Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Jonathan Mohler <jonathan.mohler AT gmail.com>]

They probably used wood or trees to hold the stucco and/or plaster.  If so, the termites would target the wood in the walls.  However they could probably hold up for a while even if the wood was gone.

Jonathan Mohler

On Jun 22, 2013, at 11:00 AM, b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Nir:

On Fri, Jun 21, 2013 at 2:03 PM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br> wrote:

karl, 

really, looking a bit closer into the problem, i discovered that moth is indeed considered the 
main destroyer of cloths. the difficulty in assessing the termites in this respect is that 
today's clothes and houses are different than the BH standard.

My understanding is that Biblical era houses tended to have plaster interiors, and stucco exteriors. Therefore there wasn’t much in the way for termites to eat. 

in general, termites eat cellulose: lumber, doors, furniture, cardboard, paper, wallpaper etc. 
but as garments used to be made from cotton and linen mostly, i imagine that they would  
destroy them too. to do this, they build thin tunnels along the house walls, 
until they find cellulose.

But wouldn’t people notice those tunnels and destroy them? 

http://laundry.about.com/od/laundrybasics/ss/Insects-That-Destroy-Clothes-Insect-Clothes-Pests_8.htm 

what they excel at is the other property you mentioned: building houses.

True. 

nir cohen 

ps is ($ used in other semitic languages?

 

I noticed that not one word is used for “termite”, I wonder what it would have been.

Karl W. Randolph.