Threshing board

 ( History Of Agriculture ) 

A threshing board, also known as threshing sledge,Columella, De Re Rustica (Book 1, chapter 6:23) is an obsolete farm implements used to separate from their straw; that is, to threshing. It is a thick board, made with a variety of slats, with a shape between rectangular and trapezoidal, with the frontal part somewhat narrower and curved upward (like a sled) and whose bottom is covered with or razor-like metal blades.

One form, once common by the Mediterranean Sea, was "about three to four feet wide and six feet deep (these dimensions often vary, however), consisting of two or three wooden planks assembled to one another, of more than four inches wide, in which is several hard and cutting flints crammed into the bottom part pull along over the grains. In the rear part there is a large ring nailed, that is used to tie the rope that pulls it and to which two horses are usually harnessed; and a person, sitting on the threshing board, drives it in circles over the cereal that is spread on the threshing floor. Should the person need more weight, he need only put some big stones over it."

The dimensions of threshing boards varied. In Spain, they could be up to approximately two metres in length and a metre and a half wide. There were also smaller threshing boards, as little about a metre-and-a-half long and a metre wide. The thickness of the slats of the threshing board is some five or six cm. Nonetheless, since threshing boards are nowadays custom made, made to order or made smaller as an adornment or souvenir, they may range from miniatures up to the sizes previously described.

The threshing board has been traditionally pulled by mules or by oxen over the grains spread on the threshing floor. As it was moved in circles over the harvest that was spread, the stone chips or blades cut the straw and the ear of wheat (which remained between the threshing board and the pebbles on the ground), thus separating the seed without damaging it. The threshed grain was then gathered and set to be cleaned by some means of winnowing.

In this manner, Pliny refers to the three traditional methods of threshing grain:

• Beating sheafs of grain against a crushing stone or lump of wood.
• Trampling grain spread on the threshing floor; the trampling would be done by a train of mules or oxen
• Threshing with flails, a type of traditional wooden tool with which one strikes the pile of grain until the seed is separated from the chaff.

For threshing with the threshing board, firstly one brings the baled stalks to the threshing floor. Some are stacked, waiting their turn, and others are untied and placed in a circle forming a pile of grain that is heated by the sun. Then farmers drag the threshing board over the stalks, first going several times around in circles, and then in figure-eights, and stirring the grain with a wooden pitchfork. Sometimes, this work was done with another kind of threshing implement: a Plostellum punicum (Latin; literally "Punic cart") or threshing cart, fitted with a group of rollers, each with metallic transverse razors. In this first stage, the straw is detached from the ear; much chaff and dirty dust remains, mixed with the edible grain. Every time the work of dragging the threshing board is repeated, the grain is stirred again, moving more straw to the edge of the threshing floor. If too much grain is spread on the ground, it has to be raked and swept in order to make a round mound and, if possible, to remove as much straw as possible.

After turning the grain and straw upside down and leaving it to dry during a meal break, farmers carry out a second round of threshing in order to separate the last of the grain from the straw. Then, they use pitchforks, rakes and brooms to create a mound. A pair of oxen or mules pulls the threshing board by means of a chain or a strap fixed to a hook nailed in the front plank; are not used, because unlike mules and oxen they often defecate on the crops. The driver rides on the threshing board, both guiding the draft animals and increasing the weight of the threshing board. If the driver's weight is not enough, large stones are put on the board. In recent times, the animals are sometimes replaced with a tractor; because the driver no longer sits on the board, the weight of stones becomes more important. Children enjoy riding on the threshing board for fun, and the farmers allow it because their weight is useful, as long as the children are not too boisterous.

After threshing is finished, to avoid mixing the dirty remnants with the clean, new stalks, the threshing floor must be cleaned first with a rake to move the heavier material, and then with several brooms (in the narrow sense: they are typically made from "broom shrub"— Cytisus scoparius—and are stronger than domestic brooms). Also the straw was accumulated carefully and stored, because it was a good fodder for livestock. The entire process of threshing generates a thin dust that soaks in through the respiratory system and sticks to the throat.

During the sweeping, the and the chaff are separated to one part of the threshing-floor, while the grain, still not entirely clean, was winnowed, either by traditional of winnowing with , or by a mechanical winnowing machine.

Traditional threshing implements (including the threshing board) were gradually abandoned and replaced by modern combine harvesters. This change, of course, occurred in some areas before others. For instance, in Spain, it happened in the 1950s and 1960s. Until that time, threshing boards were made in certain particular towns and villages with specialised craftsmen. Whereas the woodworking involved is simple, even rough, the flintknapping and the inlaying of flakes into the bottom of board need specialised skills that were passed from father to son. The most famous Spanish town for this work was, doubtlessly, Cantalejo (Segovia), where the craftsmen who made threshing boards were known as briqueros.

The most productive archaeological site is Aratashen, Armenia: a village occupied between 5000 and 3000 BC (Neolithic and Copper Age). The archaeological excavations have provided thousands of pieces from the knapping of obsidian (suggesting that Aratashen was a centre of production and trade of artefacts of that highly regarded stone); the rest of the archaeological record consists mainly of fragments of common pottery, , and other agricultural tools. Analysing a sample of 200 lithic flakes and blades, selected from the best-preserved pieces, it is possible to differentiate between those used in sickles and those used in threshing boards. The lithic blades of obsidian were knapped using highly developed and standardized methods, such as the use of a "pectoral crutch" with a copper point. «Grande béquille pectorale»:

The threshing boards must have been important in the protohistory of Mesopotamia, since they already appear in some of the oldest written documents discovered: specifically, several sandstone tablets from the early town of Kish (Iraq), engraved with cuneiform script pictographic, which could be the world's oldest surviving written record, dating to the middle of the 4th millennium BC (Early Uruk period).

There are another representation, in this case without writing, in central Turkey. It is an impression of a cylinder seal from the archaeological site of Malatya, which appeared near of the named «Temple B». The archaeological layers were dated to 3374 BC using dendrochronology. Graphic on the Cornell University web site. The stamp shows a figure seated on a threshing board, with a clear image of the lithic flakes inlaid in the bottom of the board. The main figure is sitting (possibly on a throne) under a dossal. In front is a driver or oxherd, and there are peasants with pitchforks nearby. According to M. A. Frangipane, that the seal may illustrate a religious scene:

It closely resembles another scene, painted on the walls of the same site (a ceremonial procession of a person of high rank, painted in an archaic lineal style in the colours red and black), although the current condition of the wall obscures the exact nature of the vehicle in which he is seated, it is indeed possible to see that it is pulled by a pair of oxen. Professor Sherratt interprets both scenes as presenting manifestations of civil or religious power. In that era, the threshing board was a sophisticated and expensive implement, built by specialized artisans, using pieces of flint or obsidian; in the case of Lower Mesopotamia, these were imported from far away: in the alluvial plateau of Sumer, as in all south of Mesopotamia, it was impossible to find stone, not even a pebble.

The discovery of a ceremonial sledge (perhaps a threshing board) with gold ornaments in the Puabi, one of the "royal tombs" of Ur, dated from the 3rd millennium BC, p.73 et. seq. makes clear the underlying problem of distinguishing in the ancient representations between a true threshing board and a sledge (that is, an unwheeled vehicle for hauling freight). Although we know that the threshing board appears no later than the 4th millennium BC (as we can see in Atarashen and Arslantepe-Malatya), and we also know that the wheel was invented in Mesopotamia in the middle of that same millennium, still, the utilisation and spread of the wheel was not instantaneous. The sledges survived at least until the invention of the articulated axle, nearly 2000 BC. During this time, some vehicles were hybrids: sledges with wheels that could be dismantled to overcome obstacles by carrying it on shoulders or, simply, dragging it.

James Frazer compiled numerous ceremonies of harvest and thresh, that centered on a Cereal Spirit. From the era to pre-industrial period, this spirit seems to have reside d in the first threshed sheaf or, sometimes, in the last one.

Carthage, which colonized the southeastern Iberian Peninsula in the 3rd century BC, had advanced agricultural technology, greatly superior to the Roman techniques of the time. Their methods astonished travellers such as Agathocles and Regulus, and were an inspiration for the writings of Varro and Pliny. One well-known Carthaginian agronomist, Mago, wrote a treatise that was translated into Latin by order of the Roman Senate. The ancient Romans describe Tunisia, today mainly desert, as a fertile landscape of and wheat. In Hispania, the Carthaginians are known to have introduced several new crops (mainly ) and some machines like the threshing board, either the version with stone-chips ( tribulum in Latin) or the version with rollers ( threshing cart, named in their honour plostellum punicum by the Romans).

In Ancient Rome, the threshing board had only economic significance, without the religious symbolism it took on in the Hebrew Bible. The treatises of agriculture written by Roman experts as Cato, Varro, Columella and Pliny the Elder (quoted above), touch the topic of threshing. In chronological order:

• Cato: In the time of Cato the Elder—that is, the 2nd century BC—Rome was intensely connected with the conquered areas of Ancient Greece and Carthage, whose higher degree of agricultural development threatened Roman traditionalism. Cato's book De Agricultura was against exotic innovations such as the threshing board in its different variants, defending instead a traditional agricultural system based on manual labour. To some writers, Cato's ideas drove, indirectly, to the disintegration of republicanism society and even the imperial economy. Cato preferred threshing by trampling by mules or oxen. He doesn't expressly mention the threshing board, in spite of the fact it was already spreading through the empire. It is, then, "almost impossible to define, on the basis of Cato's report, when this or that implement or refinement came into use". «resulta casi imposible definir, sobre la base de la exposición de Catón, cuando entró en uso tal o cual instrumento, cuándo fue aplicado tal o cual perfeccionamiento»:
  Kovaliov, Sergei I. (1979). 9788473394550, Akal Editor. ISBN 9788473394550
  p. 178

• Varro: Unlike Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro was not a man of action but a scholar, a πολιγραφοτάτω, in the 1st century BC. Varro, whose studies were wider than Cato's, tried to combine the cosmopolitan Greek outlook with Rome's provincial traditions. In his book of agricultural advice Rerum Rusticarum de Agri Cultura Rerum Rusticarum de Agri Cultura online in the original Latin Varro only twice reflects the reality of his times by mentioning threshing boards. He advises, "None of the implements that can be produced in the plantation (farm) itself should be bought, as with almost all everything which is made from unfinished wood such as hampers, baskets, threshing boards, stakes, rakes…";Varro, Rerum Rusticarum… Liber primus, XII: «Quae nasci in fundo ac fieri a domesticis poterunt, eorum nequid ematur, ut fere sunt quae ex viminibus et materia rustica fiunt, ut corbes, fiscinae, tribula, valli, rastelli…» the inclination to self-sufficiency that he demonstrates here would later be harmful to Rome. Varro nonetheless shows himself more open to innovation that Cato: "To achieve an abundant and high-quality harvest, the stalks should be taken to the threshing floor without piling them up, so the grain is in the best condition, and the grain (should be) separated from the stalks on the threshing floor, a process which is done, among other ways, with a pair of mules and a threshing board. This is made with a wooden board (with its underside) equipped with stone-chips or saws of iron, which, with a plow in front or a large counterweight, is pulled by a pair of mules yoked together and thus separates the grain from the stalks…".Varro, Rerum Rusticarum… Liber primus, LII. «Quae seges grandissima atque optima fuerit, seorsum in aream secerni oportet spicas, ut semen optimum habeat; e spicis in area excuti grana. Quod fit apud alios iumentis iunctis ac tribulo. Id fit e tabula lapidibus aut ferro asperata, quae cum imposito auriga aut pondere grandi trahitur iumentis iunctis, discutit e spica grana;…» That is, he explains in a very didactic way how the threshing boards works and the advantages of this innovative device. Next, he talks about the variant called plostellum poenicum (= punicum=Punic=Carthaginian), a threshing implement with rollers and metallic saws whose origin is, as we have already seen, Carthaginian, and which was used in Hispania (which had, in the past, been controlled by Carthage): "Another way to make it is by means of a cart with teethed rollers and bearings; this cart is named plostellum punicum, in which one can sit and move the device that is pulled by mules, as it is done in Hispania Citerior and other places."Varro, Rerum Rusticarum… Liber primus, LII. «…aut ex axibus dentatis cum orbiculis, quod vocant plostellum poenicum; in eo quis sedeat atque agitet quae trahant iumenta, ut in Hispania citeriore et aliis locis faciunt.»
• Columella (Columella, beginning of Common Era - 60s): a native of Hispania Baetica; after finishing his military career, Columella worked managing large estates. This writer from Hispania brings a new note to this topic, writing, in this case, about : "The threshing floor, if it is possible, must be placed in such way that it can be overseen by the master or by the foreman; the best is one that is cobbled, because not only allows that the cereal be quickly threshed, since the ground don't give way to the blows of hoofs and threshing boards, but also, these cereals, before being winnowed, are cleaner and lack the pebbles and little clods that always remaine in a threshing floor of pressed earth.": «Area, si competit, ita constituenda est, ut vel a domino vel certe a procuratore despici possit. Eaque optima est silice constrata, quod et celeriter frumenta deteruntur, non cedente solo pulsibus ungularum tribularumque, et eadem ventilata mundiora sunt, lapillisque carent et glaebulis, quas per trituram fere terrena remittit area.»
• Pliny: Pliny the Elder (23 - 79) only compiles what his predecessors had written, which we have already quoted. Naturalis Historia, Liber XVIII (naturae frugum), lxxii - 298.

In the Iberian Peninsula, in the Visigothic kingdom and the Christian zone during the Reconquista, the threshing board was little known (although awareness of it never quite disappeared). The degradation extended not only to the economy, but also to the very sources that we have to study the period: scholars are confronted with a documentary void that is difficult to get around. It is certain that in Islamic Al-Andalus, the threshing board continued to be very popular, which led to the Christians recuperating the tradition as they advanced in the Reconquista. This act coincides with a generalized recovery in all of Europe. Economic prosperity began to return at the start of the 11th century; the experts speak of the increased area of tilled lands; the increased use of draft animals (first oxen, thanks to the frontal yoke, and later horses, thanks to Horse collar); of the increase in metal tools and improved metalworking; of the appearance of the moldboard plough, often with wheels; and the increase in watermills. Livestock became a sign of progress: peasants, less dependent and more prosperous, became able to buy draft animals, and even plows. The peasants who had their own plow and one or two draft animals were a small elite, pampered by the feudal lord, who acquired a distinct status,

that of yeoman farmers, quite distinct from farm-hand labourer whose only tool was their own arms.

And I, Doña Mayor, leave on my death these two yokings of country state above referred to the Cathedral Chapter, well preserved with 76 of wheat, 38 bushels of rye, and 38 bushels of barley to seed each yoking and with ploughshares, and with plows, and with ploughbeams, and with threshing boards and with all the accoutrements that a well-laid-out property should have.Diocesan archive of Salamanca: «Et yo, donna Mayor, devo dexar a mia muerte estas duas yugadas de heredat devandichas al cabildo bien allinadas, con quatro kafiçes de trigo, et un kafiz de centeno, et un kafiz de cevada pora semiente cada yugada, et con reias, et con arados, et con timones, et con trillos et con todo appayamiento que heredade bien allinnada deve aver»

These documents, at least testify for the presence of threshing boards, which, undoubtedly was continuous from then until recently in the Mediterranean basin. The rest is mere generalized speculation, given that traditional historiography centers on features more like of Western Europe. In any case, none of the consulted authors describe the threshing board as playing a relevant part in the progress of medieval agriculture. We must, then, join with the despair of French historian Georges Duby, in his complaint:

Through all that has been said, we can see how interesting it would be to measure the influence of technical progress on agricultural output. Nevertheless, we must renounce this hope. Before the end of the 12th century, the methods of seignorial administration were all quite primitive; they granted little importance to writing and even less to numbers. The documents are more deceptive than those of the Charlemagne.Georges Duby, op. cit. page 249: «A través de cuanto hemos dicho se ve el interés que tendría la medición de la incidencia del progreso técnico en el rendimiento de la empresa agrícola. Sin embargo, hay que renunciar a hacerla. Antes de fines del siglo XII, los métodos de la administración señorial son todavía muy primitivos; conceden poca importancia a la escritura y menos aún a las cifras. Los documentos son más decepcionantes que los de la época carolingia»

Nowadays, numerous elements of traditional agriculture are being lost, and because of this various entities have been working to conserve or recover this cultural capital. Among these is an international interdisciplinary project called E.A.R.T.H., Early Agricultural Remnants and Technical Heritage. Participating countries include Bulgaria, Canada, France, Russia, Scotland, Spain, and the United States. Investigations center on broad archeological, documentary and ethnological aspects, related to diverse elements of traditional agriculture, threshing boards among them, in diverse countries, historical periods and societies. E.A.R.T.H., official site.

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