Threshing-board/Translation

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A threshing-board is an obsolete farm implement used to separate cereals from their straw; that is, to thresh. It is a thick board, made with a variety of slats, with a shape between rectangular and trapezoidal, with the frontal part somewhat narrower and curved upward (like a sled) and whose bottom is covered with stone shards (lithic flakes), or razor-like metal blades.

One form, once common in the Mediterranean Sea area, was "about three to four feet wide and six feet deep (these dimensions often vary, however), consisting of two or three wooden planks assembled to one another, of more than four inches wide, in which several hard and cutting flints crammed into the bottom part pull along over the grains. In the rear part there is a large ring nailed, that is used to tie the rope that pulls it and to which two horses are usually harnessed; and a person, sitting on the threshing-board, drives it in circles over the cereal that is spread on the threshing floor. Should the person need more weight, he need only put some big stones over it."^[1]

The dimensions of threshing boards varied. In Spain, they could be up to approximately two meters in length and a meter and a half wide. There were also smaller threshing-boards, as little about a meter-and-a-half long and a meter wide.^[2] The thickness of the slats of the threshing-board is some five or six centimeters. Nonetheless, since threshing-boards are nowadays custom made, made to order or made smaller as an adornment or souvenier, they may range from miniatures up to the sizes previously described.^[3]

The threshing-board has been traditionally pulled by mules or by oxen over the grains spread on the threshing floor. As it was moved in circles over the harvest that was spread, the stone chips or blades cut the straw and the ear of wheat (which remained between the threshing-board and the pebbles on the ground), thus separating the seed without actually damaging it. The threshed grain was then gathered and set to be cleaned by some means of wind winnowing.

Contents 1 Traditional threshing systems 1.1 Threshing with the threshing-board 2 History of the threshing-board 2.1 Origin of the threshing-board, Neolithic and Copper Age 2.2 The threshing-board in the Bible 2.3 The threshing-board in the classical sources 2.4 The threshing-board in the Middle Ages 3 Craftsmen from Cantalejo 3.1 Making the wooden frame 3.2 Working the stone flakes 3.3 Distribution 3.4 Gacería 4 Other threshing implements 5 Reference 6 Links

[edit] Traditional threshing systems

Main article: threshing

Until the arrival of combine harvesters, which reap, thresh and clean grain in a single process, the traditional methods of threshing cereals and some legumes were those described by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, with three variants: "The cereals are threshed in some places with the threshing-board on the threshing floor; in others they are trampled by a train of horses, and in others they are beaten with flails" ^[4]

In this manner, Pliny refers to the three traditional methods of threshing grain:

• Beating sheafs of grain against a crushing stone or a crushing lump of wood.
• Trampling grain spread on the threshing floor; the trampling would be done by a train of mules or oxen
• Threshing with flails, a type of traditional wooden tool with which one strikes the pile of grain until the seed is separated from the chaff.

[edit] Threshing with the threshing-board

The threshing-board is a historical form of threshing that can still be seen in some regions that practice a marginal agriculture. It is also somewhat preserved as an occasional folkloric and ceremonial practice, to commemorate traditional local customs.^[5]

For threshing with the threshing-board, first one brings the baled stalks to the threshing floor. Some are stacked, waiting their turn, and others are untied and placed in a circle forming a pile of grain that is heated by the sun. Then, the farmers drag the threshing board over the stalks, first going several times around in circles, and then in figure-eights, and stirring the grain with a wooden pitchfork. Sometimes, this work was done with another kind of threshing implement: a Plostellum punicum (Latin; literally "Carthaginian handcart") or threshing-cart, fitted with a group of rollers, each with metallic transverse razors. In this first stage, the straw is detached from the ear; much chaff and dirty dust remains, mixed with the edible grain. Every time that the work of dragging the threshing board is repeated, the grain is stirred again, moving more straw to the edge of the threshing floor. If too much grain is spread on the ground, it has to be raked and swept in order to make a round mound and, if possible, to remove as much straw as possible.

After turning the grain and straw upside down and leaving it to dry during a lunch break, the farmers carry out a second round of threshing in order to separate the last of the grain from the straw. Then, they use pitchforks, rakes and brooms to create a mound. A pair of oxen or mules pulls the threshing-board by means of a chain or a strap fixed to a hook nailed in the front plank; donkeys are not used, because unlike mules and oxen they often defecate on the crops. The driver rides on the threshing-board, both guiding the draft animals and increasing the weight of the threshing-board. If the driver's weight is not enough, large stones are put on the board. In recent times, the animals are sometimes replaced with a tractor; because the driver no longer sits on the board, the weight of stones becomes more important. Children enjoy riding on the threshing-board for fun, and the farmers allow it because their weight is useful, as long as the children are not too boisterous.^[6]. During this process, if the stalks are excessively squashed, two large metal arcs are affixed to the back of the threshing-board; these turn-up and give volume to the straws, behind the threshing.

After threshing is finished, to avoid the mixing the dirty remnants with the clean, new stalks, the threshing floor must be cleaned first with a rake to move the more heavier material, and then with several brooms (in the narrow sense: they are typically made from "broom shrub"—Cytisus scoparius—and are stronger than domestic brooms^[7]). Also the straw was accumulated carefully and stored, because it was a good fodder for livestock. The entire process of threshing generates a thin dust that soaks in through the respiratory system and sticks to the throat.

During the sweeping, the husks and the chaff are separated to one part of the threshing-floor, while the grain, still not entirely clean, was winnowed, either by traditional of wind winnowing with sieves, or by a mechanical wind winnowing machine.^[8]

Traditional threshing implements (including the threshing-board) were gradually abandoned and replaced by modern combine harvesters. This change, of course, occurred in some areas before others. For instance, in Spain, it happened in the 1950s and 1960s.^[9] Until that time, threshing-boards were made in certain particular towns and villages with specialized craftsmen. Whereas the work of wood is simple, even rough, the flintknapping and the inlaid of flakes into the bottom of board, needs some peculiar specialization that goes from fathers to sons. We know, in the case of Spain, that the making of threshing-boards take place in Astudillo (Palencia), Pedrajas de San Esteban (Valladolid), Villavieja de Yeltes (Salamanca), Blesa (Teruel), Ariza (Zaragoza), Santa María la Real de Nieva (Segovia), and other places. But the best-known Spanish town for this work was, doubtlessly, Cantalejo (Segovia), where the craftsmen who made threshing-boards were known as briqueros.

[edit] History of the threshing-board

[edit] Origin of the threshing-board, Neolithic and Copper Age

Patricia C. Anderson (of Centre d’Etudes Préhistoire, Antiquité et Moyen Age del CNRS), discovered archaeological remains that demonstrate the existence of threshing-boards at least 8,000 years old in the Near East and Balkans. The artefacts are lithic flakes and, above all obsidian or flint blades, recognizable through the type of microscopic wear that it has. Her work was completed by Jacques Chabot (of the Centre interuniversitaire d'études sur les lettres, les arts et les traditions, CELAT), who has studied Mitanni (northern Mesopotamia and Armenia). Both count among their specialties the study of microwear analysis, through which it is possible to take a particular piece of flint or obsidian (to take the most common examples) and determine the tasks for which it was used.^[10] Concretely, the reaping of cereals leaves a very characteristic glossy pattern of wear, owing to the presence of microscopic mineral particles (phytoliths) in the stalks of the plants. Therefore, scholars using controlled experimental replication studies and functional analysis with a scanning electron microscope are able to distinguish between stone artefacts used in a sickle and the others ones that were part of threshing-boards. The edge damage on the pieces used in threshing-boards is distinct because, besides the glossy abrasion characteristic of cutting cereals, they have micro-scars from chipping, as a result of the blows of the threshing-board against the rock surface of the threshing floor.^[11].

The most productive archaeological site is Aratashen, Armenia: a village occupied between 5000 and 3000 BC (Neolithic and Copper Age). The archaeological excavations have provided thousands of pieces from the knapping of obsidian (suggesting that Aratashen was a center of production and trade of artifacts of that highly-regarded stone); the rest of the archaeological record consists mainly of fragments of common pottery, ground stones, and other agricultural tools. Analyzing a sample of 200 lithic flakes and blades, selected from the best-preserved pieces, it is possible to differentiate between those used in sickles and those used in threshing-boards. The lithic blades of obsidian were knapped using highly-developed and standardized methods, such as the use of a "pectoral crutch with a copper point"^[12]. Beginning at the headwaters of the river Euphrates, where this site is located, the craftsmen and peddlers sold their wares throughout the Middle East.

The threshing-boards must have been important in the protohistory of Mesopotamia, since they already appear in the some of the oldest written documents discovered: specifically, several sandstone tablets from the early town of Kish (Iraq), engraved with cuneiform pictograms, which could be the world's oldest surviving written record, dating to the middle of the 4th millennium BC (Early Uruk period)^[13]. One of these tablets, preserved in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford University, appears to have pictures of threshing-boards on both faces, next to some numeric symbols and other pictograms. These presumed threshing-boards (which might instead be sleds^[14]) have a shape similar to threshing-carts that were used until recently in parts of the Middle East where non-industrial agriculture survived. Descriptions also appear in numerous cuneiform clay tablets as early as the third millennium BCE.

There are another representation, in this case without writing, in central Turkey. It is an impression of a cylinder seal from the archaeological site of Arslantepe-Malatya, which appeared near of the named «Temple B». The archaeological layers were dated to 3374 BCE using dendrochronology^[15]. The stamp shows a figure seated on a threshing-board, with a clear image of the lithic flakes inlaid in the bottom of the board. The main figure is sitting (possibly on a throne) under a dossal. In front is a driver or oxherd, and there are peasants with pitchforks nearby. According to M. A. Frangipane, that the seal may illustrate a religious scene:

«This seal [...] (is) interpreted as a ritual threshing scene, emphasising the ideological reference by the Arslantepe elites to images of power expressed in a Mesopotamian environment»[16]

It closely resembles another scene, painted on the walls of the same site (a ceremonial procession of a person of high rank, painted in an archaic lineal style in the colours red and black), although the current condition of the wall obscures the exact nature of the vehicle in which he is seated, it is indeed possible to see that it is pulled by a pair of oxen. Professor Sherratt interprets both scenes as presenting manifestations of civil or religious power.^[17] In that era, the threshing-board was a sophisticated and expensive implement, built by specialized artisans, using pieces of flint or obsidian; in the case of Lower Mesopotamia, these were imported from far away: in the alluvial plateau of Sumer, as in all south of Mesopotamia, it was impossible to find stone, not even a pebble.^[18]

Furthermore, threshing required a threshing floor, receiving much sunlight, situated in a rise in the ground with a constant dry wind, and with a flat base that would not allow puddles to form when it rained, composed of natural rock, cobbles or, at least, very hard and compressed ground. So, a threshing floor was not available to just anybody. It was expensive, as we can see from the biblical citations in the following section. Also, it required draft animals, expensive and difficult to drive (because this was not a matter of having them walk in a straight line). All this meant that a threshing implement required a large amount of harvested grain to pay off the expenditure. Thus, the rise of the threshing-board turns on a distinctive, sophisticated system of powerful elites.

The discovery of a ceremonial sled (perhaps a threshing-board) with gold ornaments in the Tomb of Pu-Abi, one of the "royal tombs" of Ur, dated from the 3rd millennium BC,^[19], makes clear the underlying problem of distinguishing in the ancient representations between a true threshing-board and a sled (that is, an unwheeled vehicle for hauling freight). Although we know that the threshing-board appears no later than the 4th millennium BC (as we can see in Atarashen and Arslantepe-Malatya), and we also know that the wheel was invented in Mesopotamia in the middle of that same millennium, still, the utilization and spread of the wheel was not instantaneous. The sleds survived at least until the invention of the articulated axle, nearly 2000 BC. During this time, some vehicles were hybrids: sleds with wheels that could be dismantled to overcome obstacles by carrying it on shoulders or, simply, dragging it.^[18] Consequently—except in the case of Arslantepe, where the lithic flakes are clear visible—we cannot determine whether these representations are threshing-boards or sleds for freight or for rites.

James Frazer compiled numerous ceremonies of harvest and thresh, that centered on a Cereal Spirit. From the Ancient Egyptian era to pre-industrial period, this sprit seems to have reside d in the first threshed sheaf or, sometimes, in the last one.^[20].

[edit] The threshing-board in the Bible

The Latin noun for threshing-board is tribulum, derived from the verb tribulare that, literally, means to break something, to crush it. It has, then, the same root etymology as tribulation (which is a torment or an adversity which persecutes someone). In the Old Testament, the name of this artifact is mogag (מורג). Biblical symbology about the threshing-board is closely related to the threshing-board as a power symbol in the Middle East, as already discussed.

The first biblical mention of threshing (though it is unclear whether a threshing-board is involved) can be taken on a purely literal level as an admonition not to muzzle an ox while it treads out grain; it is one of the many laws in the book of Deuteronomy, the last book of the Christian Pentateuch and the Jewish Torah. The reference is in Deuteronomy 25:4.

Proverbs 20:26 mentions a "threshing wheel," suggesting that the threshing cart (or "Punic cart") was used in some areas.

The next mention is more narrative; it is a set of biblical references on the construction of Solomon's Temple, with special attention to the selection of the site, done by indication of the prophet Gad, spokesman of Yahweh before King David. The focus is finding an appropriate site to construct a mangificent sanctuary (2Chronicles 3:1). The selected place was the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite, a rich villager, but a gentile (not a Hebrew). Araunah was awed by the visit of the king (who went with an angel) and offered also his ox and his threshing-boards to sacrifice. It is indicative that the threshing board is a good so valued and worthy as to be offered to God in sacrifices. Even so, David rejected any gift to come from a pagan, and paid a considerable sum in order to make sure the site was exclusively property for the God of the Jews and no other. (The different references are contradictory about the price; it is 50 shekels of silver according to 2Samuel 24:18-24, and 600 shekels of gold according to 1Chronicles 21:18-30).

In any case, the high inherent value of the site is obvious: the threshing floor of Araunah was on top of a hill named Mount Moriah, in a significant location. Generally, all threshing floors were located in a high place and commonly included little altars with idols in honour of fertility gods such as Baal or Astarte). The symbology of locating a temple there is explicit, because only He (God) can be the bread and the life (Jehovah jireh). Since then, the Temple Mount overlooks Jerusalem physically and in Jewish symbology; even today, its esplanade has a privileged position over the city.

The last Biblical mention of threshing-boards is in the Book of Isaiah. A significant part of the book of Isaiah is a denunciation of the Israelites' disobedience, frivolity, and impiety. Isaiah converts threshing-boards into instruments of purification through punishment and destruction. (Isaiah 41:15). Apparently, threshing sledges and threshing carts were sometimes used to torture and kill prisoners of war. The Assyrians did so, as did King David after the conquest of Rabbah (2Samuel 12:29; although some interpretations of the Bible soften the horrible torment he imposed^[21]). Thence, the painful connotation of tribulum, and why the word tribulation means suffering.

[edit] The threshing-board in the classical sources

It would appear that the meagre development of cereal agriculture in Classical-era Greece, resulted in their not using the threshing-board (despite its being known for thousands of years only a little further north). Because they preferred to import cereals and dedicate their land to more specialized production, they never adopted techniques of advanced cereal agriculture. According to V.V. Struve, who cites, in part, verses of The Iliad, the Greeks threshed cereals by trampling them with oxen:^[22]

As a fire raging in some mountain glen after long drought- and the dense forest is in a blaze, while the wind carries great tongues of fire in every direction- even so furiously did Achilles rage, wielding his spear as though he were a god, and giving chase to those whom he would slay, till the dark earth ran with blood. Or as one who yokes broad-browed oxen that they may tread barley in a threshing-floor - and it is soon bruised small under the feet of the lowing cattle - even so did the horses of Achilles trample on the shields and bodies of the slain. (Chapter XX of The Illiad)

Carthage, which colonized the southeastern Iberian Peninsula in the 2nd century BCE, had advanced agricultural technology, greatly superior to the Roman techniques of the time. Their methods astonished travellers such as Agathocles and Regulus, and were an inspiration for the writings of Varro and Pliny. One well-known Carthaginian agronomist, Mago, wrote a treatise that was translated into Latin by order of the Roman Senate. The ancient Romans describe Tunisia, today mainly desert, as a fertile landscape of olive groves and wheat fields. In Hispania, the Carthaginians are known to have introduced several new crops (mainly fruit trees) and some machines like the threshing-board, either the version with stone-chips (tribulum in Latin) or the version with rollers (threshing cart, named in their honour plostellum punicum by the Romans).^[23]

In Rome, the threshing-board had only economic significance, without the religious symbolism it took on in ancient Israel. The treatises of agriculture written by Roman experts as Cato, Varro, Columella and Pliny the Elder (quoted above), touch the topic of threshing. In chronological order:

• Cato: In the time of Cato the Elder—that is, the 2nd century BC—Rome was intensely connected with Greece and Carthage, and, through them, with the entire cultural heritage of the ancient Near East, whose higher degree of development threatened Roman traditionalism. Cato's book De Agricultura ^[24] was against exotic innovations such as the threshing-board in its different variants, defending instead a traditional economic system based on slavery. These ideas would have, long-term, ill effects for Roman agriculture, leaving it depleted and unable to compete against its owns colonies, which were much more modernized and had cheaper slaves and workers; by extension, Cato's ideas drove, indirectly, to the disintegration of republican society and even the imperial economy. Cato preferred threshing by trampling by mules or oxen. He doesn't expressly mention the threshing-board, in spite of the fact it was already spreading through the empire. It is, then, "almost impossible to define, on the basis of Cato's report, when this or that implement or refinement came into use"^[25].

• Varro: Unlike Cato, Marcus Terentius Varro was not a man of action but a scholar, a πολιγραφοτάτω, in the 1st century BC. Varro, whose studies were wider than Cato's, tried to combine the cosmopolitan Greek outlook with Rome's provincial traditions. In his book of agricultural advice Rerum Rusticarum de Agri Cultura^[26] Varro only twice reflects the reality of his times by mentioning threshing-boards. He advises, "None of the implements that can be produced in the plantation (farm) itself should be bought, as with almost all everything which is made from unfinished wood such as hampers, baskets, threshing-boards, stakes, rakes…";^[27] the inclination to self-sufficiency that he demonstrates here would later be harmful to Rome. Varro nonetheless shows himself more open to innovation that Cato: "To achieve an abundant and high-quality harvest, the stalks should be taken to the threshing floor without piling them up, so the grain is in the best condition, and the grain (should be) separated from the stalks on the threshing floor, a process which is done, among other ways, with a pair of mules and a threshing-board. This is made with a wooden board (with its underside) equipped with stone-chips or saws of iron, which, with a plow in front or a large counterweight, is pulled by a pair of mules yoked together and thus separates the grain from the stalks…"^[28]. That is, he explains in a very didactic way how the threshing-boards works and the advantages of this innovative device. Next, he talks about the variant called plostellum poenicum (=punicum=Punic=Carthaginian), a threshing implement with rollers and metallic saws whose origin is, as we have already seen, Carthaginian, and which was used in Hispania (which had, in the past, been controlled by Carthage): "Another way to make it is by means of a cart with teethed rollers and bearings; this cart is named plostellum punicum, in which one can sit and move the device that is pulled by mules, as it is done in Hispania Citerior and other places."^[29]

• Columella (Lucius Junius Moderatus, beginning of Common Era - 60s): a native of Hispania Baetica; after finishing its military career, Columella worked managing large estates. This writer from Hispania brings a new note to this topic, writing, in this case, about threshing floors: "The threshing floor, if it is possible, must be placed in such way that it can be overseen by the master or by the foreman; the best is one that is cobbled, because not only allows that the cereal be quickly threshed, since the ground don't give way to the blows of hoofs and threshing-boards, but also, these cereals, before being winnowed, are cleaner and lack the pebbles and little clods that always remaine in a threshing floor of pressed earth."^[30]

• Pliny: Pliny the Elder (23 - 79) only compiles what his predecessors had written, which we have already quoted.^[31]

[edit] The threshing-board in the Middle Ages

We will speak of the Middle Ages in a broad sense, without entering into great detail and focusing, essentially, on Western Europe becuase it is difficult to find any trustworty documents about threshing-boards in that era. ^{Untranslated section starts}La recesión que supusieron las invasiones bárbaras afectó igualmente a la agricultura, perdiéndose muchas de las técnicas más avanzadas, entre ellas el trillo, que era completamente ajeno a la tradición germánica. Las zonas del Mediterráneo oriental, en cambio, lo conservaron, pasando a la cultura musulmana donde arraigó profundamente. Tanto el reino visigodo como la zona cristiana durante la reconquista casi desconocían el trillo (aunque éste nunca llegó a desaparecer^[32]). La degradación no sólo alcanza a la economía, sino también a las propias fuentes que tenemos para estudiarla, con o que nos enfrentamos a un vacío documental difícil de soslayar.

With respect to the Iberian Peninsula, it is certain that in the Islamic zone, the threshing board continued to be very popular, which led to the Christians recuperating the tradition as they advanced in the Reconquista. This act coincides with a generalized recovery in all of Europe. La bonanza económica se incia a principios del siglo XI; los expertos suelen hablar del aumento en la extensión de tierras roturadas, de la generalización de los animales de tiro (primero bueyes, gracias al yugo frontal, y luego caballos, gracias a la collera de espaldilla), del aumento de herramientas de hierro y las mejoras de las herrerías, de la aparición del arado de vertedera, a menudo con ruedas y del aumento de molinos de agua, aceñas. El ganado se convirtió en un signo de progreso: la aparición de un campesinado menos dependiente y más próspero, able to buy draft animals, incluso arados. Los campesinos en posesión su propio arado con uno o dos animales eran una pequeña élite, mimada por el señor feudal, que adquirió su propio estatus, el de labradores, muy por encima de los demás, los braceros (cuya única herramienta eran sus propios brazos)^[33]. The existence of draft animals does not imply the diffusion of the threshing-board in Western Europe, donde el mayal siguió siendo el instrumento preferido^[34]. En cambio, en España, el peso de la tradición oriental pudo marcar la diferencia: El profesor Julio Caro Baroja admite que, para España, él trillo aparece citado o representdo en obras de arte. Concretamente, menciona algunos relieves románicos en Beleña (Salamanca) y Campisábalos (Guadalajara), ambas del siglo XII^[35]. Se puede añadir un documento escrito en 1265, por el que una Doña Mayor (viuda de un tal don Arnal, cobrador de diezmos del portazgo de ganado lanar y, por tanto, persona de buena posición), deja al Cabildo salmantino su heredad de Valcuevo, finca perteneciente al municipio de Valverdón (Salamanca): Template:Cita

With these documents, apenas atestiguamos la presencia de los trillos, que, sin duda, fue continua desde entonces hasta hace muy pocos años en la cuenca mediterránea. Lo demás es mera especulación muy general, dado que la historiografía tradicional se centra en aspectos más propios de la Europa atlántica. En todo caso ninguno de los autores consultados atribuyen al trillo un papel relevante en el progreso de la agricultura medieval. Cabe, pues, unirse a la desmoralización del historiador fracés Georges Duby, al quejarse de lo siguiente: Template:Cita

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Nowadays, numerous elements of traditional agriculture are being lost, and because of this various entities have been working to conserve or recover this cultural capital. Among these is an international interdisciplinary project called E.A.R.T.H., Early Agricultural Remnants and Technical Heritage. Participating countries include Bulgaria, Canada, France , Russia, Scotland, Spain, and the United States, in alphabetical order. Investigations center on broad archeological, documentary and ethnological aspects, related to diverse elements of traditional agriculture, threshing-boards among them, in diverse countries, historical periods and societies.^[36]

Chronology of evidences referred in the article

[edit] Craftsmen from Cantalejo

Cantalejo se ubica en el interfluvio del Duraton river y del Cega river. El Cantalejo actual, aunque haya restos arqueológicos mucho más antiguos, surgiría en el siglo XI, formando parte de la Camunidad de Villa y Tierra de Sepúlveda. Fue, al parecer, una población próspera, pero en ql siglo XVII perdió su libertad, y pasó a ser un señorío jurisdiccional. No hay ninguna investigación sólida que permita establecer cuándo se introdujo, en la localidad segoviana de Cantalejo, la especialidad artesanal de la fabricación de trillos. Pero todos los que han tocado el tema alguna vez señalan que ésta debió producirse durante el siglo XVI o XVII^[37].

La producción de trillos parece coincidir con la llegada de artesanos foráneos, aunque eso es una especulación basada en que su forma de hablar contenía numerosos extranjerismos, sobre todo franceses. Los trilleros y artesanos de aperos eran llamados «Briqueros», palabra de origen francés que hace referencia a la elaboración de tinderboxes anf matchlocks for guns, that in France was called briquets, literally in archaic french: «Petite pièce d’acier dont on se sert pour tirer du feu d’un caillou.» (today, synonym of briquette or flammable matter, but also refers to a lighter) for the early firearms (Flintlocks, arquebuses, muskets...). Es, pues, plausible, que la introducción de armas de fuego en la península por parte de armeros extranjeros hiciera instalarse una importante colonia en Cantalejo; aunque es difícil precisar su origen^[38]

El caso es que, con el tiempo, Cantalejo se decantó por una artesanía más pacífica y productiva como la fabricación de diversos aperos, entre ellos los trillos. En los años 50 Cantalejo llegó a tener 400 talleres y fabricaba más de 30 000 trillos al año; esto suponía que más de la mitad de la población se dedicaba a este oficio. Éstos eran, después, repartidos por toda la Meseta española.

Nos centraremos en los trillos hechos sólo con lascas de sílex, aunque nombremos por encima los que llevaban sierras metálicas u otros modelos más minoritarios^[39].

[edit] Making the wooden frame

At the end of summer, or in the autumn, work began with the selection of black pines, which they cut and carefully smoothed with a device called a tronzador until the trunks were formed into cylinders nearly two meters in length; these log sections were called tozas. También se preparaban unos tablones alargados y rectos to serve as cabezales (travesaños). They carried the toza to the sawmill, where they cut slats as wide as the toza permitted (although no less than 20 centimeters), of some de five centimeters de espesor y con forma curva (igual que una tabla de esquí) en el extremo destinado a ser la delantera. Los listones se secaban al sol durante varios meses, volteándolos cada poco tiempo. El pueblo tomaba entonces un aspecto peculiar, pues numerosas fachadas se llenaban de listones soleándose. Después se apilaban en castillos, crossing some slats with others in order to make the pile more stable.

La toza del pino, de la que se sacan los listones

Los listones alineados, before forming the threshing-board

Escopleando el listón

Una vez en condiciones, comenzaba el escopleo del listón, es decir, con un martillo y un escoplo se preparaban las ranuras (ujeros) para las chinas o lascas de sílex. El escopleo hace al tresbolillo (visto de frente están en fila, visto de lado están al bies), guiado por unas marcas hechas a lápiz, para que el artesano no se equivocara. Es primordial comprobar que el listón no se hubiese alabeado desde que se cortó, pues, entonces, sería inservible. El siguiente paso tiene lugar en las prensas o cárceles. Hay que casar perfectamente los tres, cuatro o cinco listones, encolándolos y prensándolos, por medio de pequeñas piezas de refuerzo, llamadas tasillos (cilindros de madera encolados y clavados con maza en el canto de las piezas), y cuñas. Cuando los listones están bien sujetos y alineados se colocan los cabezales, o travesaños, que, además, se clavan con grandes clavos known in Spain as puntas de París (although, at least in the 19th and 20th centuries, they came from Bilbao).

Los listones encolados, como estarían en las cárceles

Colocación de cabezales con grandes clavos de hierro

Colocación de las tablillas tapajuntas en las junturas

Estructura de madera terminada, a falta de su empedrado

Una vez tienes la estructura básica del trillo, es necesario eliminar la irregularidades. Primero se hacían por medio del labrado: que se hace con una azuela, longitudinalmente, es decir, a hilo. Segundo el cepillado, que es un acabado más fino, tanto por la parte superior como por la inferior. el cepillado se hace primero transversalmente (a través) y luego longitudinalmente (a hilo), con varios tipos de plane.

La última fase del trabajo consiste en tapar la uniones de los listones en la cara superior, lo que se hace por medio de elementos de chapa en la parte frontal, tachonados con una tabla denominada delantera, y de finas y alargadas tablillas de madera (tapajuntas). En el cabezal delantero se hincaba un fuerte gancho, donde se colocaba el barzón o anillo de hierro con una correa o con un palo largo que permitía amarrar las caballerías o los bueyes.

[edit] Working the stone flakes

To create the lithic flakes used to cover threshing-boards, the briqueros in Cantalejo use a manufacturing technique similar to prehistoric methods of making tools, except that they use metal hammers rather than percussors made of stone, wood, or antler.^[11].

The raw materials preferred by these artisans was a whitish flint imported from the province of Guadalajara. When they had to repair threshing-boards at home, if they did not have any other raw materials, they would use rounded river pebbles, made of homogeneous, high-grade quartzite, which they selected during their travels. The flint from Guadalajara was extracted from quarries in large blocks, which were split by hand with hammers of various sizes until the stone reached a size small enough to be comfortably held in the hand.

Knapping: Once manageable chunks of flint were obtained, knapping to obtain lithic flakes was performed using a very light hammer (called a piqueta) with a narrow handle and a pointed head. Knapping was considered "men's work." To work quartzite pebbles, they used a hammer with a head that was rounded and slightly wider. During the process of removing stone flakes, they sometimes resorted to a mormal hammer to crack the stone and acheive perussion plains inaccessible with the piqueta alone.

The briquero held the stone core in the left hand, protected with a piece of leather and with the palm upward, and struck rapid blows using a pick held in the right hand. The stone flakes would fall into the palm of the right hand, on top of the leather protector, which allowed the worker to evaluate them during fractions of a second: if they were acceptable, the briquero allowed them to fall into a tin; if not, he threw them into a reject pile.^[40] This pile was also where the briquero threw used-up stone cores -- that is, stone blocks incapable of producing more chips; pieces of stone broken by accident; cortical flint flakes, useless fragments, and debris.

The working of pebbles was similar to the working of flint, except that with pebbles only the outside layer was chipped off. Thus, the pebbles were essentially "peeled" and discarded (unlike flint stones, whose interiors were worked until they were used up); using only the cortical flakes.

Further information: Lithic flake and Flintknapper

Covering the board with stone flakes was mainly the work of women called enchifleras. The task is monotonous and repetitive. Up to three thousand lithic flakes may be pounded into a large threshing-board. In addition, it is necessary to sort the flakes: small ones in the front, medium-sized in the middle, and the largest on the sides and in the back. It is necessary to pound in each flake without damaging its sharp edge, although it was impossible to avoid leaving at least some small mark (a "spontaneous retouch" in technical terms). The tool used was a light hammer with a cylindrical head and flat or concave ends. La parte introducida en las ranuras es la más gruesa de la lasca (técnicamente la zona de percusión, es decir la zona proximal: talón-concoide).

[edit] Distribution

Threshing-boards from Cantalejo captured nearly all the sales in Castile and León, Madrid, Castile-La Mancha, Aragon and Valencia. They sometimes also reached Andalusia y Cantabria^[39]. At first, artinsans from Cantalejo travelled with large carts loaded with trillos cribas, bieldos, medidas de cereal (celemines, cuartillas, fanegas...) and other implements for threshing or winnowing, which they peddled from town to town. They also carried flint chips, and tools and supplies for repairing damaged threshing-boards and farming iplements. In later times, they traveled by train to pre-arranged stations, and then in small trucks. They typically brought their entire families along; combined with their strange manner of speaking and unusual occupation, this gave the briqueros an air of mystery. They began selling threshing-boards as soon as the threshing-boards were complete, beginning in April and lasting until August. The briqueros would then return to their home town (the vilorio) to celebrate the festivals of the Assumption of Mary (August 15) and Saint Roch (August 16) with their families.

[edit] Gacería

Main article: Gacería

Gacería is a slang or argot used by makers and vendors of threshing-boards in Cantalejo and some other parts of Spain. It is not a technical vocabulary, but rather a code made up of a small group of words that allows the speakers to communicate freely in the presence of strangers without others understanding the content of the conversation.

Gacería was purely verbal, colloquial, and associated with the selling of threshing-boards; as a result, it largely disappeared with the mechanization of agriculture. Nevertheless, a number of studies have attempted to record its varied aspects. There are many doubts regarding the origin of the words that make up the vocabulary of Gacería, including the word Gacería itself, which may derive from the Basque word gazo, which means "ugly" or "good-for-nothing."^[41]. The most commonly-accepted opinion is that most of the words derive from French, with additions from other languages including latin, Basque, Arabic, German, and even Caló.^[39]. What is certain is that the makers and vendors of threshing-boards took words from any area they visited regularly, creating a linguistic mishmash.

[edit] Other threshing implements

In general, the term "threshing-board" is used to refer to all the different variants of this primitive implement. Technically, we should distinguish at least the two main types of threshing-boards: the "threshing sledge," which is the subject of this article, and the "threshing cart."

The "threshing sledge" is the most common type. As its name indicates, it is dragged over the ripe grain, and it threshes using cutting pieces made of stone or metal. This is what is referred to in Hebrew as mogag (מורג) and in Arabic as mowrej. Strictly speaking, the threshing-boards of the Middle East have characteristics that render them easily distingishable from those found in Europe. On the Iberian peninsula, cutting blades found on the bottom part of the threshing-board are arranged on end and in rows roughly parallel to the direction of threshing. In contrast, the mogag and mowrej found to the Middle East have circular holes (made with a a special short, wide drill) into which are pressed small round, semicircular stones with sharp ridges. (See a detail photo of a Middle-Eastern threshing-board).

As mentioned previously, not all threshing-boards are equipped with stones: some have metal knife blades embedded along the full length of the threshing board, and others have smaller blades encrusted here and there. Threshing sledges with metal knives usually have have a few small wheels (four to six, depending on the size) with eccentric axes. These wheels protect the blades. They also make the threshing board wobble, causing parts of the board to rise and fall at random in an oscillating motion that improves the effectiveness of the threshing.

Threshing sledge Palestine, 1937[42]

Threshing cart (plostellum punicum) in Heliopolis, Egypt in 1884[43]

A second model, which the classic sources refer to as plostellum punicum (literally, the "Carthaginian handcart"), ought to be called "threshing cart". Although the Carthaginians, heirs of the Phoenicians, brought this model to the Western Mediterranean, this implement was known at least since the second millennium BCE, appearing in the Babylonian texts with a name that we can transliterate as gīš-bad. Both variants continued to be used well into the 20th century in Europe, and continue to be used in the regions where agriculture has not been mechanized and industrialized. Museums and collectors in Spain retain some threshing carts, which were once highly prized in areas such as the province of Zamora, where they were used to thresh garbanzos.

[edit] Reference

• This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the Spanish-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of {{{2}}}. It was translated by the Spanish Translation of the Week collaboration.

[edit] Links

• Early Agricultural Remnants and Technical Heritage (EARTH)
• Reconstruction of a Mesopotamian threshing sledge
• Reconstruction of an prehistoric threshing sledge in a draw
• Threshing sledges from the Bronze Age and today
• Rural World's day 2000 in Miranda de Arga (Navarra, Spain)
• (Spanish) The grandfadher's Thresing-board
• (Spanish) The trilleros