Tablet C (no. 27 ) contains three damaged recipes for the pot cooking of a bird,
but.umtu-grain and some kind of meat (Bottéro 1995 : 103 – 10 ; Bottéro 2004 : 34 – 35 ).
Apart from direct human consumption, there were two other main social roles
played by food and drink: offerings to the gods, commonly redistributed for human
consumption, and offerings to the dead (Mayer and Sallaberger 2003 : 93 – 102 ; Seidl
2003 : 102 – 06 ; Bottéro 2004 : 107 – 21 ).
SOME ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE FOR
COOKING AND KITCHEN EQUIPMENTPottery containers for storing, processing and serving food and drink were the norm.
Stone grinding slabs, the so-called saddle querns, and the upper handstones that were
drawn across them are common finds, sites including private houses. These hand mills
were used mainly for grinding grain into flour but also for grinding other foodstuffs
such as cumin and sesame seeds (Milano 1993 – 97 b: 393 – 400 ; Ellis 1993 – 97 : 401 – 04 ).
A cooking pit or open hearth could be used for roasting, broiling, cooking on hot
stones and cooking in supported pots. The earliest type of oven used by people in
the Ancient Near East was the clay tannur (tinu ̄ rum): an open-topped, bell-shaped
oven with thick walls and an opening near the bottom for fuel (Miglus 2003 : 40 ).
The tannur was fixed into place on the floor – the fitted kitchen has a long history.
Via the open top, dough was stuck onto the inside of the pre-heated walls and baked
as flat bread (Curtis 2001 : 207 ). Pots could also be placed on top of the tannur (see
point 2 in the recipe above). The Akkadian word, tinu ̄ rum, and the modern Arabic
word, tannur, are cognate and people still use this type of oven in the Middle East
today. Leavened bread was baked in another type of oven, the dome oven, which had
a domed chamber with one opening for fuel and food. Fuel burnt in the chamber
heated the oven, the ashes were raked out and food put into the chamber to cook
(Curtis 2001 : 208 ). Good examples of dome ovens from the Old Babylonian period
have been excavated at Ur and Mari. In Ur, a private house (dubbed No. 1 B Baker’s
Square by its excavator Woolley) contained three mudbrick circular dome ovens with
their openings set into two walls of Room 3 and their chambers in two adjacent
rooms (Woolley and Mallowan 1976 : 158 – 59 , pl. 50 ). Big ovens of this type were
probably used for large-scale baking, both directly for people and for offerings made
to the gods in temples (Miglus 2003 : 40 ).
Archaeological evidence from Zimri-Lim’s palace at Mari includes ovens, hearths
and highly decorative kitchen equipment. Room 70 near the throne room contained
the remains of two dome ovens, both opening into the room; during a kitchen refit
the large circular oven replaced the smaller quarter circle one in the corner (Parrot
1958 : 230 – 35 ; Margueron 2004 : 492 ). In the adjoining Room 77,the excavators
found 49 decorated terracotta objects, probably moulds for food destined for the
king’s table (Parrot 1958 : 222 – 27 ; Bottéro 1985 : 38 ; Margueron 2004 : 430 , 515 – 16 ).
Many of these moulds are round but some are rectangular and some animal-shaped,
representing either a fish or a lion lying down (its pose reminiscent of a modern
rabbit-shaped mould for jelly). The motifs on the round moulds are geometric or
figurative. Concentric circles are common and can be combined with either circles of
animals, such as fish, nose to tail or a central scene. Such scenes include humanoid
figures, lions, bulls and the well-known motif of two rearing goats flanking a tree.
— Frances Reynolds —