Threshing slide

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Threshing slide
Underside of a threshing table
Underside of a threshing table

The threshing is at least since the 4th millennium BC instrument used for threshing of grain (barley, wheat, corn) and legumes (eg. As chickpeas).

distribution

It was only used outdoors in threshing areas. Therefore it is almost exclusively from hot and almost exclusively dry regions of the east Atlantic islands (Azores, Madeira, Porto-Santo and the Canary Islands) in the west, most of the circum-Mediterranean countries (exceptions: Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Morocco) including Mediterranean islands known under various names from the Middle East to Iran in the far east (Spanish trillo ; French traineau à dépiquer ; Latin tribulum ; Italian slitta da trebbiare / trebbiatrice ; Bulgar . dikania ; Greek doukhani ; Turkish döven / düven ; hebr. morag ; pers. randeh (extended to)). In the cold and humid climate of Central, Northern and Eastern Europe (with the exception of Bulgaria, where threshing are known, see.), However, was on the threshing floor in the house or a barn with the flail , finally, the thresher threshed. However, the simultaneous use of flails and threshing sleds is known from Spain.

construction

Threshing sleds usually consist of several rectangular and thicker wooden planks, mostly from the Mediterranean pine , which are firmly connected to each other by up to four cross pieces of wood (beams or boards). Its front part was carved out of the solid piece of wood, arched upwards to varying degrees, using a cross hatchet (adze) or a saw in order to guide the threshed material under the slide . On the horizontally running part of the underside, several thousand blade-shaped cuts of flint, some of which were mined or other hard and sharp-edged pebbles, were hammered into a geometric pattern of previously made slots with their longitudinal edges parallel to the longitudinal direction of the wooden planks and thus firmly wedged. The threshing areas in close proximity to villages are circular barns with a diameter of up to 25 m. Their floor usually consists of sun-hardened rammed earth, but in some cases also of stone paving. The farmer rode on the sledge pulled by cattle, mules, donkeys or horses in order to increase the pressure on the threshed material with his weight. Occasionally, stones were placed on top as weights.

history

The earliest mechanical devices for threshing in Mesopotamia were threshing sleds . This is indicated by two illustrations from the temple district of Uruk (approx. 3,500–3,370 BC), which show sleds threshing . Evidence can also be found in cuneiform texts from the 3rd millennium BC. The remains of a sleigh pulled by two cattle were found in the tomb of Queen Puabi ( early Dynastic period , approx. 2600–2350 BC) in the royal cemetery of Ur .

In the older depictions, the sleighs seem to be pulled by a single cow , which is tied with ropes that run from the runners to the horns of the animal. From the third millennium onwards, cattle and equidae were harnessed in pairs under a yoke attached to a central drawbar . The draft animals of the threshing sledge and the sled vehicles developed from them only a little later were led by means of a leash attached to the nose ring. This traditional way of leading cattle has been around since the 3rd millennium BC. Also documented for equidae. Up until historical times, however, the threshing sledge did not reach Central and Northern Europe.

End of use

With the advent of combine harvesters at the latest , threshing sleds and flails were continuously out of use. Amazingly, the practical use of threshing sleds could still be observed in the early 2000s in the Spanish-Portuguese border area near the Portuguese city of Miranda do Douro. Without prejudice to this exception, which tends to confirm the rule, it can be assumed that the approximately 5000-year history of the use of threshing sleds came to an end in the course of the 1980s at the latest, even in inaccessible and remote regions of the distribution area.

Bible text

  • 2 Samuel 24:22: Arauna said to David , My lord, the king take and offer as it pleases him. Behold, there are the cattle for a burnt offering, and also the threshing table and the cattle's harness for firewood. ( 2 Sam 24.22  EU )
  • Isaiah 41:15: Look, I will make you a threshing sleigh, cutting sharp, new, with blades, you will thresh and crush mountains, and you will make hills like chaff. ( Isa 41.15  EU )

Phrase

The phrase “ … to sledge with someone ” goes back to the threshing slide . Reference is made to the cruel custom of running over prisoners or criminals with a threshing slide.

literature

  • Vere Gordon Childe : The first waggons and carts - from Tigris to the Severn . In: Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society (=  new series ). tape 17 , 1951 (177 ff.).
  • J. Crouwel: The ancient Orient and its role in the development of vehicles . In: M. Fansa, St. Burmeister (ed.): Rad und Wagen: The origin of an innovation. Car in the Middle East and Europe (=  Archaeological Communications from Northwest Germany . Supplement 40). Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 2004, ISBN 3-8053-3322-6 , p. 69-86 .
  • P. Steinkeller: Threshing implements in ancient Mesopotamian: Cuneiform sources (=  Iraq . No. 52 ). 1990 (19-23 pp.).

Web links

Commons : Threshing Sleigh  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patricia C. Anderson & Marie-Louise Inizan: Utilization du Tribulum au début du IIIe millénaire: des lames "Cananéennes" lustrées à Kutan (Ninive V) in the region of Mossoul, Iraq (=  Paléorient . Volume 2 , no. 20 ). 1994 (85-103 pp.).
  2. ↑ Juan Francisco Gibaja et al .: El uso de la Edad del Cobre trillos durante la Meseta de espanola. Análisis traceológico de una colección de denticulados de silex procedentes del 'recinto de fosos' de El Casetón de la Era (Villalba de los Alcores, Valladolid) (=  Trabajos de Prehistoria . Volume 69 , no. 1 ). 2012 (133-148 pp.).
  3. ↑ D.-H. Luquet & Paul Rivet: Sur le Tribulum . In: Mélanges offerts à M. Nicolas Iorga par ses amis de France et des Pays de Langue Française . Paris 1933 (613-638 pp.).
  4. ↑ a b c Jürgen Weiner: Threshing sledge . In: Harald Floss (Ed.): Stone artifacts from the Old Palaeolithic to the modern era (=  Tübingen Publications in Prehistory ). Tübingen 2012 (973-980 pages).
  5. ^ Maria Gurova: Ethnographic Threshing Sledge Use in Eastern Europe: Evidence from Bulgaria . In: A. van Gijn, J. Whittaker, PC Anderson (Eds.): Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology . Oxbow Books, Oxford & Philadelphia 2014 (147-148 pp.).
  6. ↑ José Luis Mingote Calderón: The Use of Flails for Threshing Cereals . In: A. van Gijn, J. Whittaker, PC Anderson (Eds.): Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology . Oxbow Books, Oxford & Philadelphia 2014 (171-173 pp.).
  7. ↑ a b Jürgen Weiner: The Çakmak flint mines - a flint industry in northwestern Anatolia that is still in the process of extinction . In: Gerd Weisgerber , Rainer Slotta , Jürgen Weiner (eds.): 5000 years of flint mining. The search for the steel of the Stone Age (=  publications from the German Mining Museum . No. 22 ). Bochum 1980 (383-395 p.).
  8. ^ John C. Whittaker: Threshing Floors in Cyprus . In: A. van Gijn, J. Whittaker, PC Anderson (Eds.): Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology . Oxbow Books, Oxford & Philadelphia 2014 (138-139 pp.).
  9. ^ Thomas K. Schippers: The Contemporary Use of Iberian Threshing Sledges: some Ethnographic Observations about an Obsolete Choice . In: A. van Gijn, J. Whittaker, PC Anderson (Eds.): Explaining and Exploring Diversity in Agricultural Technology . Oxbow Books, Oxford & Philadelphia 2014 (154-156 pp.).
  10. ^ John Whittaker, Kathryn Kamp, Emek Yılmaz: Çakmak revisited: Turkish flintknappers today . In: Lithic Technology . tape 34 , no. 2 , 2009, ISSN  0197-7261 , p. 93–110 ( PDF, 3.4 MB [accessed October 26, 2010]).
  11. ↑ B. Brentjes: The invention of the domestic animal . Urania-Verlag Leipzig Jena Berlin, 1986, 128 pp., 64.