Clay oven

The earthen oven has historically been used for baking flatbreads such as taftoon (Persian: تافتون), taboon bread and laffa, and has been in widespread use in the greater Middle East for centuries. Aside from baking, some were used for cooking: pots were laid within the cavity of the oven and set upon hot coals, covered in ashes. If the pots were intended to be left in the oven for an extended period of time (such as the night of the Sabbath day in Jewish culture where the food is left to cook until the next day), the opening at the top of the oven would be covered with a large, earthenware vessel. They would then add old rags around this vessel used to seal up the oven, in order to make the oven impervious to air around all the cooking pots. ==Middle Eastern types==

Tabun : 1. saj, 2. and 3. tabun Gustaf Dalman (1855–1941), describing the material culture of the Holy Land in the early 20th century, photographed several types of clay ovens which he saw in use there. Of those ovens used for baking bread, there was the tabun shaped like a large, bottomless earthenware pot turned upside down and fastened permanently to the ground. It has a pebbled floor made of either smooth beach pebbles or limestone pebbles. The pot-shaped contour was wider at the base and narrower at the top, where the opening was, used both for kindling the fire, and for inserting dough for baking. A second, similar type of oven had, in addition to the hole at the top, a second side opening called the "eye of the oven", used for stoking the fire and clearing away the ashes, and closed by a detachable door. This type had a ceramic floor. Both versions were equipped with a ceramic lid with a handle, used for covering and sealing the top opening (see illustration). These ovens were, typically, small in size and were placed within a baking hut to protect them from the elements. Some tabun ovens were "dug-ins", half built into the ground and half above-ground. Tannur / tannour; tandoor Tinuru was the ancient Sumerian word for a basic clay oven, and this important technology of daily life and its descriptive name were carried through the ages to many other peoples and culture, manifesting in the Arab () tannur, Indian tandoor, Iranian () tanur and Turkish tannura. The term tannur also appears in Hebrew () in the bible and Mishnah 15 times, as a place where bread is baked by fire. In Yemen, the most common of clay ovens served both for baking and cooking. Its shape was cylindrical and reached half the height of man, and was made with a wide-open top, called the "mouth of the oven" (Arabic: bâb al-manaq), its top being uniform in diameter with that of the oven's base. Kindling was admitted through the opening in the top. The sealed pot containing the Yemenite-Jewish kubaneh was also placed in such ovens, laid upon the oven floor, upon its dying embers. Pots containing viands and kettles of coffee were first brought to a boil and then kept hot by brushing aside the coals and embers to one side of the oven, covering the coals over with ashes, and placing the pots and kettles beside the ash-covered coals. they were often equipped with a flat, detachable lid (tablet) made of clay and which was usually perforated to allow for the retention of heat when needed, and the smoke to be emitted. In some societies, such as in the villages around Aleppo, in Syria, the earthen oven (tannour) was vaulted and egg-shaped, the opening of which was made in the front, and the entire structure built above-ground by having it propped-up upon an earth and stone base. and earlier Latin, and which, according to Maimonides, was also made of clay. The eleventh-century talmudic exegete, Rashi, who was of the Jewish Diaspora in France, explained its meaning as being "our large ovens whose mouths are at their side" (i.e., masonry oven). The 10th-century Arab geographer al-Muqaddasī describes the furn that he had seen widely used in his day, writing: "The peasantry all of them possess ovens called furn, and those of them who can get burnt bricks make small bread-ovens (tannûr) in the ground. They line these with pebbles, and kindling the fire of dried-dung within and above, they afterwards remove the hot ashes and place the loaves of bread to bake upon these pebbles when they have become thus red-hot." Gustaf Dalman (1855–1941) describes the furn which he had seen in Palestine, most of which were made of clay, as being mostly small and built with two compartments – the lower, a "boiler room" used to stoke the fire and which rests upon the ground; the upper, a "baking room" where the round leavened dough was laid down upon a flat surface and heated from below. In Palestine, these ovens also bore the additional name of ʻarṣa (qarṣa). In new furns that had yet to be fired, there was a danger of its dividing compartment collapsing or crumbling apart at its first firing. Based on samples of bread collected in Palestine, the leavened flatbread baked in a furn could be as large as, or smaller than, the flatbread baked in a tannour. The furn in modern parlance is also associated with being a "public bakery," where flat-loaves of bread are baked wholesale to be sold in market, or where, in some countries, local villagers bring there certain produce, such as heaps of green chickpeas (Cicer arietinum) with their husks for roasting (when placed either in a clay oven or upon a convex griddle, known as ṣāj), or the flat round bread made with an impression containing omelettes. Saj The saj (ṣāğ), though also used in baking, is unlike the clay oven. It is rather a convex griddle made of metal, on which is spread a thin, unleavened dough. Dalman describes it in 1935 as being used by Bedouins from Syria all the way to Arabia, because it can be transported, unlike the tābūn and tannūr. It is still used today by Bedouins and other Arabs in Israel-Palestine, as well as by the indigenous peoples of Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq, although the ingredients used in making their bread differ. The saj is made to rest upon large stones and a fire is lit beneath it. Yemeni ovens In Yemeni households, the kitchen or bake-room was built adjacent to an open-air courtyard and furnished with a hearth (maḥall et-tanâwir) which was freestanding, consisting of a socle with mud-bricks or masonry stones arranged in a bed of lime mortar, usually in length, to in height, and in breadth. Built into this socle were three separate ovens (tannûr, pl. tanâwir). In the early 20th-century, German ethnographer Carl Rathjens described the ovens that he had seen in the Old City of Sana'a, and which were similarly constructed by Jews and Arabs alike: The product of Jewish potters, they (i.e. the clay ovens) are made of burnt clay and look like round pots without bottoms, being open at both ends and having a semi-circular hole on one side. They are built into the mortar base in such a way that the side-hole (bâb al-manâq) is in the front, about fifteen centimeters above the floor. Through this hole, wood, charcoal or dried dung is fed into the stove, and the cooking pots are placed on the upper opening. - mud adobe-built outdoor oven (near Taos, New Mexico) ==Terracotta baking covers of ancient Italy==

The words clibani (Latin) / κλίβανοι (Greek) denote "baking oven" in their respective languages. The words are transcribed in, both, the Greek Septuagint (q.v. Leviticus 11:35) and in Jerome's Latin Vulgate (op. cit.), and are often mentioned by Greek and Latin authors under the name clibanus, the use of which seems to have entailed baking in what Roman authors have called sub testus, in which the ingredients were cooked under an earthenware cover, over which ashes were heaped. Others suggest that a space on the floor was cleared upon which a small heap of lighted coals was set. The baking cover was then placed or hung over the coals, and when sufficiently hot, it was raised and the coals swept aside. The dough was then put onto the hot floor, at which time the hot cover was replaced over the dough. Coals were then heaped over the sides of the cover and the bread left to bake. Based on other literary and archaeological finds, scholars have identified five principal methods of baking in Roman Italy, which, in addition to the above baking cover method (similar to the tabun in Arabic-speaking countries), families also practised baking directly onto hot ashes and cinders, whereby bread was placed on leaves or pieces of tile set on a low hearth and covered by embers from the fire. Today, such bread is known as an ash cake. Small stationary ovens were later introduced in Italy, built into a kitchen range. Afterwards, even larger and more efficient ovens were made, namely, the furnus (masonry oven). Another type included a portable version of the clibanus. ==Preparatory steps before baking==

Fuel Many types of fuel or a combination of fuels can heat an earthen oven. Dried animal dung, The poor made use of tamarisk trees (Tamarix nilotica) for kindling. Once the fire takes hold, the fuel is covered with a layer of ash. After the initial flames had died down a little, the kettles were removed from the oven's top, and the oven at this time was ready to receive the prepared dough that was made to cling to the inner-wall of the oven. When bubble-like configurations appeared on the surface of the bread, it signaled that it was ready. After baking, the bread is removed. If there was much to bake, the householder would put within the mouth of the oven a dry piece of wood so that the flame of its burning will cook and cause to steam the outer layer of the bread. This piece of wood is called in Arabic mudhwa (). In so doing, whenever dishing out soup or pouring a drink of coffee, they would remain hot. ==Method of construction==

In the Land of Israel during classical times, the baking oven (Hebrew: tannour) was constructed in similar fashion as the tabun (popularly in use amongst Arabs). Like the tabun, it too was made like unto a large, bottomless eathenware pot, turned upside down and fixed permanently onto the ground by plastering it with clay, usually in a family's courtyard where there was a baking hut. These smaller pot-shaped ovens are made of yellow pottery clay soil. The soil is wetted and made into a thick clay mixed with chopped stubble and straw from harvested wheat. The clay is hand-formed to make the dome-shaped shell. It is about to in diameter at its base, about to high, with an open top, approximately in diameter. The shell wall is about to thick. The shell is sun baked for weeks, before it is fired. Some clay ovens were made higher and cylindrical with a wide-open top. The inner-most layer of the clay oven consists of about 2 parts of sand to 1 part clay, thoroughly mixed together. Such ovens were made with thick walls, as much as , by adding to its outer shell and wall a cob of wet clay (or black earth) consisting of an aggregate of dried and burnt donkey or horse manure ground to a powdery ash (about 40%), a smaller portion of chopped straw and stubble, along with lime and sand or gravel. Others had a practice of adding burnt clay, ground pieces of terracotta or an admixture of clay and charcoal. This application was followed by an outer coating of clay, which was then smoothed out across the entire surface of the oven. Some reinforced the oven by inserting small stones and pebbles in the clay surrounding the oven. The process of thickening the walls helped to retain the oven's heat once it had been fired. besides being a place for the egress of air and smoke. Other clay ovens that had, both, a top opening and bottom side-opening ("eye of the oven"), the function of the side-opening was to insert fuel and to remove excess ashes. All newly built clay-ovens require a first firing before they can be used to bake bread. Firing was done by burning dried manure inside the oven. This is done, not only to harden the clay and to enable dough to cling to the inner oven-wall after its second firing, but also to temper the oven so that it can better retain heat. ==See also==