Its use for tempering building materials could be demonstrated for the Roman quarry settlement Mons Claudianus, also located in the Eastern Desert, about 400 km north of Berenike. This specific use is evidenced in Mons Claudianus by the analysis of wall plaster and mud bricks, while an ostrakon confirms the delivery of chaff . The ostraka that have been found so far at Berenike do not mention the use of threshing remains for building purposes. Moreover, the buildings in Berenike are constructed of coral and anhydrite/gypsum , which are locally available . A mud-brick wall, which was found during the 1997 excavation season, lacked botanical temper. The nutritional value of chaff as animal fodder is limited. That of wheat is more nutritious than that of barley, whereas the presence of awns, which is most conspicuous in barley, makes it almost inedible for animals. Dry barley chaff may even cause a fatal kind of constipation and actinomy coses .Knowledge of food preservation is absolutely vital if people want to adapt to a sedentary way of life. The basic principles of preservation techniques were probably evolved by hunter/gatherers but became more advanced as agriculture developed, and, at a later stage, horticulture. Settled people are for the most part dependent on the bulk supplies that are obtained during relatively short periods of harvesting.

The food should then be kept in stock until the next yield can be obtained from the fields. Basically, procona florida contaienr food preservation has to deal with two kinds of hazards. One is related to environmental factors that are abiotic in character, and concern damage as a result of food handling and changes caused by chemical processes such as oxidation. The other is related to organisms and manifests itself in predation and decay. Seeds, fruits, and other plant parts capable of producing new offspring, such as bulbs of garlic and onion, form a class of their own as metabolic processes continue, which results in ageing. The storage life of these food products is closely connected with the speed with which these reactions take place. Both of these hazards can be experienced before and after harvesting. Because food production is concentrated in fields, a considerable loss caused by predating insects, mites, birds, and rodents may, in addition to unfavorable weather conditions, result in crop failures and periods of famine. Also the infection with bacteria or fungi, such as ergot and smut , may cause a serious yield reduction. The only indication from the archaeobotanical record of Berenike of yield reduction previous to harvesting is evidenced by the recovery of rachis fragments of barley infected with the fungus-covered smut . Once stored in special storage facilities, food supplies are exposed to further spoilage, and special care is necessary to reduce this to a minimum. Cereals have the advantage over pulses in that they are only threatened by animals that can get access to the storage facility from the outside. During each excavation season, small rodents found their way to the kitchen tent, indicating that they must also have been a problem in Roman Berenike.

Only if a storage room is well sealed can it prevent yield loss as a result of these animals. But for pulses, the well-sealed buildings would not have guaranteed their preservation. Unlike cereals, the seeds of pulses may also be infected with eggs of a particular insect. In this way, the development of such a host during storage may cause a considerable loss of seeds. Food might also spoil by decomposition, a process in which complex compounds are transformed by microorganisms into simple nutrients that become available again for assimilation processes. This is true for both foods of animal and vegetable origins and is tied up with their biological functions. Milk and meat, for example, easily decompose and need immediate care after milking and slaughtering. Eggs, on the other hand, are well protected by a solid shell, by which they are not only adapted for a considerable breeding period but also for a storage period for at least several weeks without a cooling system. Although Romans were familiar with salting and drying meat, cattle bones found at Berenike suggest that these animals were imported on the hoof from the Nile Valley, and pig bones indicate that they were bred locally . With respect to products of plant origin, differences in preservation can be illustrated in vegetables and fruits. Vegetables start withering soon after being harvested due to the loss of water. Fruits are adapted to dispersal, and some of them also survive a certain period of time in the soil and are less perishable in such cases. Galen makes the distinction between summer and autumn foods . Summer food, such as cereals, can be stored easily without changing their basic properties. Autumn fruits, such as gourds , mulberries , melons , and peaches , rot quickly and can only be stored in a dried state at the expense of their original shape, taste, and flavor.

Decomposition of food not only changes its taste and flavor, which is in most cases undesired, but may also produce harmful waste products of metabolic pathways of microorganisms, which render the food inedible. Preservation techniques aimed at preventing this include three different strategies: inhibition, inactivation, or avoidance of recontamination . These approaches can also be recognized in preservation techniques used in classical antiquity, though it is obvious that at that time people were unaware of the ultimate explanations.Being an excellent solvent and transport medium, water is one of the major components of organisms and their environment. Arid environments or environments with a high concentration of dissolved molecules are unfavorable for the growth of microorganisms. In both environments, water from the microorganisms moves into the solution. Dehydration of the microorganisms in a strong solution is caused by water movement into the direction of the environment with the highest molecule concentration . Food preservation by affecting the water balance is based on two different principles: extracting water and adding solvents. Water can be extracted by drying, pressing, and smoking. Food can be dried under the sun, in the wind, or with heat from a fire. Sun-dried and wind-dried food will be especially successful in climates with high temperatures and lots of sunny days. In this way subtropical fruits such as dates, figs, and grapes are easily treated for preservation. In central Anatolia, for example, bunches of red grapes are sun-dried on paper sheets in the vineyards, whereas the white grapes are used for wine making. These sun-dried grapes are for local consumption and still contain their pips, a feature that has become extremely rare in raisins and currants produced for export. Columella describes a special construction of stakes covered with reed on which figs can be dried without being exposed to morning dew and rain that would spoil the figs. Also grain is sun-dried after threshing on pieces of textile or plastic. Large fruits, such as apples, pears, and figs, could be cut in two or three parts before sun-drying . The pressing of vegetables is mentioned by Columella as an additional method of extracting water. Drying food with smoke not only causes dehydration but also has antibiotic qualities due to the presence of bacteriocidal chemicals in the smoke. The smoking method was especially applied to animal products. The use of smoke in preserving meat is first described by Cato in his section dealing with hams . The use of smoke from a fire of apple-tree wood for flavoring cheese is described by Columella . Sugar and Salt: Immersing food in water with very high concentrations causes dehydration of microorganisms, procona London container which will consequently die. This can be achieved by adding considerable amounts of solvents that influence the osmotic value, such as salt, sugar, and honey. Ignorance in classical times of microorganisms is illustrated by Columella, explaining that adding some salt as a preservative is necessary to prevent spoilage of food by worms and other animals . Salt was available in reasonable quantities and could be stored in a special saltcellar , although such a cellar has not been recognized in Berenike. Food could either be dry-salted or covered by saltwater, such as brine, which could be made by filling a jar with rainwater or spring water and adding salt to it until a point is reached when the salt does not dissolve anymore . Meat and fish especially were treated that way, although salting was also applied to vegetables such as whole cucumbers and olives. The Romans produced salted fish and meat in special factories. Garum or liquamen, a fish sauce based on the fermentation of salted fish, was also produced on a large scale. A concentration of small fish remains in an Aswân-produced vessel found at Berenike could be identified as the remains of this fish sauce .

Although the identification of the fish bones ruled out a Mediterranean origin, and salt crusts were available in large quantities along the shore, the production of this sauce at Berenike proper could not be established with certainty. According to Van Neer en Ervynck, drying fish by wind would have been another possibility of food preservation in the windy and hot environment of Berenike. Sugar was imported by the Romans from India and traded at the ports along the present-day coast of Somalia. It was distilled from sugarcane and, judging from the expression “cane honey” in the Periplus Maris Erythraei, it was probably traded as a kind of cane juice . Sugar was scarce and used only in medical remedies and never for sweetening food or food preservation . Only from the thirteenth century on did sugar become available on a large scale, but even then it was not used for preserving fruit as is practiced nowadays . Honey was, however, a good alternative during the preceding period. According to Columella all kinds of fruit can be preserved in honey and he even proclaimed this as a general principle. Jars filled with fruit preserved in honey were found in Pompeii . Especially in Egypt, apiculture was well developed and ensured a continuous supply of preservatives. Not only was honey used for this purpose, but also a liquor made with fresh beeswax, which was steeped in water and then boiled. Additionally, food rich in sugar, such as raisins, dates, and figs, could be used as sweeteners.Another way to inactivate microorganisms is to create an anaerobic environment by the exclusion of air or changing the composition of the gas. Most microorganisms living in food require oxygen for their metabolic pathways and will die if it is absent, though some species such as bacteria belonging to the genus Clostridium are strict anaerobes and can live without oxygen. Vacuum packaging, pasteurization , and sterilization are effective methods, but have only become available recently. Columella strongly recommends the use of broadly shaped storage vessels that facilitate the pressing of food below the surface of the preserving liquid so that the food will be kept fresh. Cato advises to store dried figs in earthenware vessels coated with boiled-down amurca, the black by-product of pressing olives. As this waste product was allowed to run off from the press into the fields, it not only colored the soil black but sterilized it also, if sufficient quantities were produced . This observation would certainly have initiated the use of this liquid in preservation methods. Amphoras, the most frequently found pottery at Berenike and used for transporting liquids as well as dry commodities, lend themselves to close-fitting covers. Making amphoras airtight prevents the penetration of fresh air and prolongs the storage life of its content. This is certainly true for amphoras that contain alcohol, which will evaporate over time. As long as the alcohol percentage is at least 12 to 14 percent, it can be preserved for a considerable period if the container remains closed after bottling. According to Cato , grape juice could be kept in an amphora for a year if the cork was sealed with pitch and immersed in cold water for one month. It is questionable to what extent this accuracy was also applied to amphoras containing solid merchandise. If the foodstuffs in these sealed containers had not been preheated, their preservation life would have been limited. Some of the stoppers that have been found at Berenike were made from the cork layer of the cork oak and must have originated from the Mediterranean .