Just guessing here, but probably pepper was originally ground in a mortar
and pestle. Pepper has been an item of trade since Roman times. The pepper
mill is based on the idea of the millstone (for grinding flour), which is so
old that it's invention predates writing. In addition to the large mills
driven by water wheels or wind or draft animals, there were always hand
cranked mills that were table sized. Probably at some point someone who
needed a lot of pepper ground (say a sausage maker) had the idea to use one
of these to grind spices. From there it was only a matter of shrinking the
device down to handheld size and making the millstones of metal rather than
stone. Similar grinders made of brass were used by the Turks to grind their
coffee beans, though given that pepper has been consumed far longer than
coffee its hard to say which one came first. But the Turkish mills were very
small because they were intended to be carried in saddle bags by nomads.
Even today they function well as pepper mills.


I don't think this is like a modern invention where you can say "Thomas
Edison invented the phonograph on June 4, 1878 at 2 PM." It's going to be
one of those things that is lost in the mists of history.


"h" wrote in message ...
Anyone know who invented the pepper mill, and when?