Hot Cross Buns

Discuss the world of the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and Egyptians.
User avatar
rakovsky
Posts: 1310
Joined: Mon Nov 23, 2015 8:07 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Hot Cross Buns

Post by rakovsky »

Image
This is what Eastern Orthodox communion bread looks like.

The ancient 1st century Christians were more in the Greek sphere (Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Greece) than the Latin one (Rome and Carthage), despite Peter moving to Rome.

My research on the prophecies of the Messiah's resurrection: http://rakovskii.livejournal.com
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Hot Cross Buns!

Post by DCHindley »

Peter Kirby wrote:
DCHindley wrote:I do not think that the " + " that the cuts made need represent the Christian "Cross".
FWIW, ... I also do not think anyone said that it did.
Peter,

You bolded two statements to the effect that these buns were "marked with a cross" or "with a cross on them". The word "marked" implies some greater significance than chance would grant.

Any loaf of bread that was intended to be divided into four segments would be accomplished by making by two scores at right angles by a knife or spatula before the bread was baked. If one bakes, one knows that this is merely a convention to allow easier breaking of the loaf into pieces. The number of pieces will always be twice the number of scores. The best we could say is that the shape resembles an X or a + shape.

If the loaves so depicted were small ones, two scores will do fine. If there were three or four scores, would we say that the loaves were marked with a star or a sun symbol? Not unless we wanted to imply that the shape was intentional, and carries mystical meaning.

The author of the reference work you cite is trying to impute meaning to what is, in itself, meaningless. You do not see this? He may be suggesting that Mithraism used the cross symbol intentionally and that this somehow influenced, or was influence by, Christian use.

DCH (waiting for my work laptop to "startup repair" itself)
User avatar
Peter Kirby
Site Admin
Posts: 8018
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
Location: Santa Clara
Contact:

Re: Hot Cross Buns!

Post by Peter Kirby »

DCHindley wrote:The author of the reference work you cite is trying to impute meaning to what is, in itself, meaningless. You do not see this?
Perhaps he is. Perhaps he isn't.

In any case, you quoted me, and I said that, "I'm not sure what to make of it."

Is it "meaningless"? Does it have no "meaning" at all? Does it have no connection to anything else? Could it influence later art? Was it ever symbolic of anything? I don't know. I certainly prefer the simplest explanation, mundane though it may be, as I said at the start of this tangent.

Honestly I regret this tangent. I had no idea people were so exercised over the necessity of believing in the "meaningless"-ness of this artistic phenomenon ... based on their knowledge of baked bread (apparently a point of pride).

I certainly don't really care about it.

Forgive me for drawing attention to it without having any particular point to make.
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
User avatar
Peter Kirby
Site Admin
Posts: 8018
Joined: Fri Oct 04, 2013 2:13 pm
Location: Santa Clara
Contact:

Re: Hot Cross Buns

Post by Peter Kirby »

This topic can go to "Classical Texts and History."
"... almost every critical biblical position was earlier advanced by skeptics." - Raymond Brown
andrewcriddle
Posts: 2817
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:36 am

Re: Hot Cross Buns

Post by andrewcriddle »

FWIW a globe with diagonal cross (probably astronomical/astrological) does occur in Mithraism

Image

Andrew Criddle
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Hot Cross Buns

Post by DCHindley »

One a penny
Two a penny

Hot cross buns are made from wheat, but what kind of wheat?

I found this PDF to be informative:

(Jasny, Naum) The Wheats of Classical Antiquity (1944)
http://krishikosh.egranth.ac.in/bitstre ... /22697.pdf

There is also a somewhat amateurishly done web publication which covers the subject, but with great detail, based on an earlier privately published book from 1998:

(Oxbrow, Steve) Wheat in Antiquity (private pub, 1998, web version 2010)
http://wheatinantiquity.webs.com/

Nothing smells better than fresh baked bread. Some wheats are better for bread than others.

THIS MEANS NOTHING!!! :confusedsmiley:

DCH
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Why so Glumey?

Post by DCHindley »

After all (see subject), by the time I get done with this thread, you will learn more about the wheat(s) of antiquity than you ever wanted to know ... until you need to know ... and, well, you never know when you'll need to know. Ya' know?
[17] CLASSIFICATION

In many important respects such as value per pound, cost of [18] storage and transportation, and also in outward appearance, the most important distinction in wheat is that between naked and hulled wheat. Yet botanically, the difference between these is only in the degree of tightness with which the kernels are enclosed by the hulls (glumes) as well as in the ease with which the stem (rachis) of the wheat plant breaks. In some wheats the kernels are not enclosed very tight and the stem is strong.

The kernels slip out of the hulls before the stem breaks;. the stem remains intact while the hulls come loose and form the chaff. Such naked kernels are our common naked wheat, usually referred to simply as wheat, without the qualifying adjective "naked."

In other wheat plants, the rachis breaks before the kernels have come out of the hulls, and from such plants are obtained, instead of naked kernels, kernels enclosed in the hulls, with or without pieces of the rachis attached. These are the hulled wheats. (See Plates I [sorry, not incl in pdf I downloaded] and II.) However, the kernels of hulled wheat intended for use as food are freed of the hulls after harvest in some way or other; in such form, that is, with the hulls removed, they closely resemble the kernels of naked wheats.

Indeed especially when the kernels are not well preserved, as is the case in most excavations, it is not always possible to distinguish the kernels of hulled wheats with the hulls removed from the kernels of naked wheats. Some of the wheat kernels found in Egyptian tombs and identified as naked wheat ultimately proved to be kernels of emmer, a hulled wheat, with the hulls removed. Before the error was corrected, a greatly exaggerated importance had been assigned to naked wheat in the remote time when some of those tombs were erected. ...
Behold, glumes (tab down, in 2nd row of hulled wheats, for each of the three pairs of images it is the bushy thingy before the seedy thingy - sorry to have to use technical terms)
Behold, glumes (tab down, in 2nd row of hulled wheats, for each of the three pairs of images it is the bushy thingy before the seedy thingy - sorry to have to use technical terms)
Jasny, Plate II.jpg (65.92 KiB) Viewed 16383 times
In modern botany, the distinction between naked and hulled wheats is subordinate to another one. The principal subdivision of the species Triticum (wheat in the broad sense) is into three broad groups. It was first suggested by Schulz. Since Tetsu Sakamura's study in 1918, it has been recognized that all wheats belonging to each of those three groups have the same number of chromosomes in their cells, namely 14, 28, or 42.

[19] In a simplified form the modern classification of the genus wheat (Triticum) is as follows:

A. GROUP WITH 14 CHROMOSOMES (Einkorn group)

*Hulled:
Tr. monococcum (one-kernelled wheat), einkorn, commonly translated one-seeded wheat in historical literature

*Naked:
Does not exist

B. GROUP WITH 28 CHROMOSOMES (Emmer group)

*Hulled:
Tr. dicoccum (two-kernelled wheat), emmer, frequently translated spelt in historical literature

*Naked:
Tr. turgidum, poulard, Rivet or' English wheat
Tr. durum, durum wheat
Tr. polonicum, Polish wheat

C. GROUP WITH 42 CHROMOSOMES (Spe1t group)

*Hulled:
Tr. spelta, spelt

*Naked:
Tr. vulgare, common wheat, also frequently referred to as bread wheat
Tr. compactum, club wheat
Tr. sphaerococcum (round-kernelled wheat), Indian dwarf wheat

(Jasny, Naum) The Wheats of Classical Antiquity (1944, pp. 17-19. paragraph formatting mine)
FWIW, I'm learning as I go just like everyone else.

DCH
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

"Please sir, May I have some more porridge?" (Oliver Twist)

Post by DCHindley »

Greek Words for Grains (Wheat, Rye, Barley)

βρίζα (rye), see Rye, 15, 16, 17;
secale?
sigala.

ζειά (sort of grain used as fodder, prob. a course wheat, [emmer]):
botanical identification of, 119-124;
bread from, 130, 131;
differences between and ὄλυρα, 128-129;
δίκοκκος [two headed], 109
from North Africa, 132;
groats from, 131;
in Ezekiel, 139;
not mentioned in the Edict of Diocletian, 137;
origin of the term, 129;
plant of, 129;
soil and climatic requirements of, 118;
term used also to designate any hulled wheat, 109; ^
See also, Emmer, names and types of.

ζεόπυρον:
bread from, 135-136, 138;
grown in colder areas, 135;
identification of, 135-136;
not spelt, 135-136.

ὄλυρα ["rice-wheat", an inferior grade of emmer, or oats or rye]:
botanical identification of, 119-124;
bread from, 130, 131;
differences between and ζειά, 128-129;
in Ezekiel, 139;
not mentioned in the Edict of Diocletian, 137;
groats from, 131;
origin of the term, 129;
plant of, 129;
term used also to mean grain without
hulls, 116;
term used for hulled wheat, 115
See also, Emmer, names and types of.

πιστικίου [Speltae mundae, hull-less emmer]:
in the Edict of Diocletian, 134, 138;
prices of according to Edict of Diocletian, 134;
νεαρός, term for emmer, 146-147.

πυρός:
from Bactra, 81;
from Pontus, 81;
names and types:
δρακοντίας, 80, 99-100;
κἀγχρυδίας, 80, 96, 99-100;
σελινούσιος, 99-100;
στραγγίας, 80, 99-100;
"Thracian," believed to be rye, 100;
term applied to include hulled wheat, 54-55, 114;
See also, σεμίδαλίτης, σιτανίας, and Wheat.

σεμίδαλίτης:
bread from, 67, 68, 69;
discrimination against in comparison with σιτανίας, 67;
not distinguished from triticum in the narrow sense, 58, 100;
distribution of, 79;
fall sown:
unadapted to cold climates, 89;
distribution of, 78;
as fall-sown wheat, 62;
flour from, 61, 67;
identification of, 89, 90, 91, 92, 94;
kernels, 61-62, 89;
in the narrowest sense, 62;
relative value of compared with σιτανίας, 127;
as spring-sown wheat, 62;
use for bread, 69;
not winter hardy, 71.

Σιλιγνίτης, see σιτανίας.

σιτανίας:
bread from, 67, 69;
as a fall-grown wheat, 61;
flour from, 61, 67;
identification of, 105;
kernels, 60, 61;
nutritive value of, 61;
preference for, 65, 69, 70;
as a spring-grown wheat, 60, 61;
spring-sown, not grown in Syria or Palestine, 75;
use for bread, 69;
weight of, 63.

σῖτος:
Alexandrian, 54-55, 118-119;
μελαναθήρ:
color of, 93;
distribution of, 75;
identification of, 92-93;
a spring wheat, 74;
a wheat with black awns, 74, 93;
sense the term was used in changed, 53 ;
term used for naked wheat in later classical time, 53.

τράγος (groats [made from ὄλυρα]):
from Alexandrian wheat, 54·55;
digestibility of, 131;
preparation of, 115;
term used also to mean a hulled wheat, 115.

χόνδρος [groats]:
the alica of the Greeks, 124;
digestibility of, 131;
from Megara, 132;
from Thessaly, 132;
from ζειά, 124;
term occasionally applied to hulled wheat from which groats produced, 112.
See also, Groats, names and types of.

All classical sources call zeia or olura "spelt", but this is on account of the edict of Diocletian in which he set maximum prices. In this, which survives in both Latin & Greek, the Latin word "spelta" is used for wheat, rather than all the normal words for wheat. Even the Greek word equivalent was a transcription of a different Latin word, not even using the usual Greek words noted above. So, rather than suppose that there is something odd afoot, scholars automatically assumed that all wheat at that time was spelt.

Unfortunately for this view, we have come to know from more recent archaeological evidence that the most common kind of wheat in antiquity even until a century or so after Diocletian's time was emmer, some hulled but mostly naked, and that spelt proper was not represented. Now spelt grows well in colder climates, such as northern Europe where Diocletian was based, so perhaps he was using the term for the local variety of wheat that was grown there and applying to all wheats everywhere, which was predominantly emmer with a little bit of einkorn. FWIW, the prevailing grain of those parts was rye, not wheat.

In case it wasn't obvious from the repeated mention of groats, was the fact that most Romans and even Egyptians, ate their grain in the form of porridge, not bread. The Greeks, on the other hand, preferred bread. The Europeans ate bread more than porridge, but most ate only rye breads.

DCH
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Brace yourselves, Farina, be not Scandalized, I Ador you.

Post by DCHindley »

Latin Names for same.

Emmer:
names & types of
Ador, 112;
Adoreum, 112, 137;
Alica, 112;
Alicastrum, 112, 130, 137;
Amidonnier, 46;
Arinca, 112, 118, 131;
Brace, 112, 131, 134;
Far, 13;
Far adoreum, 112;
Farra, see Far.
Farrago, term for green feed or hay, 55.
Kussemeth, 137;
Sandala, 112, 134;
Scandala or Scandula, [hulled emmer with the hulls attached] 112, 137, 138, 139;
Semen, 112, 132;
Semen trimestre, 130;
Spelta, 112;
[munda, πιστικίου, hull-less emmer].
Spica, 112;
Vennuculum, 112;

Triticum, (wheat, generally)
siligo (very fine white)
farina triticea (wheat meal)
Farina Siliginea:
whole meal from siligo, 13;
yield of bread from, 63.

DCH
Post Reply