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Greek cereal iconography through the ages

Another foray into the wonderful world of agrobiodiversity iconography today, if you don’t mind. These musings started in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens when I saw this detail from a 500 BC marble grave stela from Velanideza in Attica.

Originally, this would have been painted, and the museum helpfully provides a reconstruction (sorry about the reflection).

This is part of what the caption says (eccentric spelling etc. in the original):

Depicted is the dead Lyseas in the guise of Dyonisos’ worshiper. He bears a vine wreath on his head, chiton and himation. He holds a kantharos (wine cup) in his right hand and a laurel branch (?) in his left… According to the inscription carved on the base, the stele was erected by Semon on the grave of his son, Lyseas.

Now, about that question mark. I guess it could be laurel, but aren’t depictions of that plant usually in the form of wreaths? Might they not be cereal spikes that Lyseas is holding? Ok, cereal spikes which have lost their awns, but the paint has faded a lot. Cereal spikes like these, admittedly much more naturalistic ones, on a Theran pot. 1

Cereal spikes a bit like these advertizing a modern bakery a short walk from the museum.

Or like these modernistic renditions, also lacking awns, by the entrance of a branch of a local bank with a focus on agriculture.

Well, maybe not. It probably was laurel after all. But that question mark…

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Food desert locator

Luigi and I had the same response to the USDA’s Food Desert Locator: wow!

[A] food desert [is] a low-income census tract where a substantial number or share of residents has low access to a supermarket or large grocery store.

Here’s a little section of the country.

FoodDesert

Astonishing in itself, what seems most thrilling is that the entire dataset is downloadable, which suggests all sorts of possible mash-ups: farmers’ markets, poverty, obesity, school journeys, Starbucks locations. The sky’s the limit. Not that correlation is causality, of course.

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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!