DAIRYING IN ANCIENT DAYS

Taranaki Daily News, 11 September 1934, Page 17 (Supplement)

DAIRYING IN ANCIENT DAYS

RECORDS 6000 YEARS OLD FOUND DAIRY SCENE IN BABYLON DESCRIBED Most authorities agree that the written history of man does not reach back to the beginning of cattle, nor is there a record of the date when cows’ milk was first used, or when or how butter or cheese was first made. It appears certain that there were cattle in all countries except New Zealand, Australia and America at a very early date. How they were distributed is not known. Explorations of buildings near the site of the ancient city of Babylon have revealed that 6000 years ago cattle were domesticated, for in one of the friezes with which a building was decorated there was found a panel four feet long showing a milking scene of cows and their calves with men milking the cows into tall jars. This is possibly the oldest record of the milking of cows. . A peculiar fact is that the men were doing the milking, as for centuries after that period it was don by women. It is considered by some that this is further evidence of the veneration in which the milk cow and the milk goat were held by these early people, as most of the temple duties were performed by men. . Another record, written about 2000 years 8.C., describes a dairy scene as a part of the sculpture of one of the buildings. The scene showed milk being poured from a pointed jar through a funnel, or strainer, of very modern aspect, into a flat-bottomed Vessel resting on the ground. This latter vessel which has perhaps three or four small legs, tapers towards the narrow mouth. The record also refers to milk, butter and cheese, as well as to many kinds of beverages, thus showing that dairy manufacture is one of the oldest industries known to mankind. Nor was it confined to Babylonia or ancient Egypt. Biblical writings refer to butter and cheese, and in addition the Vedic folk-lore stories of India, handed down from unknown centuries, indicate that milk was, drunk, butter made, and that it was considered a sin to kill a cow for meat. Nothing is said in those . prehistoric records of when cattle were domesticated, but they tell of the handling of cattle in a familiar way as we do to-day.

Among the Arabs the tradition is that milk was carried in skins tied to the saddles of horsemen on the march. The shaking caused butter to be formed, and as the faster the pace of the horse the more butter was obtained, it is said that the,, fleeter steeds were chosen as the carriers of milk. Down through the ages the development of dairying has been constant, until to-day it is one of the most important food producing industries in the world.