Editing Millstone (section)

=== Chronology of milling systems ===
{{Horizontal timeline|from=-600|to=300|row1=scale|axis-nudge=-1em|caption='''[1]''' Mortar and pestle (-600 to 300), '''[2]''' Flat grinding wheels and grinders (-600 to 300), '''[3]''' Olynthus hopper mill (-450 to 150), '''[4]''' ''Meta'' and ''Catillus'' manual grinding wheels (-250 to 0), '''[5]''' Pompeii-type "blood" mill (-150 to 300), '''[6]''' Manual rotating mill (-350 to 300), '''[7]''' Manual gear mill (250 to 300), '''[8]''' Watermill (-100 to 300).}}Mortars and pestles have survived the centuries and are predominant for barley in Greece, [[starch]] in Italy, and [[millet]] in Africa. They slowly became marginal in some regions, but did not disappear. In classical times, they were still widely represented in Greece and were still used for hulling cereals, even if the advent of adjustable millstones meant that they could now be ground. The advance of naked wheat, particularly common wheat, in Italy and Egypt made them less useful, but they were still mentioned in the Late Roman Empire, in [[Roman Egypt]], and in the [[Christian monasticism|monastic rule]] of [[Isidore of Seville|Saint Isidore]]. With the arrival of maize, they were once again used in certain regions.<ref name="ista"><sup>(fr)</sup> Marie-Claire Amouretti. ''Le pain et l'huile dans la Grèce antique''.</ref>

A first typology of milling systems can be drawn up according to the driving force used; a complementary approach will look at the social context in which the mechanism is implemented.

According to [[Diocletian|Diocletian's]] edict, the "blood" mill costed six times more than the hand mill, and the watermill eight times more. The latter therefore competed mainly with the "blood" mill, and took almost three centuries to supplant it. This was also the time it took the "blood" mill to supplant the hopper mill, and the hopper mill to supplant the flat millstone.

It seems that the watermill originated in the Eastern Mediterranean. An inscription from the [[Phrygian language|Phrygian]] town of [[Orcistus]],<ref>The town of Orcistus is mentioned in the ''Tabula Peutingeriana'' (Table de Peutinger) and corresponds to the Turkish site of ''Alikel Yaila'', also known as ''Alekian''.</ref> which praised the advantages of its site in order to retain its privileges, states that it possesses "''thanks to the slope of the waters flowing through it, a large number of watermills''". At the beginning of the [[Anno Domini|Christian era]], the watermill was still a novelty in the western Mediterranean, and [[Vitruvius]] classed it with irrigation machines. This type of mill proved ill-suited to the design of Pompeian millstones. In [[Caligula|Caligula's]] time, "blood" mills were still dominant, as [[Apuleius]] describes. Over the course of the 1st and 2nd centuries, the watermill slowly spread to a wide variety of provinces: [[Brittany]], Gaul, and Africa, where the rotary millstone was often more widespread than the Pompeian mill. Over the course of the 4th century, the watermill slowly replaced the "blood" mill in Rome itself, becoming the predominant mill in the 2nd century. While there were some spectacular achievements in cities, such as the Barbegal mill in Arles, the watermill seems to have spread more slowly to rural villas, as [[Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius|Palladius]] indicates.<ref name="ista" />

We don't really know how the Greeks processed their cereals between the 1st and 4th centuries. The "blood" mill was undoubtedly widespread, as attested by the legend of Lucius' donkey, borrowed by [[Lucian|Lucian of Samosata]] and Apuleius. The coexistence of several types of milling seems to be the rule in the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]] world, and the codification of Diocletian's edict in the 2nd century, which established three types of mills (hand, blood, and water), can still be found in the [[Byzantine rural code]] in the 6th century, and even in travellers' accounts in the 17th century.<ref name="ista" />

In the Mediterranean, watermills, which depended on water supply, progressed especially when they had a complement to avoid the vagaries of the dry season. In this context, windmills undoubtedly contributed to the spread of watermills as early as the 11th century in regions such as Provence and the Greek islands.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}