Who knew crop wild relatives could be so beautiful?
Agricultural biodiversity in the Linear B tablets
It was a great thrill during a recent visit to Athens to check out selected Linear B tablets on display at the National Archaeological Museum. I hadn’t seen these things outside books since I was about 12 I think. It was an even greater thrill to realize — or remember — that some deal with agrobiodiversity. Here’s one (Ge 610) that “records quantities of raw materials for perfume manufacture.” It comes from the House of the Sphinxes at Mycenae, which may have belonged to a herbalist.
Unfortunately, I was not able to find any further information online about Ge 610, but I had better luck with Ge 603, one of a set “recording aromatic herbs (cumin, coriander, fennel, sesame, saffron) associated with male (workers) names).”
You can read all about that one in Writing Without Letters:
And it also gets a footnote in another book. Oh what fun one could have with this!
In the coca region
Wonder what this hillside looks like now…
Breadfruit roundup
Our friend Diane Ragone of the Breadfruit Institute has kindly reminded us that there’s been quite a lot published on her favourite fruit lately. Almost worth a Brainfood all on its own, in fact.
Beyond the Bounty: Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) for food security and novel foods in the 21st Century. Great potential, but “a deeper understanding of the nutritional characteristics and the development of new products and markets are needed.” Which is kinda provided, at least to some extent, by the next two papers.
Diversity of breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis, Moraceae) seasonality: A resource for year-round nutrition. “About 24 cultivars exhibited very little seasonality and produced fruit throughout the year. The rest of the cultivars could be clustered into seasonality groups with characteristic fruiting patterns.”
Nutritional and morphological diversity of breadfruit (Artocarpus, Moraceae): Identification of elite cultivars for food security. “…individual varieties … are particularly good sources of mineral and protein nutrition.”
Athena’s olive tree
“Legend … says that this olive tree can be traced back to the tree originally planted by Athena here. Every invader cut it down and every time someone saved a sprig to be planted later. The most recent replanting was done by members of the American School in 1952 who saved it bit from what the Germans destroyed in 1942.”