May 21, 2019 09:44 PM
https://www.newscientist.com/article/220...years-ago/
Coincidences again. There was an old, unoriginal or bromide titled BBC show called Atlantis that was on a neighbor's television last night (kids watching), that I was partially noticing in the background while conversing with her. Might have been the first episode of it. A character was fleeing through the streets knocking over the produce of fruit & vegetable peddlers. One scene briefly featured elongated, striped watermelons that resembled modern garrison or jubilee varieties.
An idle reflection passed briefly across my mind about what an anachronism that was for ancient Greece. The ancestor of today's marketed watermelons was often thought akin to something ranging between the vine of Sodom to the citrus melon. Imagine small and round with what's equivalent to bitter white rind all the way through instead of red-flesh, and that would have been the limit for what passed as a watermelon back then (or so I had reflexively considered).
Lo and behold, hours or less than a day after the arbitrary conjunction of a TV scene provoking that stray thought of mine, there's a sci-news article prominently making the rounds showing an Egyptian tomb picture of -- you guessed it -- a long, striped watermelon that looked like it fell right out of a Burpee or Burgess seed catalog.
Ancient Egyptians feasted on sweet watermelons at least 3500 years ago
![[Image: unknown1-800x533.jpg]](https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/21174235/unknown1-800x533.jpg)
Coincidences again. There was an old, unoriginal or bromide titled BBC show called Atlantis that was on a neighbor's television last night (kids watching), that I was partially noticing in the background while conversing with her. Might have been the first episode of it. A character was fleeing through the streets knocking over the produce of fruit & vegetable peddlers. One scene briefly featured elongated, striped watermelons that resembled modern garrison or jubilee varieties.
An idle reflection passed briefly across my mind about what an anachronism that was for ancient Greece. The ancestor of today's marketed watermelons was often thought akin to something ranging between the vine of Sodom to the citrus melon. Imagine small and round with what's equivalent to bitter white rind all the way through instead of red-flesh, and that would have been the limit for what passed as a watermelon back then (or so I had reflexively considered).
Lo and behold, hours or less than a day after the arbitrary conjunction of a TV scene provoking that stray thought of mine, there's a sci-news article prominently making the rounds showing an Egyptian tomb picture of -- you guessed it -- a long, striped watermelon that looked like it fell right out of a Burpee or Burgess seed catalog.
Ancient Egyptians feasted on sweet watermelons at least 3500 years ago