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Wind winnowing is an agricultural method developed by ancient cultures for separating grain from chaff. It is also used to remove weevils or other pests from stored grain. Threshing, the loosening of grain or seeds from the husks and straw, is the step in the chaff-removal process that comes before winnowing. In its simplest form it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery. Techniques included using a winnowing fan (a shaped basket shaken to raise the chaff) or using a tool (a winnowing fork or shovel) on a pile of harvested grain. Winnowing can also describe the natural removal of fine material from a coarser sediment by wind or flowing water, analogous to the agricultural separation of wheat from chaff. ==In Greek culture== The winnowing-fan (λίκνον (), also meaning a "cradle") featured in the rites accorded Dionysus and in the Eleusinian Mysteries: "it was a simple agricultural implement taken over and mysticised by the religion of Dionysus," Jane Ellen Harrison remarked.〔Harrison, ''Prolegomean to the Study of Greek Religion'', 3rd ed. (1922:159).〕 ''Dionysus Liknites'' ("Dionysus of the winnowing fan") was wakened by the Dionysian women, in this instance called ''Thyiades'', in a cave on Parnassus high above Delphi; the winnowing-fan links the god connected with the mystery religions to the agricultural cycle, but mortal Greek babies too were laid in a winnowing-fan.〔Karl Kerenyi, ''Dionysus: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life'' (1976:44).〕 In Callimachus' ''Hymn to Zeus'', Adrasteia lays the infant Zeus in a golden ''líknon'', her goat suckles him and he is given honey. In the Odyssey, the dead oracle Teiresias tells Odysseus to walk away from Ithaca with an oar until a wayfarer tells him it is a winnowing fan (i.e., until Odysseus has come so far from the sea that people don't recognize oars), and there to build a shrine to Poseidon. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Winnowing」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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