The Role of Precooked Staples in Everyday Life in Antiquity:  Some Documentary Evidences for the Case of χόνδρος

Antonino Pollio; Gianluca Del Mastro

doi:10.13135/1825-263X/1900

Antonino Pollio Università di Napoli "Federico II"
Gianluca Del Mastro Università di Napoli "Federico II"

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/1900

Abstract

Different species belonging to the genus Triticum, and, to a lesser extent, Hordeum, can be processed yielding a product that the ancient Greeks called χόνδρος. In this paper the production methods of χόνδροc in circum-Mediterranean countries during Antiquity will be described. Several documentary sources attest a very ancient use of χόνδρος that we find mentioned in Graeco-Egyptian papyri as early as the third century B.C. These documents have been analyzed in parallel with Greek literary sources. In particular, attention has been centred on some passages of Greek comedy (Aristophanes and other authors) that echo a debate born in Rome in the second century AD around the origin and uses of χόνδρος.

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Author Biographies

Antonino Pollio, Università di Napoli "Federico II"

Antonino Pollio is a graduated in Biology from the University Federico II of Naples. From1984 to 1989, he worked as a visiting professor of Botany in the University of Salento, Lecce, Italy. In 1991, he started his career at the Department of Plant Biology of the University Federico II of Naples, and since 1998, he became a professor of Botany at the same University.

Pollio’s research is both interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary. His research expertise includes ethnobotany and history of plant uses in Antiquity, and he has paid a special attention to the medicinal plants quoted in the so called Corpus Hippocraticum, and in other Ancient and Medieval texts. In collaboration with A. De Natale and G.B. Pezzatti, he has built a relational ethnobotanical databases of the Campania region (Southern Italy) on the basis of information gathered from different historical sources, including diaries, travel accounts, and treatises on medicinal plants, written by explorers, botanists, physicians, who travelled in Campania during the last three centuries. Moreover, ethnobotanical uses described in historical herbal collections and in Ancient and Medieval texts from the Mediterranean Region have been included in the database. He has also devoted studies on some distinguished physicians and botanists of XVI and XVIII century, as Prospero Alpini and Jacob Plenck. Antonino Pollio has also experience working with museums and collections of botanical records.

Gianluca Del Mastro, Università di Napoli "Federico II"

Gianluca Del Mastro is Assistant Professor in Papyrology at the University of Naples. He was educated and has specialized in the humanities and is occupied with the study of ancient manuscripts, archaeology, the history of Classical scholarship, and digital humanities, especially in the field of cultural heritage. He received an MA in Multimedia and Cultural Heritage (Naples-Zernike Science Park, Groeningen, Holland) and participates as a member in seversl projects. He studies the production and diffusion of ancient manuscripts in the Mediterranean Basin, especially in Campania. He has received awards for research on ancient texts and on the textual history of ancient texts. His creation and management of databases, digital books, and other digital tools permits him to plan and create other such instruments for every variety of cultural asset. He was a visiting scholar at Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah) in 2003 and received his PhD in Greek and Latin Philology. Between 2007-8 he was ricercatore at ILIESI-CNR. His specific area of specialization is papyrology (he did additional coursework at University College London). He has published about 70 academic works (a list is available at https://www.docenti.unina.it) and has worked on the restoration and edition of both Graeco-Egyptian and Herculaneum papyri, publishing papyri from many collections and especially Herculaneum papyri, whose restoration he has also participated in. Further, he has planned the restoration of the Derveni papyrus, which is preserved at the Museum of Thessaloniki. He participates in the Université Paris - Sorbonne and CNRS project for the study of the Herculaneum papyri given to Napoleon and conserved in Paris. He is the editor of the Thesaurus Herculanensium Voluminum and of Χάρτηϲ, Catalogo Multimediale dei Papiri Ercolanesi.

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