Sesame was no doubt used, as it is at the present day, principally for making oil; while wheat, barley, and millet were employed for food, and were made into cakes or loaves.

The grain used, whatever it was, would be ground between two stones, according to the universal Oriental practice even at the present day.

It would then he moistened with water, kneaded in a dish or bowl, and either rolled into thin cakes, or pressed by the hand into smalls balls or loaves.

Bread and cakes made in this way still form the chief food of the Arabs of these parts, who retain the habits of antiquity.

Wheaten bread is generally eaten by preference; but the poorer sort are compelled to be content with the coarse millet or _durra_ flour, which is made into cakes, and then eaten with milk, butter, oil, or the fat of animals.
Dates, the principal support of the inhabitants of Chaldaea, or Babylonia, both in ancient and in modern times, were no doubt also an article of food in Assyria, though scarcely to any great extent.