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Bread Across Cultures: From Ancient Grain to Modern Tables
Bread Across Cultures: From Ancient Grain to Modern Tables
Conical loaves in Egyptian tombs, bronze grain vessels in China, corn beer in the Andes—bread and grain have shaped civilizations. This tour traces humanity's most essential food across five thousand years and five continents, revealing how a simple mixture of flour, water, and fire became the foundation of culture, ritual, and survival.
120 minutes
24 stops
Beginning in Egyptian Art galleries on Floor 1, the tour explores ancient bread-making through models and actual loaves. It then moves through grain-serving vessels in Asian Art on Floor 2, crosses to the Americas galleries to see corn and ritual vessels, and concludes with European paintings of harvest and rural labor, plus Islamic storage vessels.
Galleries: 105 → 109 → 116 → 121 → 736 → 207 → 233 → 202 → 817 → 802 → 454 → 156