because it matured earlier and tolerated harsher conditions than wheat, growing in areas with less rainfall and poorer soils, such as northern Negev and the hill country. It had high yield potential and was resistant to insect infestation. It could be sown without plowing and could therefore be grown on small plots of land that oxen or even donkeys could not reach, and it did not need artificial irrigation. It ripened a month earlier than wheat and was thus available to replenish supplies used up during the winter sooner than wheat, and also provide some food security if the more vulnerable wheat crop was poor or failed. Two varieties of barley were cultivated: two-rowed, and six-rowed. Two-rowed barley was the older, hulled form; six-rowed barley was unhulled and easier to thresh, and, since the kernels remained intact, store for longer periods. Hulled barley was thus the prevalent type during the Iron Age, but gruels made from it must have had a gritty taste due to the barley’s tough outer layers. Bread was primarily made from barley flour during the Iron Age (, ), as barley was more widely and easily grown, and was thus more available, cheaper, and could be made into bread without a leavening agent even though wheat flour was regarded as superior. It was presumably made from dough that was a simple mixture of barley flour and water, divided into small pieces, formed by hand into round shapes, then baked. However, barley declined as the staple from the biblical period to a poverty food by the end of the Second Temple period, and by the Talmudic era, it was regarded mostly as animal fodder. Wheat Emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum) was initially the most widespread variety of wheat, as it grew well in the warm climate and was resistant to fungal rot. It was high yielding, with large grains and relatively high amounts of gluten, and bread made from emmer wheat flour was thus fairly light in texture. However, emmer required time-consuming pounding or roasting to remove its husk, and during the Iron Age, durum wheat (Triticum durum), a descendant of emmer, gradually replaced emmer and became the favored grain for making fine flour. Durum grew well in the rich soil of the larger valleys of the central and northern areas of the country, where rainfall exceeded 225 millimeters per year, was higher yielding than emmer, and its