Posted on 06/04/2023 10:22:17 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Last fall, when researchers unearthed the remains of a 3,000-year-old structure in the western Armenian town of Metsamor, they faced two mysteries: First, they didn’t know what purpose the structure had served. Beyond that, a strange powdery substance covering the area left them stumped...
The team assumed, at first, the material was simply ash. After all, charred remnants of the building’s reed roof and wooden beams indicated it had met its end in a fire...
The powder wasn’t ash, but wheat flour. They had unearthed an ancient bakery.
Archaeologists estimate that the structure could have once held as much as 3.5 tons of flour, making it a site for mass production. They also found that furnaces were likely added after the building’s construction, indicating that the structure may have once served another purpose...
The bakery’s flour is now far past its prime. Still, the discovery remains important; the building is one of the oldest known structures of its kind from the southern Caucasus and eastern Anatolia, per Szymon Zdziebłowski of Science in Poland.
The building appears to have operated between the late 11th and early 9th century B.C.E. as part of the fortified settlement established at Metsamor in the 4th millennium B.C.E.
Little is known about the settlement, which covered 247 acres before being conquered in the eighth century B.C.E. by Argishti I, since its ancient inhabitants did not have a written language, according to Science in Poland. However, archaeologists continue to learn more about Metsamor through new discoveries, including a recently unearthed tomb filled with gold pendants. Jakubiak tells Live Science that his team plans to continue to examine the bakery, which is remarkably well-preserved, in order to gain more insight into Metsamor’s history.
(Excerpt) Read more at smithsonianmag.com ...
Beer is liquid bread. A friend who was a classics major in college told me that. Unfortunately I can’t remember which language described it that way. Maybe Egyptian.
Right.
After 6 PBJ’s, I need a designated driver.
How do they know that? Did they find the "best by" date for the flour?
Yep - and the first bread to rise was due to unwashed hands...
No penicillin.
Kingdom of Ararat?
Along with a note:
Your order will be ready Tuesday................
It’s wetter......................
It’s a German saying.....................
At least until Argishti I came calling.
😆
I hear they found a perfectly good cache of Twinkies in their original wrappers.
And some holiday fruitcake.
This might already be on FR.
I think I ate a piece of that Christmas 2021, then regifted the rest in 2022.
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