Mola salsa

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Mola salsa was a cereal cake used by ancient Rome's Vestal Virgins in sacrifices and was a common offering to the household hearth. These cereal cakes were a mixture of coarse-ground, cooked emmer flour and salt. The term is the origin for the modern English word immolation.^[1]

The College of Vestal Virgins would make mola salsa during Vestalia, the chief festival of Vesta which was celebrated June 7 until June 15.

It was used to consecrate animals before they were sacrificed to the gods.

The Vestal temple of Molas Salsae was by far the most widely known participant in the celebration after the temple was created in Gaul during the 6th century. However, with the temple's demise in the 1st century A.D., the practice largely died out.

[edit] References

1. ^ "immolation". Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2nd ed. 1989.