Even when all the water has been absorbed by the soil, which may take a couple of weeks or even months, depending on the amount of water and the soil structure, such play as are still easily recognized because their surfaces are sealed with silt, which bursts open after drying. When all the water has been absorbed, small holes are made in the soil, which are then filled with water. The next day, several seeds of sorghum are put in each hole. Only during the first week, extra water supply is given if necessary. From then on, the farmer only does the weeding . The plants can be harvested after six months and are used as forage for camels. One would assume that the cultivation of cereals such as sorghum and barley is only meaningful if fair sized fields are sown. Evidently, present cultivation of cereals in the Eastern Desert is mostly practiced on a small scale and has an opportunistic character. Sorghumis a crop domesticated in Africa and has a C4-metabolic pathway making its photosynthesis very efficient in an environment characterized by high temperatures and light intensities. Being C3-crops, barley and wheat lack this photosynthetic adaptation to arid conditions and, as a consequence, irrigation is necessary. Long-term irrigation is a disadvantage as the soil may become salty, a condition to which only barley has a considerable tolerance, as far as cereals are concerned. The reason that barley is the preferred crop in drier environments but still suitable for agriculture is that it has a relatively short life cycle. In this way, it succeeds in avoiding water stress. Additionally,seedling grow rack its roots are well developed in the upper soil layer, enabling the plant to benefit from rain showers and morning dew.
Besides problems dealing with water and thermal stress, cereals also have to survive diseases and predation. Crops may be affected by flying animals and microbial diseases such as smut. The leaves of sorghum plants near Arab Saleh, for example, were partly damaged by caterpillars. A fungal disease that was found on sub-fossil remains of barley will be discussed in Chapter 4. Although the grains of sorghum are mostly used as animal fodder—the absence of gluten making it is unsuitable for bread making—it can only be fed in a fresh condition to animals after seed ripening. The presence of the poisonous dhurrin, a cyanogenic glucoside, in the leaves during the growing season and also after drying , makes it necessary to fence off the fields and excludes the possibility of hay making. The dried culms can be used as fuel or as building material. The competition for water in an arid environment results in relatively large distances between plants, so that the spatial distribution of the roots of each plant ensures the uptake of sufficient amounts of water. The relatively large distance between plants is apparent in sorghum fields and kitchen gardens. To reduce water competition, special attention has to be paid to weed control. Nevertheless, in most kitchen gardens, desert plants with a weedy character, such as Sonchus sp., Zygophyllum simplex, and Caylusea hexagyna, were found. In the sorghum field south of Arab Saleh, the following weed plants were recorded: Forsskålea tanacissima, Farsetia ramosissima, Aristida funiculata, A. adscensionis, Tribulus terrestris, Dichanthium foveolatum, Astragalus eremophilus, A. vogelii, Trichodesma ehrenbergii, Zilla spinosa, Acacia tortilis, and Morettia sp. All these species are desert plants and are also found outside the cultivated areas.With respect to the exploitation of plants by man, two terms need to be addressed: cultivation and domestication.
Cultivation concerns the exploitation of plants in its broadest sense, including the harvest of useful products of wild growing plants. Domestication, on the other hand, is restricted to a human-induced process in which plants become dependent on humans for their reproduction . It follows logically from these definitions that domestication implies cultivation. Domesticated plants are mostly recognizable, as such, in an archaeobotanical context, since generative parts, especially, have undergone morphological changes. It may be difficult however to pronounce upon the cultivated status of wild plant species that are considered to be part of the surrounding vegetation in former times. As far as edible plants are concerned, the presence of leftovers unequivocally indicates a cultivated status. But more often, remains of wild plant species are found that do not show clear evidence of a special use. Sometimes, a specific use is known from present-day dwellers, eventually from a more remote area, but mostly no traces of such a use are detectable. In such cases the plant might have been deliberately collected by man but may also have been transported to the site by natural dispersal agents. In the Eastern Desert, both strong winds and irregular occurring torrents are responsible for the transport of plant remains over long distances. Obstacles such as buildings and depressions are excellent seed traps. This process was continuously evidenced during the excavation seasons, where a trench sweep is a daily procedure, and old trenches are filled with sand intermixed with all kinds of plant remains, including tumbleweeds and plants that germinate in such protected safe sites. It may thus be clear that the status of some wild plant species that have been found at Berenike and Shenshef is still obscure.
Some of them have been categorized as cultivated ones, such as beet and Johnson grass , although conclusive evidence is lacking for such a labeling. On the other hand, the potential use of several wild plant species will be mentioned in the next section to compensate for the assumption that they were dispersed by natural dispersal agents. It is assumed that most desert plants with an economic value will have been exploited without intentional planting in gardens or plantations. For this reason, all cultivated plants that grow wild in the Eastern Desert, the Red Sea coastal area, and/or the Gebel Elba area will also be dealt with in the next section. This section presents all cultivated plants from Berenike and Shenshef that have been evidenced by at least non-woody remains. Plants evidenced by wood identification are described by Vermeeren . Some of them will be discussed briefly in the summarizing section. The cultivated plants are described separately in alphabetical order. Each description starts with the scientific name and, as the occasion arises, relevant synonyms are also mentioned. Synonyms that are linked to wild progenitors, such as Olea oleaster Hoffm. & Link. and Vitis sylvestris C.C. Gmel, have been omitted. Next, English, Arabic, and Indian names are presented alphabetically, followed by a description of the plant parts, the trenches in which the plant has been evidenced, the period, the state of preservation, and a reference to a picture of the plant remain. The scientific plant names are mainly based on Wiersema and León . Tentative identifications on a species level are indicated with “cf.” . For example, Monsonia cf. nivea means that only the identification on the genus level is certain, but that the identification to the level of species is only tentative. The common names were obtained from a variety of sources, in which the preferred common English plant name follows Wiersema and León . The Arabic and Indian names are taken mainly from Bedevian , Kamal , Kay , Mandaville , and Dey . These common names refer to whole plants as well as particular plant parts of economic value. All variant spellings have been listed that were found in literature. Doubtless this compilation is by no means complete. The common names are arranged alphabetically and are also indexed. It should be realized that the same name may be used for several plant species, including non-cultivated ones. For each plant, the official names of the recovered remains are mentioned. Sometimes such labels deviate from the names that are commonly used. Such established names may, however, be incorrect and confusing, which is caused by several factors. The main objective of using the official botanical names is that it facilitates an unequivocal description. This, in turn, enables an interpretation with respect to the processing of the plant remains,greenhouse growing racks including preservation techniques that might have been used and a comparison with present-day samples of these plants. To avoid an unreadable text, the botanical names are explained when necessary and eventually also linked to more-popular terms. For the same reason, specific names of fruit types, such as pods and legumes, have been omitted in the description of the botanical remains. First of all, the labeling of “seed” and “fruit” is not always correct.
Strictly speaking, an ovule develops into a seed and an ovary develops into a fruit. This means that a seed is always enclosed by a fruit. Unfortunately, seeds and fruits are not always clearly separated, as for example, the members of the mustard family and the legume family . If only one seed is produced in a fruit, very often the fruit coat is fused with the seed coat. What appears to be a seed is in fact a fruit. Such fruits are produced, for example, by members of the buttercup family and the daisy family .A second factor that obscures the issue is the great variety of fruit types. Thus, the so-called diaspore may either be a seed, a fruit, or even a false fruit. The fig may serve here as an illustrative example. Very often, sub-fossil records mention that seeds or fruits of the fig have been retrieved, but the official labels should be “fruits” and “accessory fruits,” respectively. If the description is unequivocal, for instance in the case of dried fruits, it is not problematic. Unfortunately, this is mostly not the case, as can be deduced, for example, from the codex of ancient Egyptian plant remains by de Vartavan and Amorós , which lacks a sound botanical standardization. Another complication arises from the taphonomic processes and preservation conditions, both resulting in the fragmentation of botanical remains. A correct identification of such fragments should ideally be based on the anatomy of the diaspore. But again, popular names, partly derived from the description of fruit types, are often used instead. Examples of such names are shell, flesh, meat, pip, and kernel. The word stone is used, for example, both for the seed of a date palm fruit and for the endocarp of fruits, which are classified as “drupes,” such as the discarded inner part of an olive fruit. Standardization of descriptions for the archaeobotanical remains of cereals Triticum and Hordeum, including threshing remains, has recently been recommended . Trench numbers, recorded in a consecutive series throughout the whole excavation period, indicate the origin of the botanical remains from Berenike. In Shenshef, on the other hand, the numbering of trenches starts at one in both seasons. A complicating factor in the numbering is that a particular midden has been excavated in three different trenches . Therefore, the numbers of the middens from Shenshef have been used instead to designate the origin of their botanical remains. Only in particular cases, where a more detailed description is considered as informative, are complete locus identifications given. The locations of the trenches and middens are indicated in Figure 4.3 and Figure 4.4. Plant remains can be preserved in different ways: waterlogging, mineralization, desiccation, and charring. Additionally, imprints in pottery, for example, may indirectly maintain the presence of a species in the course of time. The type of preservation depends on environmental conditions and human activity. The plant remains from Berenike and Shenshef are preserved by desiccation and charring. Owing to the extreme arid conditions, plant remains can be preserved by desiccation without special treatments. Basically, this nondestructive mode of preservation is valid for all kinds of plant remains. Differences in fragility, however, allow for bias in favor of the more-solid remains such as seeds and fruits. Since these generative plant parts are, by nature, adapted to survival in the soil, they offer resistance to both mechanical hazards and decay by microorganisms. This kind of preservation is sometimes erroneously mentioned as “mummification,” a qualification that is, however, only applicable to organic subjects that have been treated in a special way to improve preservation. Even plant remains that have been found in tombs and are stored as offerings for the dead do not deserve this special qualification. Charring, on the other hand, is mostly human induced and destructive in character .