England primarily, rather than generic for grain.
>
It remains a generic term for a grain type crop.
Eric Stevens
wrote:
"'Corn' included any grain that requires grinding, especially
wheat."
--
Regards,
Eric Stevens
Robert Mulain
In the good old days, the definition was more vague, and included that stuff like long grass known as wheat or barley. I believe that all types can be made into whisky, hence it is of vital benefit to mankind.
Renia
> To me, corn consists of those lumpy, juicy yellow things that comes
Cornflakes are made from this.
corn, i.e. maize / corn-on-the-cob
W. Baker
of salt used in the brine that resemble grains rather than the granule of
salt we see today. In North America, where the lage grained food that
grew on cobs was developed as the mainstay grain, the settlers from
england called it corn, while it was maize to the native peoples. Corn,
before the discovery of maize by Englishmen, was a term used to reger to
assorted grains then in use in Europe like wheat, barley, rye, etc.
Wendy
The Horny Goat
wrote:
>: I've never thought of corn meaning any old cereal. Always assumed it was
>: corn, i.e. maize / corn-on-the-cob
>
>There is no corn or maize in corned beef. the term refers to the pieces
>of salt used in the brine that resemble grains rather than the granule of
>salt we see today. In North America, where the lage grained food that
>grew on cobs was developed as the mainstay grain, the settlers from
>england called it corn, while it was maize to the native peoples. Corn,
>before the discovery of maize by Englishmen, was a term used to reger to
>assorted grains then in use in Europe like wheat, barley, rye, etc.
didn't involve maize but rather some process I was too lazy to
research to see what it was.
Robert Mulain
Once glued together in grains it is stable, predictable and burns at a defined rate - coarse grain for slower burns in long rifles, cannons etc. and fine grained 'pistol powder' for priming and small weapons. The latter is much more fun for use in fireworks,booby traps and bombs...so they say... hem hem!
Bill
<robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Corned gunpowder involves sticking the stuff together in 'grains' using glue and a sieve.
Any glue would leave a residue.
The stuff is mixed with some water to make a paste, this is then
dried into cakes in a steam oven.
These cakes are then ground, on non ferrous wheels, until the
'grains' are the correct size for the gun they're to be fired from.
The sieving is to separate the grain sizes...
Robert Mulain
Bill
>On Wednesday, 13 August 2014 13:29:14 UTC+1, Bill wrote:
>> On Wed, 13 Aug 2014 03:18:37 -0700 (PDT), Robert Mulain
>>
>> <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> >Corned gunpowder involves sticking the stuff together in 'grains' using glue and a sieve.
>>
>>
>>
>> Wrong.
>>
>>
>>
>> Any glue would leave a residue.
>>
>>
>>
>> The stuff is mixed with some water to make a paste, this is then
>>
>> dried into cakes in a steam oven.
>>
>>
>>
>> These cakes are then ground, on non ferrous wheels, until the
>>
>> 'grains' are the correct size for the gun they're to be fired from.
>>
>>
>>
>> The sieving is to separate the grain sizes...
>
>Oddly enough, I seem to remember that said 'glue' was based on starch? That may have been abandoned a long time ago, when tighter tolerances made clean burning powder a necessity.
Gunpowder doesn't burn 'clean', it makes a mess and that mess is both
corrosive and hygroscopic and has to be cleaned out as soon as is
possible.
Robert Mulain
maggie jones
> In article <dgeiken-3001...@edmonton-14.slip.uiuc.edu>,
> > What exactly is the grain, chroniclers are referring to when they state
> > that "corn" was ordered or shipped for the army. Certainly it is not the
> > corn that we in the US are familiar with. I was under the impression
> > that, that type of corn was utilized only after the colonization of the N.
> > American continent? What type of CORN are these chroniclers talking
> > about then?
> >
> > Deane
> >
> > Deane
> "Corn" was originally (still is in Britain, maybe) a general term for cereal
> grains. i would guess it usually meant barley, but could refer to wheat,
> rye, etc. Maize (the type of corn we in the US are familiar with) was
> originally called "Indian corn" referring to American Indians, that is.
> There is a lively debate in sci.archeology concerning the possibility of
> maize being grown in the Indian subcontinent before, well, before 1492,
> let's say.
> AMICVS CONSTANTINI
> -AVE SOL INVICTVS-