ABSTRACT
Agricultural Background, Environment, and Geography of Iron Age Urartu (Ararat) ................. 368 Urartian Innovation I: Irrigation Technology ................................................................................. 370 Urartian Innovation II: Introduced Summer Crops Sesame and Millet Expanded Growing Season ............................................................................................................................................ 373 Impact of Sesame: Urartian Sesame Milling Workshop at Fortress Teishebaini (Karmir Blur) ................................................................................................................................. 374 Sesame’s Economic Boon .............................................................................................................. 377 Knowledge of Harvest Methods Aided Identification of Assyrian Šamaššammū ......................... 378 Hints from Language: Sesame Names Reveal Distinct Sources .................................................... 378 Legacy: Ensuing Armenian Tradition ............................................................................................ 379 Impetus for Armenian Sesame Cultivation: Religious Fasts Require Abstinence from Animal Products .......................................................................................................................................... 379 Oil Industry at Ani, an Armenian Capital, ca. AD 1000 and Its Influence .....................................380 Sesame Cultivation at the Close of the Ottoman Period ................................................................ 381 Herbarium Specimen from Julamerik: Tracing 19th-Century Yezidi Traditions ........................... 382 Geneticist Jack R. Harlan’s 1948 Plant Exploration in Asia Minor ...............................................384 Significance of the Research .......................................................................................................... 385 Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... 385 In Memoriam ................................................................................................................................. 385 References ...................................................................................................................................... 386
Our earliest domesticated crops of the Near East Fertile Crescent-barley, chickpea, flax, lentil, pea, vetch, and wheat (Harlan 1992, 1995; Zohary and Hopf 2000)—soon spread to neighboring lands, including southern Caucasia. Akin to their wild progenitors that grow mainly on dry hill slopes during the period of winter rainfall and ripen around May (Zohary 1969), the Near Eastern complex was normally planted in late fall, as winter crops (Sherratt 1980).
