Taxonomy and phylogeny ; both species are
hybrids. The botanists
Friedrich August Körnicke and
Aaron Aaronsohn in the late 19th-century were the first to describe the wild emmer native to
Palestine and adjacent countries. Earlier, in 1864, the Austrian botanist
Carl Friedrich Kotschy collected specimens of the same wild emmer, without stating where he had collected them. Although cultivated in ancient Egypt, wild emmer has not been grown for human consumption in recent history, Wild emmer is distinguished from common wheat by its tougher ear
rachis and the beards releasing the grains easily, by their ear rachis becoming brittle when ripe and their firmly fitting beards.
History of cultivation in Israel. Wild emmer is native to the
Fertile Crescent of the Middle East, growing in the grass and woodland of hill country from modern-day
Israel to
Iran. The origin of wild emmer has been suggested, without universal agreement among scholars, to be the
Karaca Dağ mountain region of southeastern Turkey. In 1906,
Aaron Aaronsohn's discovery of wild emmer wheat growing in
Rosh Pinna (Israel) created a stir in the botanical world. Emmer wheat has been found in archaeological excavations and ancient tombs. Emmer was collected from the wild and eaten by hunter gatherers for thousands of years before its domestication. Grains of wild emmer discovered at
Ohalo II had a
radiocarbon dating of 17,000
BC and at the
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) site of
Netiv Hagdud are 10,000–9,400 years old. The location of the earliest site of emmer domestication is still unclear and under debate. Emmer is found in a large number of Neolithic sites scattered around the fertile crescent. From its earliest days of cultivation, emmer was a more prominent crop than its cereal contemporaries and competitors, einkorn wheat and
barley. Small quantities of emmer are present during
Period 1 at Mehrgharh on the Indian subcontinent, showing that emmer was already cultivated there by 7000–5000 BC. In the Near East, in southern
Mesopotamia in particular, cultivation of emmer wheat began to decline in the
Early Bronze Age, from about 3000 BC, and
barley became the standard cereal crop. This has been related to increased salinization of irrigated alluvial soils, of which barley is more tolerant, although this study has been challenged. Emmer had a special place in
ancient Egypt, where it was the main wheat cultivated in Pharaonic times, although cultivated einkorn wheat was grown in great abundance during the
Third Dynasty, and large quantities of it were found preserved, along with cultivated emmer wheat and barleys, in the subterranean chambers beneath the
Step Pyramid at
Saqqara. Neighbouring countries also cultivated einkorn,
durum and common wheat. In the absence of any obvious functional explanation, the greater prevalence of emmer wheat in the diet of ancient Egypt may simply reflect a marked culinary or cultural preference, or may reflect growing conditions having changed after the Third Dynasty. Emmer and barley were the primary ingredients in ancient Egyptian bread and
beer. Emmer recovered from the
Phoenician settlement at
Volubilis (in present-day
Morocco) has been dated to the middle of the first millennium BC. Emmer wheat may be one of the
five species of grain which have a special status in
Judaism. One of these species may be either emmer or
spelt. However, it is fairly certain that spelt did not grow in ancient Israel, and emmer was probably a significant crop until the end of the
Iron Age. References to emmer in
Greek and
Latin texts are traditionally translated as "spelt", even though spelt was not common in the Classical world until very late in its history.
Pliny the Elder notes that although emmer was called in his time, it had formerly been called (or 'glory'), providing an etymology explaining that emmer had been held in glory. He mentions its
use in sacrifices, stating that it had to be purified by roasting in order to be suitable. He states that in Etruria emmer was first roasted, then crushed either with an iron-capped pestle, or using a handmill that was toothed on the inside. This contrasted, Pliny writes, with the rest of Italy, where either a plain pestle or a watermill was used to make it into flour. == Cultivation ==