(5) _Winnowing._--The grain was winnowed or cleansed of chaff by being thrown up, as in Fig. 79. As it fell the wind blew the chaff away. It is this process that John the Baptist used as an illustration of the purging work of Christ (Matt. 3:12; Luke 3:17). (6) _Grinding._--When the grain was cut, threshed, and winnowed, there were no mills to which it could be taken for grinding. This process had to be done in each home, and the labor of doing it fell to the women of the household. (See Exod. 11:5; Matt. 24:41.) Grain was reduced to flour either by rubbing or by pounding. The process of rubbing or grinding was accomplished either by a flat saddle-shaped stone over which another was rubbed (see Figs. 81, 84), or by crushing between two stones, the top one of which was revolved somewhat as a modern millstone (Fig. 82). It required two women, as Jesus said, to grind at such a mill--one to feed it, while the other manipulated the rubbing stone. Such stones were made of hard igneous rock procured from the region east of the Sea of Galilee, and are called “querns.” In the different periods of the history of Palestine they varied in size and shape, becoming round in the Seleucid period (323-63 B. C.). The upper stone was apparently rotated by twisting the wrist. It could be thus turned half-way round and then back again. No round millstones, with the topmost of the pair perforated, as in the modern millstone, were found before the Arabic period, 637 A. D. Pictures of modern Syrian women turning this perforated type of millstone do not, therefore, really illustrate, as is often assumed, the women of the Bible as they ground at the mill. Probably the millstone which crushed the head of Abimelech at Thebez (Judges 9:53) was the upper stone of a “saddle quern.” The importance of these millstones is recognized in Deut. 24:6, which prohibits the taking of a mill or the upper millstone of a poor man as security, on the ground that that was the same as taking a man’s life as security. The lower millstone was always made of the harder stone. Because of this and of the grinding and pounding to which it was subjected it became a symbol of firmness (Job 41:24). (7) _Mortars._--Apparently the grain was also frequently crushed by pounding it with a pestle in a mortar. So many of these made of stone were found at Gezer that it is thought that these may have been used more often than the millstones; (see Fig. 83). (8) _Fruits._--In the course of the excavation of Gezer dried figs, grapes, pomegranates, and olives were found. All of these are mentioned in the Bible, as, for example, in Cant. 2:13; Rev. 6:13; Gen. 40:11; Num. 13:23; Micah 6:15. In one trench what appeared to be a pile of charred pistachio nuts was found. Acorns, terebinth, and apricot seeds were also discovered.[162] Of these fruits, those which left the most archæological evidence of their existence are just those that are most frequently mentioned in the Bible,--the grape and the olive.