Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig Page 23

  34Perhaps most importantly, they live in groups: Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998), 157–175; E. O. Price, “Behavioral Aspects of Animal Domestication,” Quarterly Review of Biology 59 (1984): 1–32; Nerissa Russell, “The Wild Side of Animal Domestication,” Society and Animals 10 (2002): 285–302.

  34After that time, very few male goats lived: M. A. Zeder, “A Critical Assessment of Markers of Initial Domestication in Goats,” in Documenting Domestication, ed. M. A. Zeder (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 202–205.

  34It’s also likely that pigs were domesticated: U. Albarella et al., “The Domestication of the Pig,” in Zeder, Documenting Domestication, 209–227.

  36Dogs were the first domestic animals: Robert K. Wayne and Elaine A. Ostrander, “Lessons Learned from the Dog Genome,” Trends in Genetics 23 (2007): 557–567; Z.-L. Ding et al., “Origins of Domestic Dog in Southern East Asia Is Supported by Analysis of Y-Chromosome DNA,” Heredity 108 (2011): 507–514.

  36Modern experiments show that wolves hand-raised: Raymond Coppinger and Lorna Coppinger, Dogs (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 39–50.

  37A genetic mutation that allowed wolves: E. Axelsson et al., “The Genomic Signature of Dog Domestication Reveals Adaptation to a Starch-Rich Diet,” Nature 495 (2013): 360–364.

  37Some of the waste would have been cooked: Richard Wrangham, Catching Fire (New York: Basic Books, 2009), 55–81.

  37The wild animals began to separate: Carlos Driscoll et al., “From Wild Animals to Domestic Pets,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106 (2009): 9971–9978.

  38The boars and wolves most adept: Coppinger and Coppinger, Dogs, 50–67; Albarella et al., “Domestication of the Pig.”

  38And over that span, the pig bones change: Anton Ervynck et al., “Born Free? New Evidence for the Status of Sus scrofa at Neolithic Cayonu Tepesi,” Paléorient 27 (2001): 47–73; Hitomi Hongo and Richard H. Meadow, “Pig Exploitation at Neolithic Cayonu Tepesi,” in Nelson, Ancestors for the Pigs, 77–98; J. Conolly et al., “Meta-Analysis of Zooarchaeological Data from SW Asia and SE Europe Provides Insight into the Origins and Spread of Animal Husbandry,” Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (2011): 538–545.

  Chapter 3

  43Whatever the technical method, building the pyramids: Barry Kemp, Ancient Egypt (New York: Routledge, 1989).

  44This proved that Giza was a provisioned site: Richard Redding, “Status and Diet at the Workers’ Town, Giza, Egypt,” in Anthropological Approaches to Zooarchaeology, ed. D. Campana et al. (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2010); Mark Lehner, “Villages and the Old Kingdom,” in Egyptian Archaeology, ed. Willeke Wendrich (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 85–101.

  44Villagers at Kom el-Hisn raised cattle: Richard Redding, “Egyptian Old Kingdom Patterns of Animal Use and the Value of Faunal Data in Modeling Socioeconomic Systems,” Paléorient 18 (1992): 99–107; Richard Redding, “The Role of the Pig in the Subsistence System of Ancient Egypt,” in Ancestors for the Pigs, ed. Sarah Nelson (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 20–30.

  46“A human being is primarily a bag”: George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1958), 91.

  46The records make no mention of pigs: M. A. Zeder, “Of Kings and Shepherds,” in Chiefdoms and Early States in the Near East, ed. Gil Stein and Mitchell S. Rothman (Madison, WI: Prehistory Press, 1994), 175–191.

  46In other words, if it was biologically possible: Caroline Grigson, “Culture, Ecology, and Pigs from the 5th to the 3rd Millennium bc Around the Fertile Crescent,” in Pigs and Humans, ed. Umberto Albarella (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

  47That’s when the villagers turned to pigs: Brian Hesse, “Pig Lovers and Pig Haters,” Journal of Ethnobiology 10 (1990): 195–225; Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish, “Can Pig Remains Be Used for Ethnic Diagnosis in the Ancient Near East?,” in Archaeology of Israel, ed. N. A. Silberman and D. Small (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), 238–270; M. A. Zeder, Feeding Cities (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991).

  47As pigs lost habitat: Marvin Harris, The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 75–77.

  47A thousand years later, few people: Hesse, “Pig Lovers,” 218.

  48Archaeologists tend to find pig bones: M. A. Zeder, “Pigs and Emergence Complexity in the Ancient Near East,” Masca Research Papers in Science and Archaeology 15 (1998): 118; Joanna Piatkowska-Małecka and Anna Smogorzewska, “Animal Economy at Tell Arbid, Northeast Syria, in the Third Millennium bc,” Bioarchaeology of the Near East 4 (2010): 25–43; K. Mudar, “Early Dynastic III Animal Utilization in Lagash,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 41 (1982): 23–34; H. M. Hecker, “A Zooarchaeological Inquiry into Pork Consumption in Egypt from Prehistoric to New Kingdom Times,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 19 (1982): 59–71.

  48Although absent from the residences of official workers: Redding, “Status and Diet.”

  48The Greek historian Herodotus, in the fifth century bc: Herodotus, The History, trans. David Grene (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 151.

  49Residents threw garbage into the streets: Elizabeth Stone, “The Spatial Organization of Mesopotamian Cities,” Aula Orientalis 9 (1991): 235–242.

  49“You shall have a stick”: Deuteronomy 23:12–14, Revised Standard Version (hereafter “RSV”).

  49A few elite homes and temples had pit latrines: Marc Van de Mieroop, The Ancient Mesopotamian City (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 159–160.

  49In many villages around the world today: D. W. Gade, “The Iberian Pig in the Central Andes,” Journal of Cultural Geography 7 (1987): 35–49.

  49Some English pigs in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Robert Malcolmson, The English Pig (London: Hambledon, 2001), 5–7.

  49The structure was originally identified as a grain silo: F. Bray, “Agriculture,” in Science and Civilization in China, ed. J. Needham (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 6:291–292.

  50The practice was widespread: E. Anderson, The Food of China (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988), 125.

  50In the 1960s more than 90 percent of farmers: D. J. Nemeth, “Privy-Pigs in Prehistory?,” in Nelson, Ancestors for the Pigs, 16.

  50Since these eggs are produced: Robert L. Miller, “Hogs and Hygiene,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 76 (1990): 130.

  50In Aristophanes’ play Peace: Aristophanes, Peace, in Eleven Comedies (New York: Tudor, 1934), 154.

  51Eating human flesh and eating excrement: William Miller, The Anatomy of Disgust (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 15, 62.

  51“The pig is impure”: JoAnn Scurlock, “Animal Sacrifice in Ancient Mesopotamian Religion,” in A History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, ed. Billie Jean Collins (Boston: Brill, 2002), 393.

  51“May dogs and swine eat your flesh”: Walter Houston, Purity and Monotheism (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993), 190.

  51The people of the Near East practiced: Edwin Firmage, “Zoology,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. D. N. Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:1109–1167.

  51In Mesopotamia and Egypt, pigs never: J. N. Postgate, Early Mesopotamia (London: Routledge, 1992), 166; Douglas Brewer, “Hunting, Animal Husbandry and Diet in Ancient Egypt,” in Collins, History of the Animal World in the Ancient Near East, 440–443.

  51Pork does not appear on the list: William J. Darby, Food, the Gift of Osiris (New York: Academic Press, 1977), 175.

  51“The pig is not fit for a temple”: Scurlock, “Animal Sacrifice,” 393.

  51If anyone served the gods: Billie Jean Collins, “Pigs at the Gate,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions 6 (2006): 156–157.

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  53“I will in
deed bless you”: Genesis 22:17, RSV.

  54Among the forbidden beasts were pigs: Leviticus 11:8, KJV.

  54These settlers were the Israelites: Daniel Snell, Religions of the Ancient Near East (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 104.

  54Israelite priests, in banning pork: Walter Houston, Purity and Monotheism (Sheffield, UK: JSOT Press, 1993), 171; Brian Hesse and Paula Wapnish, “Can Pig Remains Be Used for Ethnic Diagnosis in the Ancient Near East?,” in Archaeology of Israel, ed. N. A. Silberman and D. Small (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997).

  55Douglas’s argument, though, suffers from circularity: Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 54–55; Mary Douglas, “Deciphering a Meal,” Daedalus 101 (1972): 71; R. Bulmer, “Why Is the Cassowary Not a Bird?,” Man 2 (1967): 21.

  55The pork prohibition therefore simply codified: Marvin Harris, The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), 82–86.

  56This was the case with nomadic Mongols: Frederick Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 82.

  56When they did, the sacrifices: Houston, Purity and Monotheism, 72, 149, 253.

  56Though promising, this theory rests: P. Diener et al., “Ecology, Evolution, and the Search for Cultural Origins,” Current 19 (1978): 493–540.

  57Just about any kind of meat: Harris, Sacred Cow, 69–71.

  57“God forbid that I should believe”: Simoons, Eat Not This Flesh, 71.

  58The key rule was this: Leviticus 11:3, KJV.

  58The same rule disqualified pigs: Leviticus 11:3, 7–8, KJV.

  58Diet played an important role in scripture: Genesis 1:29–30, KJV.

  58God told Noah that he could eat: Genesis 9:2–3, RSV.

  58“You shall not eat flesh with its life”: Genesis 9:4, RSV.

  58which was thought to contain the “life force”: Jonathan Brumberg-Kraus, “Meat-Eating and Jewish Identity,” AJS Review 24 (1999): 241–242.

  58“Eat not the blood”: Deuteronomy 12:23, KJV.

  59Deuteronomy forbids eating carrion: Deuteronomy 14:21, RSV.

  59In the Christian Bible Jesus advises: Matthew 7:6, KJV.

  59“As a dog returneth to his vomit”: Proverbs 26:11, KJV.

  59According to the book of Kings, “Thus says the Lord”: 1 Kings 21:19, 22:37–38, KJV.

  59But in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Jewish Bible: Houston, Purity and Monotheism, 190–191.

  60Uncleanliness, in the Bible, is a contagion: Houston, Purity and Monotheism, 145–146; Mary Douglas, “The Forbidden Animals in Leviticus,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 8 (1993): 3–23; Calum Carmichael, “On Separating Life and Death: An Explanation of Some Biblical Laws,” Harvard Theological Review 69 (1976): 1–7.

  60Then, starting in about 300 bc: Brian Hesse, “Pig Lovers and Pig Haters,” Journal of Ethnobiology 10 (1990); Hesse and Wapnish, “Can Pig Remains”; Jordan Rosenblum, “‘Why Do You Refuse to Eat Pork?’ Jews, Food, and Identity in Roman Palestine,” Jewish Quarterly Review 100 (2009): 96–97.

  60Many Jews acquiesced: 1 Maccabees 1: 41–43, RSV.

  60Worst of all, Antiochus ordered the Jews: 1 Maccabees 1: 46–48, RSV.

  61His purpose, he explains, is to leave: 2 Maccabees 6:18–31, RSV.

  61After he is dead, they kill another: 2 Maccabees 7:1–41, RSV; Molly Whittaker, Jews and Christians (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 73.

  61It is a matter between the Lord and his people: Isaiah 65:3–4, 66:17, KJV.

  63Now, however, it also became a way: It has been argued that the Israelites abstained from pork to distinguish themselves from the Philistines 1,000 years earlier, but the evidence for this is uncertain. See Hesse and Wapnish, “Can Pig Remains,” 248.

  63Jews “do not differentiate”: Whittaker, Jews and Christians, 76

  63It was said that Caesar Augustus: Rosenblum, “Why Do You Refuse,” 99.

  Chapter 5

  65“Thrushes, fatted hens, bird gizzards!”: Federico Fellini, dir., Satyricon (Produzioni Europee Associati, 1969) (quotation from English subtitles).

  66Petronius also describes a whole roast pig: Petronius, Satyricon, trans. Alfred Allinson (Paris: Charles Carrington, 1902), 110.

  66“I declare my cook made it”: Petronius, Satyricon, 190.

  66In cuisine, culture, and mythology, Romans delighted: Mireille Corbier, “The Ambiguous Status of Meat in Ancient Rome,” Food and Foodways 3 (1989): 240–241, 248.

  67In Greek mythology, after Jason and Medea kill: Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica, trans. R. C. Seaton (New York: MacMillan, 1912), 343.

  67Similarly, a painted vase shows Apollo: Judith Yarnall, Transformations of Circe (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994), 46.

  67Romans killed pigs to seal public agreements: Daniel Ogden, A Companion to Greek Religion (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 133.

  67The rotted pork was then scattered: Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 13, 242–244.

  67In Greece young pigs were known by the terms: Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z (London: Psychology Press, 2003), 269.

  67Aristophanes makes some horrifying puns: Aristophanes, Aristophanes, ed. David R. Slavitt and Palmer Bovie (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 1:45–46.

  67The scholar Varro noted that Romans: Marcus Terentius Varro, On Agriculture, trans. William Davis Hooper and Harrison Boyd Ash (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 357.

  68Sacrificing pigs honored the gods: Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 214–215.

  68This was the cheapest way: Peter Garnsey, Food and Society in Classical Antiquity (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 13–17, 123.

  69There were more Latin words for pork: H. J. Loane, Industry and Commerce of the City of Rome (Philadelphia: Arno Press, 1979), 127.

  69According to the Edict of Diocletian: Michael MacKinnon, Production and Consumption of Animals in Roman Italy (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2004), 208–209.

  69After the Punic Wars, the percentage of pig bones: Michael MacKinnon, “‘Romanizing’ Ancient Carthage,” in Anthropological Approaches to Zooarchaeology, ed. Douglas Campana et al. (Oxford: David Brown, 2010), 172.

  69Other sections of the book offer recipes: Christopher Grocock and Sally Grainger, Apicius (Devon, UK: Prospect Books, 2006), 55–56, 70.

  69Archeology confirms that Romans carved up pigs: MacKinnon, Production and Consumption, 168.

  69Apicius is credited with inventing the technique: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. John Bostock and H. T. Riley (London: George Bell & Sons, 1890), 2:344.

  70Finally, the stomach is tied: Grocock and Grainger, Apicius, 247–249.

  70The Roman poet Martial had this to say: Martial, Epigrams (London: Bell & Daldy, 1865), 593.

  70Elsewhere, after a meal, Martial suffers the glutton’s regret: Martial, Epigrams, 313.

  71The womb of this poor sow: Plutarch, Moralia, trans. Harold F. Cherniss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 12:565.

  71Seneca, the Stoic philosopher and statesman, decried: Corbier, “Ambiguous Status,” 241.

  71By 450 ad about 140,000 citizens: S. J. B. Barnish, “Pigs, Plebeians and Potentes,” Papers of the British School at Rome 55 (1987): 160–165; A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1964), ii, 696.

  72By contrast, imports from outside the Italian Peninsula: J. Hughes, Pan’s Travail (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 146.

  72Grain sufficient to feed hundreds of tho
usands of people: Peter Temin, The Roman Market Economy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), 29–31.

  72Beef and mutton came from older animals: Michael Ross MacKinnon, “Animal Production and Consumption in Roman Italy” (PhD diss., University of Alberta, 1999), 78–80, 97–98, 112–113, 209–210, 237.

  72A popular saying held: Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 2:343.

  73According to Varro, Rome’s most important agricultural writer: Varro, On Agriculture, 357.

  73Varro devoted more attention to pigs than to cows: Varro, On Agriculture, 353.

  73Columella, writing in the first century ad, extolled: Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella, On Agriculture, trans. Harrison Boyd Ash (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 2:293.

  73Boars, Columella tells us, should possess: Columella, On Agriculture, 291.

  74With that sort of production, farmers had the incentive: Varro, On Agriculture, 365.

  74The smaller looked like a downsized wild boar: Columella, On Agriculture, 291.

  74The best feeding grounds for such pigs: Columella, On Agriculture, 293.

  74Columella also described the larger variety: Columella, On Agriculture, 291.

  74Varro reports that nursing sows were fed: Varro, On Agriculture, 361.

  74These fat white pigs were kept closer to Rome: Petronius, Satyricon, 131.

  74Columella advises that on all farms: Columella, On Agriculture, 291.

  75And they made impressive offerings: Michael MacKinnon, “High on the Hog: Linking Zooarchaeological, Literary, and Artistic Data for Pig Breeds in Roman Italy,” American Journal of Archaeology 105 (2001): 667.

  75A pig that sups on fish guts: Richard Bradley, Gentleman and Farmers Guide (London: W. Mears, 1732), 71.

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  78Rome’s complex networks of Mediterranean commerce: Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  78Archaeologists digging in post-Roman sites: S. White, “From Globalized Pig Breeds to Capitalist Pigs,” Environmental History 16 (2011): 100.