Barley is one of the first cereals cultivated by humans. At the heart of agriculture, it was a fundamental ingredient in the diets of the Greeks, Egyptians, and Sumerians during antiquity. More than just an ingredient for bread, it also played a key role in the development of beer. Its importance was such that it accompanied the gods of many ancient pantheons, adorned the world’s first coins, and paid the wages of the earliest contractors.
When did barley appear?
The presence of barley (Hordeum vulgare) is confirmed in the Fertile Crescent as far back as 15,000 years ago, and its domestication is believed to date back more than 10,000 years in Mesopotamia.
It is generally thought that barley was the primary cereal cultivated in the region. A dish of chickpeas and barley would have been a main course, accompanied by bread and beer. Likely due to its high nutritional and symbolic value, barley early on acquired monetary value in the kingdom of Sumer, becoming the first currency in history.
According to the Online Encyclopedia of Currency, both barley and silver had official monetary value. « The standard monetary unit was a shekel, equal to 180 grains of barley, or a fixed weight of silver. » Patrick McGovern, Scientific Director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Project for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, adds nuance: the early stages of urban development in the Near East had already established a barter system; fixed exchange values for goods like barley were in place before the advent of proper currency.
Barley at the Heart of the Agricultural Revolution?
A combination of barley and emmer were likely the first cereals ever grown deliberated by humans. Emmer is cousin of modern wheat, while barely would have likely originated in the Middle East. With climate warming starting around 9000 BCE, these cereals would have become abundant enough to allow for semi-regular cultivation.
Over generations, the mild climate and a newfound abundance of food would have fostered population growth, encouraging more structured crop management. The semi-wild production of barley, capable of meeting the needs of religious sacraments, would have further bound human groups in the Near East to the land at a time when pastoralism had already largely replaced hunter-gatherer societies.
In the 1950s, the discovery of malted barley predating agriculture disrupted conventional ideas about the origins of civilization. Barley, as diminutive as it may be, posed a significant challenge to the conventional explanation of bread as the origin of sedentarization.
Jonathan Sauer initiated the debate at a symposium in 1953 with the question: which came first, beer or bread? One of the arguments put forth in the symposium, and well-defended since, is that the discovery of fermentation could have been a catalyst for sedentarization: grain spoiled by mold would have been easier to store and consume in the form of beer.
Barley and civilization
Barley then migrated with human populations to Europe and Asia several millennia ago. In China, evidence of barley cultivation dates back 4,000 years. In Europe, it made its way through Greece. Although the Greeks have no written records confirming the consumption of beer in their country, indirect sources confirm their knowledge of beer and barley consumption.
Metapontion. Circa 340-330 BCE. AR nomos (20 mm, 7.46 g, 11 h). Head of Zeus right, wearing a laurel wreath / Ear of barley.
However, its use differed significantly from what is known today. According to the German botanist and agronomist Friedrich Kornicke, barley was neither intended for beer nor for bread. « The Greeks rarely used barley for bread. It was roasted and coarsely ground, perhaps originally to facilitate chewing, but later to prepare a porridge with water. The product, alphita, was the equivalent of daily bread for large segments of the population. » During the Gallo-Roman period, the Gauls used this cereal for various purposes: to feed their livestock, make rudimentary bread, and prepare cervoise, a strongly flavored beer of the time.
In medieval Europe, the cereal gradually became ubiquitous through the gradual transformation of gruits and cervoises—lightly alcoholic aromatic beverages—into barley-based drinks. It was in the 16th century that barley began to surpass rye and oats as the primary brewing cereal.
The famous 1516 decree of the Duke of Bavaria—better known as the Reinheitsgebot—limited beer production to three ingredients: water, barley, and hops (yeast was not yet known). This purity decree quickly spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire and became a widely accepted standard, although gruit-flavored beers continued to be brewed until the 20th century.
While the decree is now well-known for cementing beer production in the German states for centuries, it did not have the more or less absolute effect attributed to it today. Long before the 1516 edict, several duchies, cities, and principalities had already rationed or even prohibited the use of certain cereals during famines or shortages.
Thus, during a major famine in London in the 13th century, the scarce available cereals were requisitioned for bread making. There existed a delicate power balance between wheat, more fragile but more useful for bread, and barley, sturdier but more useful for beer. Such decrees allowed for the management of cereals based on the actual consumption needs.
While barley is more adaptable and resilient, it would be logical to conclude that common people often relied on it more than on other cereals like wheat. Does that mean barley is more reliable than wheat for crops? Surprisingly, no. Some studies of cereal price fluctuations in England show that barley harvests were often more disastrous than wheat harvests!
Barley: Emblem of the Gods
The omnipresence of barley in ancient societies is confirmed by its significant role in mythology. From Egypt to the Levant, the fertile conditions of the Near East, marked by chronic aridity and irregular precipitation, impart a cosmic dimension to cereal cultivation. Rain, storms, and famine are the whims of the gods, demanding sacrifices and libations. The relationship with the unfathomable forces of the world is transactional.
To irrigate the land, ensure the harvest, and prevent famine, homage must be paid to the all-powerful gods. The principle of reciprocity is evident, often taking the form of an alcoholic libation: « Starting from the Neolithic, around the fifth millennium BCE, the appearance of food and alcoholic beverages among funeral offerings persisted in the archaeological record. »
In Egyptian mythology, Osiris was associated with cereals and depicted with barley ears. Egyptians crafted statuettes containing barley grains to water and sprout them. The birth of barley symbolized the resurrection of Osiris, who was killed by his brother Seth. The earliest agrarian societies almost always associated the renewal of seasons with a divine image of death and resurrection. One of the most evident examples is the case of Dionysos, whose vine also represents a return to the living. Drinking a cup of wine metaphysically signifies becoming Dionysos and transcending human condition.
Another fundamental figure, the goddess Demeter, is closely linked to barley as the goddess of agriculture. When Demeter stops in the plain of Eleusis, disturbed by the loss of her daughter, mere mortals offer her a jug of wine, which she refuses: she requests a simple drink made from barley. Later, she asks the local king to build a temple in her honor, which will house the mysteries of Eleusis for two thousand years. This sacred rite, considered by Cicero as the greatest wonder of Greece, revolves around a secret sacrament involving drinking a barley-based beverage possibly contaminated with ergot, a potent hallucinogen.
The Egyptians also held barley in high regard. They shaped wheat loaves in addition to using it for around fifteen types of beer. The discovery of the Ebers Papyrus also confirmed a medicinal dimension: barley was used as a remedy for inflammation. Barley was even employed to determine the gender of an unborn child. Pregnant women would urinate on barley grains; if the grain sprouted the next day, the child’s gender would be female. (Recently, a group of researchers verified this idea in a laboratory with an 80% success rate.)
Our own explanation of the beginnings of cereal cultivation is consistent with the biocultural model of the evolution of cuisine. The key element of this explanation, the event that « primed the pump » and led people to choose to invest energy in the gathering and propagation of wild wheat and barley, was the discovery of new food processing techniques: the germination and fermentation of these cereals.
Bread and Beer: The Early Use of Cereals in the Human Diet
Why Beer?
Barley has another ace up its sleeve. Its germination is easily induced during malting, and its thick husk allows for good preservation and natural filtration during brewing. « It is malting done with barley that allows it to produce the necessary enzymes for transformation. At the end of the malting process, we obtain starch and the enzymes capable of transforming them, but the enzymes obtained are inactive. »
All the staple cereals of the planet (corn, rice, sorghum, millet, barley, and wheat) are compatible with beer brewing. Their domestication would have provided more grains for mass beer production. However, none surpasses barley in terms of nutritional value for a fermented beverage. In addition to being adaptable and resilient, it is more nutritious than most other grains available at the end of the Neolithic period. Composed of complex carbohydrates, barley consists of proteins and a small amount of fat. Added to this are zinc, selenium, iron, phosphorus, magnesium, and copper.
While the debate has been ongoing for some time, it is far from settled. One must take archaeological evidence with a grain of barley, as the causes of civilization are multiple and complex. But historians and brewers can agree on one thing: without barley to malt our beers, the history of beer would have had a lot less malt!
Pierre-Olivier Bussières is the Editor-in-Chief of Hoppy History and Uber Optimized. He is the Sales and Marketing Director at Uberflix Studio. He also writes about travel, geopolitics, and alcohol markets, and has published articles in The Diplomat, Reflets, The Main, Go Nomad, Global Risk Insights, and Diplomatie.
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