Window into the Bible
Grinding Grain
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Model of a Woman Grinding Wheat at a Basin
Date: 450 BC
Place: Camaris, Rhodes
Photographed at the British Museum, London, England.


Stone Quern
Date: Unknown Place: Unknown
Photographed at the Kelso Museum, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
Two women will be grinding with a hand mill; one will be taken and the other left. (Matthew 24:41) |


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Stone Quern
Date: Unknown
Place: Jarmo, Northern Iraq
Photographed at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.


Husking Tray
Date: 6,200 – 5,700 BC
Place: Mesopotamia
Photographed at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.


Two Men Grinding Grain on Stone Querns
Date: c. 2200 BC (9th dynasty) Place: Egypt
Photographed at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
When the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, when the grinders cease because they are few, and those looking through the windows grow dim; |
when the doors to the street are closed and the sound of grinding fades; when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; … Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets. (Ecclesiastes 12:3-5)


Roman Millstones
Date: before 79 AD Place: Pompeii, Italy
Photographed at the Pompeii Archaeological Excavation, Italy.
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“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them if a large millstone were hung around their neck and they were thrown into the sea. (Mark 9:42)


Relief showing Grinding Grain with Millstones
Date: Roman Period Place: Unknown
Photographed at the Vatican Museum, Vatican City, Italy.
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Then a mighty angel picked up a boulder the size of a large millstone and threw it into the sea, and said: “With such violence the great city of Babylon will be thrown down, never to be found again". (Revelation 18:21)