should accompany Roman remains, especially in the case of villas in country districts, for the tribulum, or threshing implement employed both by the Romans and other ancient civilized nations, was a "sharp threshing instrument having teeth,"[1] in most cases of flint. Varro[2] thus describes the tribulum:—"Id fit e tabulâ lapidibus aut ferro exasperatâ, quæ imposito auriga aut pondere grandi trahitur jumentis junctis ut discutiat e spicâ grana." Another form of the instrument was called traha or trahea. In the East, in Northern Africa, Spain, Portugal, Madeira, Teneriffe, and probably other parts of the world, threshing implements, which no doubt closely resemble the original tribula, are still in use. The name is still preserved in the Italian trebbiatrice, the Spanish trilla, and the Portuguese trilho, but survives, metaphorically alone, in our English tribulation. In Egypt their name is nureg, and in Greece ἁλωνίστρα, from ἁλωνία, a threshing-floor. Drawings of various tribula have been given by various travellers,[3] and the implements themselves from different countries may be seen in the Christy Collection and in the Blackmore Museum. They are flat sledges of wood, five to six feet in length, and two or three in breadth, the under side pitted with a number of square or lozenge-shaped holes, mortised a little distance into the wood, and having in each hole a flake or splinter of stone. I have seen them in Spain mounted with simple pebbles. In those from Madeira the stone is a volcanic rock, but in that from Aleppo—preserved in the Christy Collection,[4] and shown in Fig. 194—each flake is of cherty flint and has been artificially shaped. Occasionally there are a few projecting ribs or runners of iron along part of the machine, but in most instances the whole of the armature is of stone. As each trilho is provided with some hundreds of chipped stones, we can readily understand what a number of rough flakes might be left in the soil at places where they were long in use, in addition to the flakes and splinters which for centuries have been used for striking a light.
Flakes and splinters of silicious stone, whether flint, jasper, chert, iron-stone, quartzite, or obsidian, are to be found in almost all known countries, and belong to all ages. They are in fact
- ↑ Isaiah, chap. xli. ver. 15.
- ↑ "De re Rust.," lib. i. cap. 52.
- ↑ Smith's "Dict. of Gk. and Rom. Ant.," s.v. Tribulum. Wilkinson's "Anc. Egyptians," vol. ii. p. 190; iv. 94. Arch. per l'Ant. e la Etn.," vol. xxiii. 57; vol. xxvi. p. 63. Fellows, "Journ. in Asia Minor," 1838, p. 70. Paul Lucas, "Voyage en Asie," Paris, 1712, p. 231. N. and Q., 7th S., vol. vii. p. 36.
- ↑ For the use of this cut I am indebted to Sir A. Wollaston Franks, F.R.S.
