d the calcined
remains of cakes made from coarsely-ground grain in Swiss lake-dwellings
that date back to the Stone Age. The cakes were made of different kinds
of grain, barley and one-grained wheat (_Triticum monococcum_) being
among the ingredients. This bread was made, not from fine meal, but from
grain crushed between some hard surfaces, and in these lake-dwellings
many round-shaped stones have been found, which were evidently used for
pounding or crushing grain against the surface, more or less concave, of
another stone (see FLOUR AND FLOUR MANUFACTURE). Perhaps the earliest
form of bread, if that word may be used, was prepared from acorns and
beech nuts. To this day a sort of cake prepared from crushed acorns is
eaten by the Indians of the Pacific slopes. The flour extracted from
acorns is bitter and unfit to eat till it has been thoroughly soaked in
boiling water. The saturated flour is squeezed into a kind of cake and
dried in the sun. Pliny speaks of a similar crude process in connexion
with wheat; the grain was evidently pounded, and the crushed remnant,
soaked into a sort of pulp, then made into a cake and dried in the sun.
Virgil (_Georgics_, i. 267) refers to the husbandman first torrefying
and then crushing his grain between stones:--"_Nunc torrete igni fruges,
nunc frangite saxo._"

The question naturally arises, how did the lake-dwellers bake their
cakes of bruised grain? Probably the dough was laid on a flat or
convex-shaped stone, which was heated, while the cake was covered with
hot ashes. Stones have been found among prehistoric remains which were
apparently used for this purpose. In ancient Egyptian tombs cakes of
durra have been found, of concave shape, suggesting the use of such
baking-slabs; here the cake was evidently prepared from coarsely-cracked
grain. In primitive times milling and baking were twin arts. The
housewife, and the daughters or handmaids, crushed or ground the grain
and prepared the bread or cakes. When Abraham entertained the angels
unawares (Genesis xviii.) he bade his wife Sarah "make ready quickly
three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth."
Professor Maspero says that an oven for baking bread was to be found in
the courtyard of every house in Chaldaea; close by were kept the
grinding stones. That bread prepared by means of leaven was known in the
days of the patriarchs may be fairly inferred from the passage in
Genesis ML, where it is said of Lot t