MovieChat Forums > Samson (2018) Discussion > Corn

Corn

posted 6 years ago by [deleted]
10 replies | jump to latest

There was no corn/maize in the Ancient Near East! It's a crop from the Americas that wasn't taken to the Old World until contact with Europeans in the fifteenth century.

[–] Jennie_Portrait (804) 6 years ago

thank you!

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

You're welcome.

But giving them the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was supposed to be a subtle hint that the Philistine empire was so powerful that they were able to get stuff from the far, unknown corners of the world, kind of like how alpacas or llamas or something like that appeared in a royal court scene in "The Ten Commandments" (1956).

[–] Jennie_Portrait (804) 6 years ago

It's funny you mention Llama/Alpacas. They are both members of the Camelid family, so it is not that far fetched that at one time they were in the mideast.

[–] [deleted] 6 years ago

Interesting.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

It was called maize at the time.
Btw the movie is on YT for free!
https://youtu.be/GfXken6-c2w

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

OP did mention the word "maize." But that's an English adoption of the Spanish word "maíz" which itself comes from the Taino word "mahiz." At the time that "Samson" was set, it probably would have been called something like "marikɨ" which is a hypothetical early form of the original word in the Arawakan languages of South America.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

We'll never know for sure as English wasn't around at the time and we can therefore only approximate. Besides, maize has evolved since then, too. Wasn't it Mesoamerican originally?

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Yes it was Mesoamerican, hence OP's point that it should not have appeared in the ancient middle east.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

It's as believable as a God giving strenght through long hair.

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

How are you still making posts from a [deleted] account??