Thread by @drserenalove

I want to elaborate a little and give the archaeological context for the 'baking bread with no oven' tweet by @SeamusBlackley and to highlight how incredible his backyard experiments are

https://twitter.com/SeamusBlackley/status/1244467956748189696?s=20

#OldKingdom bakeries were excavated by @AERA_EGYPT at #Giza in the 1990's. Notice the large bell-shaped bread mould (bedja pot). Bread was mass produced to feed the pyramid builders and was a dietary staple (along with beer and onions)

Hundreds these bell-shaped bread moulds were found in the bakery- which produce a loaf of bread that would have been more than a foot long! The pots were poorly made, coarse material with dung temper and broke regularly

But what do we know about how the bread was made? Artists impression of a bakery was found in the 5th Dynasty tomb of Ty at #Saqqara where stages of winnowing, pounding, grinding, sieving and baking are shown c. 2400 BC

From this scene, the inferred the baking process is as follows:
1. heat the pots on fire
2. place a heated pot down
3. pour dough in heated pot
4. place 2nd heated pot on top
5. cover with embers to cook

However, the art can't always be trusted and there seems to be parts of the story that don't quite add up or details that are missing. The objective of ancient Egyptian art wasn't to accurately tell a story but so the activity can continue in the afterlife

This drawing from Lehner's excavations shows (on the right) 'egg carton' depressions in the bakery floor, where the (heated) upside-down bedja pots would placed.

To test the theory, Mark Lehner and his team did an experiment with sourdough expert Ed Wood at Giza in 1996 (?) to recreate the methods of baking in heated pots placed in divots in the floor.

One reason @SeamusBlackley's experiments are a big deal is BECAUSE IT WORKED. Last time this was attempted, the bread was burnt, stuck to the inside of the pot and was inedible

But there is still so much we don't know. These experiments are answering so many questions, while also raising new one.
Thanks to the #bread nerds out there who equally excited about this work as we are

Further reading about #ancientegyptian #bread: check out Venice Attia's article here: researchgate.net/publication/31…

For more about the Old Kingdom bakery excavations at#Giza by Egyptologist Mark Lehner and his team @AERA_EGYPT
harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-bu…
and aeraweb.org/lost-city-proj…

And another article about bread moulds from the bakery in Upper Egypt, at Elephantine by @warden_la
ajaonline.org/article/3816

The best research on ancient Egyptian baking and brewing comes from Dr Delwen Samuel who did #experimentalarchaeology comparing art, texts and archaeology
ai-journal.com/articles/abstr…
Her research can be found here:
ancientgrains.org/delwen_papers.…