Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig (22 page)

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

46
The 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.

46
In 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).

47
That’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).

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

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

48
Archaeologists 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.

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

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

49
Residents 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”).

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

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

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

49
The 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.

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

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

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

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

51
Eating 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.

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

51
In 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.

51
Pork 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.

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

Chapter 4

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

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

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

54
Israelite 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).

55
Douglas’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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

58
which 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.

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

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

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

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

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

60
Uncleanliness, 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.

60
Then, 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.

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

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

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

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

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

63
Now, 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.

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

63
It 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).

66
Petronius 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

67
The 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.

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

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

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