Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of Archaeology and Museology

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

2013 Lenka Tkáčová Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of Archaeology and Museology

Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East

Lenka Tkáčová

Near-Eastern Tannurs Now & Then: A Close-Up View of Bread Ovens with Respect to the Archaeological Evidence and Selected Ethnographical Examples from Khabur Region Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Inna Mateiciucová, Ph.D.

Instructor: Dr. phil. Maximilian Wilding

Brno 2013

DECLARATION

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. I agree with storing this work in the library of the Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East at the Masaryk University in Brno and making it accessible for study purposes.

Brno 13th of January 2013

......

Signature ABSTRACT/ANNOTATION

Title: Near-Eastern Tannurs Now & Then: A Close-Up View of Bread Ovens with Respect to the Archaeological Evidence and Selected Ethnographical Examples from Khabur Region. Author: Lenka Tkáčová Department / Institute: Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts, Department of Archaeology and Museology, Prehistoric Archaeology of Near East Supervisor of the bachelor thesis: Mgr. Inna Mateiciucová, Ph.D.

Abstract: The study deals with archaeological remains of tannur-like bread ovens attested in Khabur region (NE Syria) with focus on archaeological evidence and ethnographic analogies from the area. In theoretical part, a new definition of tannur-like oven is proposed and a tool to maximize the potential information gain from excavation of possible tannur-like ovens in form of a worksheet. Practical part of the thesis consists of critical evaluation of the data collected from archaeological sites in the Khabur region and a specialised case study of tanur-like oven from Late Neolithic site of Tell Arbid Abyad (NE Syria), excavated by Czech team from Masaryk university.

Keywords: tannur, tabun, bread ovens, Syria, Khabur, archaeology, ethnography, ethno-archaeology

ABSTRAKT/ANOTACE

Název práce: Předovýchodní tannury v průběhu dějin: Detailní studie chlebových pecí s přihlédnutím k archeologickým dokladům a vybraným etnografickým příkladům z regionu Khabur (SZ Sýrie). Autor: Lenka Tkáčová Katedra / Ústav: Masarykova univerzita, Filozofická fakulta, Ústav archeologie a muzeologie, Pravěká archeologie Předního východu Vedoucí bakalářské práce: Mgr. Inna Mateiciucová, Ph.D.

Abstrakt: Studie se zabývá tématem archeologických pozůstatků chlebových pecí typu tannur z regionu Khabur (SV Sýrie) se zaměřením na archeologické důkazy a korespondující etnografické analogie z této oblasti. V první části je představena pomocná archeologická definice chlebových pecí typu tannur a následně je vytvořen nástroj pro maximalizaci informačního zisku z archeologických výzkumů pecí typu tannur v podobě přehledného pracovního listu. Druhá část práce se skládá z kritického zhodnocení údajů získaných z archeologických nalezišť v Khabur regionu a ze specializované případové studie pece typu tannur z pozdně neolitické lokality Tell Arbid Abyaḑ (SV Sýrie), která je předmětem výzkumu českého týmu z Masarykovy univerzity.

Klíčová slova: tannur, tabun, chlebové pece, Sýrie, Khabúr, archeologie, etnografie, etno-archeologie

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Mgr. Inna Mateiciucová, Ph.D. (Masaryk University), and my consultants Dr. Phil. Maximilian Wilding (Masaryk University) and Prof. Emeritus Frank A. Hole (Yale University) for their encouragement, guidance and immense help throughout the creation of this thesis. The basis of my studies is being formed by the friendly and welcoming atmosphere at my “home base”- the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East where I have always felt motivated and encouraged in my investigations. My gratitude also goes to foreign visiting lectors of Department of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East who have provided me with their interesting comments, advices and recommendations- Prof. Frans Wiggermann (Universiteit Leiden) who discussed the topic of bread making in cuneiform sources with me, Maria Bianca D´Anna (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen), whose enthusiasm and villingness to cooperate is very much appreciated, Prof. Dr. Susan Pollock (Freie Universität Berlin), Zuza Wygnanska, PhD. (University of Warsaw), Dr. Alessandra Gilibert-Hnila (Freie Universität Berlin) and Dr. Olivier Nieuwenhuyse (Universiteit Leiden) for their advice and suggestions. My knowledge of the topic was broadened by Dr. Walter Cruells (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Anna Gomez Bach Prof. Asoc. Lab. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) from SAPPO, Spain, by Dr. Mojgan Seyedin-Dijojin (Iranian Cultural Heritage Organisation, Archaeological Research Center, Tehran) and by Simon Jacob, a BA student at University of Aleppo, Syria. I would also like to thank Dr. Anacleto D´Agostino (University of Florence) for recommendations concerning the archaeological project at Tell Barri. I am glad to have had the chance of attending the Painting Pots- Painting People Specialist Workshop on decorated Neolithic pottery and 8ICAANE congress in Warsaw where I have met a number of professionals who devote their time and thoughts to the Near Eastern Archaeology. The presence at their discussions was inspiring to me in many ways. I would like to thank Dr. Noor Mulder-Heymans (University of Maastricht) for her time and a nice conversation about the Tannurs. My thanks also belongs to the archaeologists and specialists who have excavated the site of Tell Arbid Abyad in previous years and specialists who have evaluated data collected at the site- namely Mgr. Petr Kočár, who has conducted the archaeobotanical analysis, and Bc. Jiří Grünseisen, who played an important role in processing of GIS data.

Last, but not the least, I would also like to thank my family for their kind patience with my “strange passion” for Near Eastern Archaeology and personal support which made my studies possible.

CONTENTS

Introduction 1 1. Objectives of research 3 1.1. Subject of research 3 1.2. What is a tannur? Etymology of the term 4 1.3. Shifts in space and meaning 4 1.4. Tannur or tannur-like? 10 2. Current state of research 11 2.1. Khabur region-state of knowledge 14 2.2. Summary 15 3. Tannur-like ovens and their physical properties (ethnographic evidence) 17 3.1. Shape and form 18 3.2. Use and function 26 3.3. Tannur variants 29 3.4. Other types of bread ovens 31 3.5. What other fire installations might be confused with bread ovens? 41 4. How to recognize tannur-like ovens in archaeology: basic criteria 46 4.1. Creating a tool- worksheet 48 5. Tannur-like ovens in the Khabur region 54 5.1. Ethnographic evidence from the Khabur region 54 5.2. Archaeological evidence from the Khabur region 55 5.3. Evaluation of the archaeological evidence 69 5.4. Case study: Tell Arbid Abyad 74 5.4.1. Other fire installations from the site 82 6. Conclusions 84 Summary 89 Bibliography 91 List of figures 99

Introduction

In this thesis, I will discuss the issue of the tannur type of ovens and their occurrence in archaeological record, with main focus on the Khabur region in NE Syria. I would like to highlight the drawbacks of the prior research and the lack of generally accepted definition of tannur-like fire installations in archaeology. The main goal of this thesis is to provide such a definition and to apply it to archaeological evidence from Khabur region, including a special case study from Late Neolithic site of Tell Arbid Abyad.

As a student of Prehistoric archaeology of the Near East, I was personally confronted with the excavation process of a circular oven (possibly of a tannur type), when I participated in two-month field practice at the Late Neolithic site of Tell Arbid Abyad in NE Syria, conducted by the Department of Prehistoric Archaeology of the Near East during the excavation season of 2010. This was the first impulse for my choice of topic for a BA thesis (along with a recommendation from the supervisor of this thesis, Inna Mateiciucová) and also the reason why I have decided to limit the scope of the thesis to Khabur Region, where Tell Arbid Abyad is located. At the contemporary village of Tell Arbid Abyad I have also observed functional modern tannurs and participated in the bread making process. This experience helped me to raise the first questions about the topic and it was the first impetus for my further investigations.

The theoretical part of my thesis is building on the current state of knowledge on the topic. I will attempt to summarize the information about the tannur-like ovens and their physical properties, relying on existing definitions provided in ethnographic sources and ethno-archaeological reports. I pay attention to other types of bread ovens and fire installations that might be confused with tannur-like ovens (e.g. tabuns). The confusion of terminology is particularly noticeable in archaeology, where we do not encounter functional ovens rather than their deteriorated remains in various states of preservation. Without a generally accepted definition, these (more or less) poorly preserved features are often difficult or even impossible to interpret.

From the collected information, I derive the theoretical background necessary to create a new auxiliary definition of the tannur-like ovens, based primarily on ethnographic analogies. This way I hope to create an artificial model category of the tannur-like ovens that will serve as an adequate interpretative basis for archaeologists, enabling them to recognize and distinguish the tannur-like ovens in the archaeological record. 1

After establishing the proper nomenclature and explaining the terminus technicus “tannur-like oven”, a practical tool applicable in practice will be created. The outcome of this phase of my work is a worksheet inspired and influenced by the theoretical knowledge I have gained from the available literature (mainly ethnoarchaeological articles of McQuitty 1994; Noor Mulder-Heymans 2002; Bradley Parker 2011) and also by my own (although rather limited) field experience from Tell Arbid Abyad.

I apply my findings in form of the newly created auxiliary definition to a set of data collected from archaeological reports of the sites in the Khabur region. The set of information thusly gained will be critically approached in order to detect faults of the data (such as different intensity of description) and to provide a valid intersite oven comparison. This way a set of information will be prepared in a unified form for future analyses and questions. However, due to the state of published information about tannur-like ovens excavated at the selected sites in the Khabur region, it was not possible to utilize the proposed worksheet.

A study of archaeological remains of a possible tannur-like oven (feature A) attested at trench J12 in the Late Neolithic settlement excavated by Czech Team at Tell Arbid Abyad in NE Syria is included in this thesis as a special case study. One of the hypotheses in this thesis is that this feature once served as a fire installation of tannur type (judging from its shape, ground plan, possible opening at the bottom and traces of ash). The data acquired during the excavation process will be put into the newly created worksheet and critically evaluated. I try to interpret the feature as tannur-like oven despite its poor state of preservation.

The main reason of this study is to draw attention to the topic of tannur-like ovens in the archaeology of Khabur region. I hope that the thesis will humbly contribute to the proper understanding and recognition of this paradoxically well-known and yet not completely understood kind of fire installation. Benefit expected from this work is the integrity of approach to tannur-like ovens both from ethnographic and archaeological point of view and an attempt to create a definition of this kind of fire installation, which could be used by archaeologists in order to maximize the income of information from the excavations.

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1. Objectives of research

1.1. Subject of research

The main subject of my research is the phenomenon of the so-called “tannur” bread ovens, known from prehistoric, ancient and contemporary Near East, attested in ethnographic and archaeological sources. Tannur is a type of domestic fire installation used primarily for bread baking. It is built of clay (with several other ingredients such as straw or hair, see chapter 3.1) and usually has a conical or cylindrical form (see chapter 3.1) with two openings (top opening for inserting the bread dough and bottom opening for fuel and air circulation). This device is typical for the Near East, and it is widespread in Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Palestine and other countries (see Figs 1, 3 and 4). It has been observed by several ethnographers that the use of tannur ovens is gradually becoming less frequent (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 2; 17), and is now limited to rural areas, while in the modern cities the tannurs occur only in specialized bakeries in a slightly changed form (e.g. they are gas-heated, Mulder-Heymans 2002, 12).

In this thesis, however, I focus on ancestors of the modern tannurs, attested in archaeology. Tannur-like bread ovens have been excavated at several sites in the Khabur region, and one of the main objectives of this thesis is to study the descriptions and interpretations of these ovens to see whether they have been interpreted correctly. The topic of tannur-like bread ovens has not been satisfactorily addressed in the Khabur region, and a generally accepted archaeological definition of tannur-like ovens is missing completely. There is confusion in spelling and typology as well. Before I move on to the next chapters, I would like to present some of the main questions which will be discussed in this thesis:

 How do we define tannur-like ovens? What are the main criteria for such a definition? (chapters 3 and 4)

 How can we describe this type of feature in archaeological documentation? What tool can we use for proper documentation of tannur-like bread ovens? (chapter 4.1)

 How do the tannur-like ovens differ from other types of bread ovens? What other kinds of bread ovens were used in prehistoric Khabur region? (chapter 5.2) 3

 How do they differ from other fire installations and which fire installations can be confused with tannur-like ovens? How we can avoid misinterpretation? (chapters 3.4 and 3.5)

1.2. What is a tannur? Etymology of the term

Before addressing the various definitions of tannur in terms of its function and form, it is necessary to devote certain time to the problem of ambiguity of the term tannur in order to prevent possible misunderstandings of language.

Firstly, I would like to introduce a brief discussion over the origin of the word. The tanūr), as the Arabic/Hebrew native ~ תַּ ּנּור :tannur, Hebrew ~ تنور :tannur (Arabic speakers and scientists (ethnologists and archaeologists using the word as terminus technicus) know it today, has probably a very long history rooted already in times before Sumerians (according to Bottéro & Meadow 2004, who considers the word to be already borrowed by Sumerians in its archaic form “turuna, dilina”). It has been confirmed by the experts on cuneiform sources, that the word “tinûru“ (Benzinger 1974; Bottéro & Meadow 2004) was known to the Akkadians and Assyrians (Symons 2000), to whom it meant “oven, kiln” (see Fig. 2). The term can be found for example in recipes described in Yale cuneiform tablets (Bottéro & Meadow 2004). Other important sources are the Hebrew Bible (Avitsur 1977; Symons 2000; King & Stager 2001) and the Jewish Law (Forbes 1966), where the term “tannur” can be encountered much later, followed by mentions in the Muslim Qur´an and the introduction of the term into Arabic language (Jeffery et al. 1938).

1.3. Shifts in space and meaning

The way of the word into the modern Arabic language has been the subject of several discussions. While some philologers considers it to be a Persian loan-word, others ,naar~ fire)1. These authors) نار have argued for its Arabic origin from the root however, seem to be overseeing the Akkadian “ancestor” of the word from some ~ ”fa33ūl“) فعول reason. This judgment is also opposed by the fact that the verb form “tannūr”) is not a genuine Arabic form at all (Jeffery et al. 1938, 93). The word could also have come from the Aram, or from Hebrew. The fact is that nowadays the word is common in Semitic languages (Arabic, Hebrew) as well as Iranian, Armenian, and the

1For details of the discussion over the origin of the term „tannūr“, see Jeffery et al. 1938, 92-95 4

Turkic language family (Turkish, Azeri and Uzbek). This brings us to the question of cartographic distribution of different spelling variants of the term. It has been noted by several authors (namely Symons 2000; Bottéro & Meadow 2004; Behnstedt 2009 etc.) that there is a lot of variability in geographic distribution of the term, just like it is with the object itself. The following table (Fig. 1) and an adjacent map (Fig. 3) show the most common variants along with their distribution in the area of Middle East and India.

The original meaning of the word „oven, kiln“ has gained additional abstract sense in the Qur´an, where the term is used to describe “surface of the Earth“, “the highest part of the Earth“, “morning light“ as well as “oven“ (Jeffery et al. 1938, 93). Today the term refers to a certain type of bread oven, but it can also mean “oven” in general.

Other words are sometimes used as synonymous with “tannur”- namely “furn” and “tabun”. These, however, might in fact be referring to different fire installations (see chapter 3.4) - in order to understand the meanings of the words, we need to be aware of their use in specific regions and dialects of the Near East. According to Behnstedt (2009, 69), the forms “ṭabūn ~ ṭabūna ~ ṭabōna” are commonly preferred in Upper Egypt, Sudan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia and also Yemen (Behnstedt 2009, 69). In some cases they refer to a specific kind of bread oven (bell-shaped oven), different from “tannur” (see chapter 3.4), but sometimes the people are simply using this term as synonym instead of “tannur”. The form “tannur” is used in the Levant, Iraq, Saudi- Arabia, the Gulf, Yemen, Anatolia, but also in Uzbekistan, plus occasionally also in Maghreb (Behnstedt 2009, 70).

The term “furn” is common in North Africa, and in Syria it is also common, but while in some regions it might mean another fire installation (different from both “tannur” and “tabun”), in others, such above mentioned Syria, it is rather used to name “public bakery” (Behnstedt 2009, 70). Other names for ovens in Arabic language (with their meanings again varying region from region) are: “kūša ~ kōša” (for more information see Behnstedt 2009, 70), “māfi ~ mawfā ~ madfē”, which might be translated as “oven for drinks” (Gingrich 1984 quoted by Behnstedt 2009, 71) and “ṣucd” (Behnstedt 2009, 71). A map depicting the “dialectology” of the tannur-related terms can be seen in Fig. 4.

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In my thesis, I have decided to prefer the version „tannur“ for several reasons - first and foremost it seems to be the most frequent spelling used in the archaeological literature that I have worked with. The version is common, simple and without diacritics. It is the word form used in the reports of Polish excavators working on Tell Arbid and by the Czech team excavating Tell Arbid Abyad where I have taken part in an archaeological excavation. It is nevertheless important to remember that this is not the only word used in the literature for this oven type and my selection is just one of many possibilities that occur.

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Word form Region Authors

Avitsur 1977, Symons 2000, Bottéro & Tannur, tannûr, tannūr, tanur Arabic Meadow 2004

Benzinger 1974, Avitsur 1977, Waines Tannûr, tannūr, tanur Hebrew 1987, Symons 2000

Tandoor, tandur, tendoor, Indian Symons 2000, Bottéro & Meadow 2004 tendour

Tanura Iranian Bottéro & Meadow 2004

Tannūr Persian Symons 2000

Tannūrā Syriac Waines 1987

Symons 2000, Bottéro & Meadow 2004, Tandir, tandır, tanur Turkish Parker 2011

Tenner - Symons 2000

Tenur - Symons 2000

Tandyr Azerbaijan Travel Photo Report 2012

Tandīr, tandyr Uzbekistan Behnstedt 2009

Fig. 1. An overview of commonly used variants of the term “tannur” according to regions

Word Use Authors

Tinûru Akkadian Bottéro & Meadow 2004

Tinūru, tinûru Assyrian Benzinger 1974, Symons 2000

Turuna / dilina Archaic form Bottéro & Meadow 2004

Tannur Biblical form King & Stager 2001

Tinûru Ancient Egyptian Benzinger 1974

Fig. 2. An overview of archaic forms of the term “tannur”

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Fig. 3. Tannur dialectology. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com 8

Fig. 4. Dialectology of “bread oven” terms. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com, modified after: Behnstedt 2009

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1.4. Tannur or tannur-like?

As a precaution I have decided to use the expression “tannur-like” instead of “tannur” in this thesis to indicate that the excavated remains of circular ovens interpreted as tannurs (without a preexisting generally accepted definition) might not represent exactly the same type of oven as we know it from ethnographic sources. Also, most excavators do not take into account that there might be more types of ovens similar to tannurs which might easily be confused with these. Without enough evidence we should not claim that an oven from a certain period in the past is a “tannur” (i.e. bread oven commonly used in contemporary Near East). The excavated fire installation might remind us of a tannur because of its physical properties, but we cannot prove it with enough certainty and that is why the term “tannur-like” seems more appropriate.

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2. Current state of research

The beginnings of research of bread ovens fall within the 20th century. The very first works that have dealt with bread making with main emphasis on its symbolism, traditions, superstitions and folklore, but already included some valuable information on tannur-like bread ovens, were focused on the area of Palestine (Masterman 1901; Canaan 1962), Lebanon (Canaan 1962; Forbes 1966). These early works already emphasized the role of ethnographic observations in the archaeological studies of domestic architecture, and noticed several parallels between the similarly constructed bread ovens in contemporary Near Eastern households and ancient ones.

Later in 1973, Matina Weinstein published an article about the ethnoarchaeological research in the village of Aşvan (Turkey) which includes an interesting typology of fire installations from the site, and one of the first examples of ethnoarchaeological research on domestic architecture. The study itself lasted for two summer months in 1972 and three main techniques were applied - observation, participant observation and interviews (Weinstein 1973). Weinstein was able to collect data on many aspects of daily life, with an emphasis on information that could be relevant to archaeological problems. Several kinds of ovens were observed and described in the article.

Subsequently in 1977, an article of Shmuel Avitsur was published about Ancient Israel (in this article, a helpful typology of bread ovens is to be found. The sources of information come from personal ethnographic experience of the author, who is of NE origin, and from the Bible). All of the research on bread ovens to this point was already emphasizing the ethnoarchaeological method of investigation, it usually dealt (to a high degree) with tradition and symbolism, and the articles usually use detailed Arab/Hebrew terminology. First definitions and categorizations were already introduced, and the authors were aware of more variants of Near Eastern bread ovens, such as tabuns or saj pans.

In the region of Iraq, Harriet Crawford was the first one to study the bread ovens and publish an archaeological report about them in 1981. In 1982, a book of another pioneer of ethnology, Carol Kramer, who mentioned traditional ways of oven building at the Iranian village of Aliabad, was published as another strong contributor to the investigation of domestic architecture. David Waines wrote another article focusing on Iraq, this time emphasizing the symbolism of bread ovens (Waines 1987). 11

The 90s brought works focused on Levant (Van der Steen 1991) and Mesopotamia (Krafeld-Daugherty 1994), both oriented towards ethnoarchaeology and domestic architecture - Van der Steen has used ethno historical models based on Late Ottoman parallels from the region and Maria Krafeld-Daugherty pays attention to ancient domestic architecture based on excavated remains with respect to traditional architecture in the Near East from Uruk period to the end of the Babylonian period. Later in 1994, Alison McQuitty came with her ethnographic and archaeological study of clay ovens in Jordan, she is also the author of another important article “Ovens in town and country“ (McQuitty 1994) - in this one she tries to compare her ethnographic conclusions with the situation excavated at two Post-Byzantine sites Aqaba/Ayla and Khirbet Faris. She has dealt with archaeological remains of ovens in a great detail and developed a useful strategy of excavating them, which she applied to her own work.

The pioneer of research of bread ovens in Syria was Noor Mulder-Heymans, who published a detailed ethnoarchaeological study in 2002 and conducted an experiment of reconstructing a tannur kind of bread oven. On the basis of her investigations, she produced a worksheet to maximize the information potential gained from excavations and summarized the state of knowledge on contemporary bread making practices in modern Syria. Mulder-Heymans precisely documented techniques of construction of clay ovens and their variants, and she also recorded their social function.

By now we can still see that the work on bread ovens is still focused on ethnoarchaeology, but it has somehow moved away from symbolism, traditions and story-like descriptions to become more scientifically oriented and archaeological. Also, importance of experiment and reconstruction has been noticed by many researchers and teams (Kurata 1998; Mulder-Heymans 2002; Akar 2007; Parker 2011).

In 2003, an ethnoarchaeological study of bread baking in Highland Ethiopia came out, providing interesting analogies with the Near East and a comparison with another part of the world for the first time (Lyons & D'Andrea 2003). A similar article is the study by Randi Haaland (2007), in which he chooses to compare Africa with the Near East. These authors have also tried to trace a chronological development of bread making traditions, which is not a new phenomenon, but now it is done more systematically.

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Later in 2004, we can find two very different works that give us information about the tannurs. Firstly it is Jean Bottéro´s book about cuisine and cooking practices in Mesopotamia, written in a style of popular science, which provides interesting details, but in a rather popular, easy style - it means to entertain the reader with intriguing information about something very close to a modern human - food (Bottéro & Meadow 2004). Ovens are a subject of one of the chapters of the book, and the book itself is a good starting point for someone interested in the topic, yet it is not a scientific paper and it is not that useful for archaeologists. On the other hand, Ben Cookson (2004), author of a brief ethnoarchaeological article published at Bilkent University (Turkey), tries to summarize and systematically organize the knowledge on tannurs- this one was written by an archaeologist for archaeologists. The main scope of the article is Syria and Turkey, and the author studies both ethnographic and archaeological evidence.

Recently, in 2007, a new question related to the investigation of bread ovens, was opened by Carol Meyers (2007). It is the issue of gender and meaning. Bradley Parker (2011) has also discussed the gender analogy in this respect in his ethnoarchaeological study of bread ovens (focused on Southeastern Turkey). It can be said, with some caution, that more attention is paid to the previously neglected areas of Syria and Turkey, which offer a great base for ethnoarchaeological studies (there has been an increase of archaeological projects and the tradition of tannur bread making is still vivid in rural parts of the countries). In 2008, the archaeologist Dorota Ławecka has described the whole corpus of Bronze Age ovens from Tell Arbid (Syria) in her archaeological report, this time the article is not ethnoarchaeological, although the author mentions some analogies from contemporary village of Tell Arbid that helped the archaeologists with their interpretation of the features. This article is somehow similar to the one by Harriet Crawford (1981) about Abu Salabikh, Iraq. For Southeastern Turkey, we can consider Bradley Parker (2011) to be the pioneer of ethnoarchaeological investigation of bread ovens - his study offers a detailed and modern (use of 3D reconstructions) approach to the subject and the author evaluates all the bread ovens excavated at Kenan Tepe throughout the whole duration of the site (Ubaid – Early Iron Age). A return to the previously intensely studied area of Palestine is offered in a dissertation by Adam Jonathan Aja (2009), another ethnoarchaeological study of domestic architecture.

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In the past two decades, more attention has been drawn to ancient cooking practices and to the studies of fire installations through the so-called food archaeology (main topic of international meeting “Bread, Hearths and Ovens of the past - Pain, Fours et Foyers des temps passés” in 1995) and Archaeology of Fire (one of the main themes at 8ICAANE in Warsaw, 2012).

2.1. Khabur region- state of knowledge

For the region of Khabur Valley, which is the main scope of my thesis, only one relevant, specialized work about tannurs has been written so far - the article of Noor Mulder-Heymans (2002), who has been conducting her ethnoarchaeological research in various regions of Syria, Khabur region included. Apart from this article, I have only encountered scattered evidence on tannurs among various archaeological reports. These often list tannurs among architectonic features, but never provide their definition and in most cases they do not give detailed information at all. The most detailed is a report on fire installations by Dorota Ławecka (2008) from Tell Arbid. Very recently in 2012, a french thesis “Vallée du Khabour. Quartiers d'habitation et premiers moments de l'urbanisme en Mésopotamie du Nord” was published (Sánchez 2012), concentrating on domestic architecture in the Khabur region between the Neolithic and the second millennium BC. In this thesis, several mentions of tannurs from various sites in the Khabur region occurred and it provided me with a list of sites in the Khabur where some fire installations were interpreted as tannurs. Unfortunately, the thesis does not focus on these tannur-like ovens in much detail and in this regard I preferred to look for information directly in archaeological reports from the sites. The main source of my information about tannur-like ovens from the Khabur region were archaeological reports from the sites of Late Neolithic Tell Chagar Bazar (Cruells et al, in press), Late Chalcolithic Tell Brak (Emberling & McDonald 2000-2009) and Tell Hamoukar (Gibson 2000; Colantoni & Ur 2011). Evidence about fire installations dated to the Bronze Age comes from Tell Arbid (Ławecka 2008), Tell Beydhar (Lebeau 2006), Tell Fekheriyeh (Bartl 2010), Tell Gudeda (Routledge 1998), Tell Leilan (Forrest & Mori 2007), Tell Mozan (Bucellati & Bucellati 2007) and Tell Ziyadeh (Hole 1999). Neoassyrian, Roman, Parthian and Hellenistic Tell Barri (Pecorella 2003; Pecorella & Pierobon-Benoit 2004; Pecorella & Pierobon-Benoit 2005- preliminary reports from excavation seasons 2000-2002).

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2.2. Summary

The main scope of the bibliography about bread ovens in the Near East that I have worked with for the purposes of this thesis can be divided into several major themes or issues:

 bread and bread making, foodways, food archaeology (Samuel 2000)

 ethno-archaeological research of bread ovens (van der Steen 1991; McQuitty 1994; Mulder-Heymans 2002; Parker 2011)

 etymology, dialectology of the term “tannur” (dictionaries, linguistic works) (King & Stager 2001; Behnstedt 2009)

 experiments of oven building (Mulder-Heymans 2002; Al-Othman & Galan 2003; Akar 2007; Parker 2011)

 general archeological reports with occasional mentions of bread ovens (e.g. Emberling & McDonald 2000-2009, Pecorella 2003; Pecorella & Pierobon- Benoit 2004 – 2005, etc.)

 social and gender aspects of bread ovens (Meyers 2007; Parker 2011)

 specialised archaeological reports about fire installations which describe bread ovens as architectural features (Crawford 1981; Ławecka 2008)

 symbolism of bread ovens (Masterman 1901; Waines 1987)

 typologies of Near Eastern bread ovens, other variants of bread ovens (Canaan 1962; Forbes 1966; Weinstein 1973; Avitsur 1977; Mulder-Heymans 2002; Cookson 2004; Aja 2009)

The works that were utilized for the purposes of this thesis, are dealing with evidence from the following regions of the Near East:

 Syria (e.g. Mulder-Heymans 2002; Ławecka 2008)  Turkey (e.g. Weinstein 1973; Parker 2011)  Iraq (e.g. Crawford 1981; Waines 1987)  Iran (e.g. Kramer 1975)

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 Israel (e.g. Avitsur 1977; Meyers 2007)  Jordan (McQuitty 1994)  Egypt (Samuel 2000), Africa (Lyons & D´Andrea 2003; Haaland 2007)

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3. Tannur-like ovens and their physical properties (ethnographic evidence)

In this chapter and the following subchapters I would like to use ethnographic and ethno-archaeological evidence to address the question of tannur-like ovens and their physical properties. As you can see from a brief table in Fig. 5, I am using information collected primarily from the sources written in the timespan of the past six decades. During this time, much has been changed in the contemporary Near East and the traditional ways of bread making are rapidly disappearing (Mulder-Heymans 2002). Therefore the findings of scholars from the 20th century might not be relevant any more and they need to be reevaluated and confronted with newer investigations. Observations of tannurs and the traditional ways of bread making in the 21st century are usually limited to the rural areas, but they exist and several scientific papers have been dealing with the topic. The discussed definitions of the tannurs were developed on the basis of investigations in various regions of the Near East (Fig. 5) and in some cases the authors tried to apply their ethnographic definitions to interpret archaeological evidence of tannur-like ovens from excavated sites, such as cAqaba/Ayla and Khirbet Faris (McQuitty 1994), Tell Hadar (Mulder-Heymans 2002), Kenan Tepe (Parker 2011) and Tell Halif (Frank 2011).

Author Year Type Region Described Archaeological analogy

Forbes 1966 E Lebanon, Iraq and northern Galilei, Palestine excavations in Palestine

Avitsur 1977 E/A Israel -

cAqaba/Ayla and Khirbet McQuitty 1994 E/A Jordan Faris, Jordan (Post- Byzantine)

Krafeld-Daugherty 1994 E/A Mesopotamia -

Mulder-Heymans 2002 E Syria Tel Hadar, Israel (Iron Age)

Middle East (other variants also in North Symons 2003 E - Africa and northern India)

Lyons and D'Andrea 2003 E Ethiopia, Near East -

Kenan Tepe, Turkey (Ubaid- Parker 2011 E/A SE Anatolia Early Iron Age)

Frank 2011 E/A Palestine Tell Halif, Israel (Iron Age)

Fig. 5. An overview of authors who provided ethnographic (E) or ethnoarchaeological (E/A) definitions of tannurs

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3.1. Shape and form

Tannur is a type of furnace which is defined, in terms of construction, primarily by its specific shape, form and material. Secondary features that are discussed in this chapter are the average measurements of tannur ovens in various regions of the Near East, namely the diameter of the base and height of the ovens, as well as diameter of the opening.

Before I move on to discuss the particular categories, it is crucial to mention that when I am talking about the shape and form of the tannur, I mean the oven core. The tannur ovens are usually made up of two main components - the clay oven core and its surrounding structure made of mud or mudbricks (Parker 2011). According to Parker, the core is the most important part of the oven - “higher quality cores are less susceptible to breakage and fragmentation and, since this is the hottest part of the oven, higher quality cores last longer. The quality of the core is also important because flat bread dough is stuck to its inside for baking. Users claim that bread dough sticks better to higher quality cores and thus higher quality cores have a lower rate of bread loss“ (Parker 2011, 606). The mudbrick structure is not necessary for the normal functioning of the fire installation and although it is quite common (McQuitty 1994; Mulder-Heymans 2002; Parker 2011), it does not have to be built. The main functions of the superstructure are improved support and better heat consumption, but it can also serve as a working space (Mulder-Heymans 2002). Mudbrick superstructures are known from SE Anatolia (Parker 2011), Aççana village in SE Anatolia (Akar 2007), Tell Beydhar village in Khabur region (Al-Othman & Galan 2003), Khabur Valley (Mateicucová pers. comm.; Mulder-Heymans 2002) and Damascus area (Mulder-Heymans 2002; here the superstructure was made of stone, cement blocks and tiles). In Fig. 7 we can see the experimentally built tannur made by Tell Arbid Czech archaeological mission with its mudbrick superstructure (Mateiciucová and Wilding pers. comm. in 2012). The core of this tannur was laid with sherds and stones to ensure better isolation and stability.

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Fig. 6. (Left) Placement of the Core on the ground and on the layer of stones, (Right) Inclination of a tannur

Fig. 7. Tannur core inside an unfinished superstructure. Tell Arbid (M. Wilding 2008)

It is also important to remember that the tannur core is put on the ground rather than attached to it (Fig. 6, left) - the core is deliberately placed to a selected spot which might differ from the place where the oven was built (e.g. the manufacturer might produce the core and sell it to a family, who will take it home and place it in their courtyard). The core can either be put directly on the ground, or on a circle of rocks (Fig. 8; Wilding pers. comm. in 2012). It can also be tilted (Fig. 6, right) in order to facilitate access to the top opening (therefore the layer of rocks serves as a support to get the inclination). The inclination of the core was confirmed at SE Anatolia (Parker 2011) by 25 degrees, and Mulder-Heymans (2002) mentions that tannurs at Damascus area and in the north around Aleppo were also tilted.

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Fig. 8. Separate basement of stones and a superstructure of tannur from Beydhar (Al-Othman and Galan 2003, 512) The core

When it comes to the issue of shape, most authors usually describe the tannurs either as cylindrical (Fig. 9 left, also in Forbes 1966; Avitsur 1977; Krafeld-Daugherty 1994; Lyons & D´Andrea 2003) or conical (Fig. 9 right, also in Forbes 1966; Avitsur 1977; Mulder-Heymans 2002; Lyons & D´Andrea 2003). Michael Symons describes the tannur in following words: “In shape, the classic tannur is like a barrel or beehive entered from the top” (Symons 2003, 74). Beehive shape is also mentioned by Parker (2011). It is not easy to become familiar with the flood of various descriptions and synonyms and to estimate whether we are dealing with different basic shapes of tannurs (such as cylindrical, conical, pointed, vaulted or beehive) or whether they are merely attempts to avoid rigidity and repetition in expressions. In the contemporary village of Tell Arbid, the tannur cores typically have conical shape (Mateiciucová pers. comm., also personal observation). The tannur cores can be made by the owner of the oven, but they can also be bought in the market (for example in Qamishli - Mateiciucová pers.comm. in 2012).

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Fig. 9. Cylindrical shape (Left), conical shape (Right)

Ground plan

The ground plan of the tannur core is usually round (Parker 2011; Frank 2011; Mateicucová pers. comm. in 2012). In most reports, however, the shape of ground plan is not explicitly mentioned- therefore the assumption that the tannurs have circular ground plan has to be either deduced from the photo documentation provided by the authors, or from the fact that cylindrical form presumes a round base. Fig. 10 shows simplified drawings of ground plans of tannurs with attached superstructures.

Fig. 10. Ground plans of tannur cores with superstructures

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Material

Various authors seem to agree that the tannur is a clay fire installation. Various inclusions might be added to the clay in order to improve its qualities, such as chaff (McQuitty 1994), goat or sheep hair (McQuitty 1994; Mulder-Heymans 2002), small pebbles (McQuitty 1994), quartz (McQuitty 1994), burlap (Mulder-Heymans 2002) and grit (Mulder-Heymans 2002). The core can also be plastered (Avitsur 1977; Lyons & D´Andrea 2003; Parker 2011). According to Kramer (1975, 99), the clay was mixed with salt and/or goat hair in order to minimize cracking. Sherds could be attatched to the coating of the oven to strengthen the walls and consume heat (Parker 2011, see also p. 18). At Tell Arbid, salt and goat hair is added to the clay (Mateiciucová & Wilding, pers. comm. in 2012)

Openings- mouth and eye of the oven

There are usually two openings in a tannur oven (Fig. 11). There is a bigger opening on the top of the oven which might be called the loading hole or the “mouth” (Forbes 1966). Via this hole, the bread dough was inserted and stuck onto the heated walls in order to be baked. The other opening was much smaller and it was located at the base of the oven - this we can call a ventilation hole, or an “eye” of the oven (Forbes 1966; Symons 2003; Fig. 11). This opening assured proper air circulation in the oven and was used for fueling and removal of ashes (the embers needed to be raked out before baking). Mulder-Heymans notes that in some cases “there is a tiny hole on the backside bottom for bringing extra air” (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 2). Fig. 12 shows a tannur manufacturer in Tell Arbid cutting the bottom hole into experimentally made tannur core (I. Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2012).

Fig. 11. Depiction of openings of tannur oven

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Fig. 12. Tannur manufacturer in Tell Arbid cutting the bottom hole into experimentally made tannur core. The tannur was made in 2007 and it was installed at the excavation house of Czech team in 2008 (Photo: I. Mateiciucová)

Average size

Most authors do not provide average measurements in the studied ethnographical and ethnoarchaeological works. Although some estimations have been proposed on the basis of the authors´ ethnographic investigations, these reports are either quite old (e.g. in case of Forbes 1966), or they are restricted to a rather small region compared to the area in which the tannurs occur (e.g. Parker 2011 for SE Anatolia, Mulder-Heymans 2002 for Syria, but no information about marginal zones such as Azerbaijan or Uzbekistan). In case of Frank (2011) only one example of a tannur was measured. It would therefore not be relevant to generalize the following estimations of average size as typical for the given areas. Judging from the current state of research and the limited data that we have at our disposition, we might say that the tannur cores are around 40 cm (Mulder-Heymans 2002) / 50 cm (Forbes 1966) to 80 cm (Parker 2011) in diameter at the base and 70 (Forbes 1966) / 80 (Parker 2011) - 100 cm (Forbes 1966, Mulder-Heymans 2002) high. In the contemporary village of Tell Arbid, the tannur cores are usually 60-70 cm in diameter. The experimentally made tannur from 2007 (Fig. 12) was smaller than typical tannurs from this area, it was ca. 60 cm in diameter and it was 50 – 60 cm high (Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2012). Bigger tannurs might occur as well, such as the example from (Mulder-Heymans 2001). In 23

some cases the people can also use smaller tannurs, which might even be portable. Mulder-Heymans (2002, 21) concludes that the small tabun was movable, although in this respect she does not mention if the situation in contemporary Syria is the same in case of small tannurs, although for example Bottéro emphasizes the fitted position of an “immovable” tannur: “Constructed solidly and attached to the ground, the tinuru itself was not transportable-unless it was destroyed!” (Bottéro & Meadow 2004, 48; see also Reynolds 2008).

In a book Yemen by A. Hestler and J.-A. Spilling (2010) we can read that young girls practice on smaller tannurs before they progress to larger ones which require more skill in the bread making process (Hestler and Spilling 2010, 126)2. In other cases, the size might depend on the manufacturer of the core (when the ovens are produced by a certain specialist who has the know-how about the long-proven size) or it might depend on the level and intensity of oven´s usage- the smaller ovens might have served the needs at a family level, while the big ones were well suited for communal baking. Due to the fact that the tannurs can come in different sizes, it would take long- term and large-scale investigations in vast areas to see any generalized trend in various regions. All we can say is that their diameter is always slightly larger at the base than at the rim (Frank 2011).

Fig. 13 provides an overview of the above mentioned characteristics of the ethnographically investigated tannur ovens in the Near East sorted according to their references.

2 In archaeology, this could be one of the explanations of various sizes of tannurs, if they are found at the same site 24

Ground Author Year Measurements Material Openings Form plan Cylindrical or slightly conical, partly sunk about 70 to 100 into the earth cm high and 50 *other variant Forbes 1966 round (*d) clay (*d) mouth and "eye" to 60 cm in cylindrical or diameter eggshaped, sometimes even pointed or vaulted plaster, clay, top opening, Avitsur 1977 round (*d) Cylindrical or conical stones bottom opening clay, mud/marl, temper (chaff, Often with McQuitty 1994 round (*d) goat or sheep top opening (*d) superstructure, built hair, small above ground pebbles and quartz) Cylindrical with Krafeld- top opening, 1994 round (*d) clay upwardly tapering Daugherty bottom opening walls top opening, bottom opening, Mulder- 40-50 cm wide, clay, hair, 2002 round (*d) sometimes Slightly conical Heymans 1 m high burlap, grit additional one in the back top opening, Symons 2003 round (*d) clay optional bottom Barrel (beehive) opening (eye) clay, Lyons & top opening, 2003 round (*d) various mudplaster, Cylinders or cones D'Andrea bottom opening bricks 60 and 80 cm in diameter at Core (beehive their base and Opening at the top shaped hollow average 80 cm clay, pisé, mud, Parker 2011 round (the loading hole), dome) + in height. The sherds bottom opening mud/mudbrick opening at the structure top averages 40 cm in diameter 49 cm at the base and 47 cm Slightly larger wide at rim, 64 Frank 2011 round clay top opening diameter at the base cm high (one than at the rim specific example) Fig. 13. Overview of defining characteristics of tannurs- shape and form

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3.2. Use and function

It is without question that when we are talking about tannur bread ovens, we automatically suppose that their primary function was baking. Unfortunately, without finds of actual bread loaves in situ that would make us sure about the function of the ovens, we can only guess what their original function was. Useful hints are offered by ethnological parallels, and also by cuneiform sources which already mentioned the “tinūru” ovens in association with bread baking (Bottéro & Meadow 2004).

Present day tannurs are used to bake flatbread, a simple kind of bread made with flour, water and salt. This bread is unleavened (Bottéro & Meadow 2004 - Parker 2011)3. The process of traditional bread making is described by Delwen Samuel: „The dough of bread when it is cold is shaped into flat discs and rubbed with some water before being slapped onto the hot inner wall where they adhere until they are baked by the stored heat.“ (Samuel 2000, 566)

It seems that the primary function of the tannurs was probably that of a domestic cooking installation. Except for baking, it could also be utilized in other food preparation practices, e.g. pots could very well be placed on top of the tannur in order to cook food and boil water. Meat could be roasted in the oven (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 2). The ovens could also be used for heating. Last, but not the least, when an oven was no longer used for baking, it might have served as a litter bin or a container (personal observation from Tell Arbid village).

The tannurs could be located either outside or inside the houses. Their presence or absence might reflect a change in cooking activities (Parker 2011). If the ovens were both indoors and outdoors, it might indicate the fact that they were used in different seasons of the year - an outdoor oven would be used in warm weather, and an indoor oven in winter (Parker 2011), when it would also serve as source of heat. The bread ovens could be freestanding or attached to a wall, in latter case the walls surrounding the oven could serve as a protection from wind. Another explanation for indoor/outdoor location of ovens is that some of them might have been communal and the other ones might have served the needs at a family level. This kind of oven is

3 However, at Tell Arbid, leavened bread is baked in the tannurs (Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2012) 26

primarily a domestic one, but it might be shared at a family or neighborhood level (Parker 2011).

Since the wood in the Near-eastern region is nowadays scarce and precious, the people often use cow manure (Kramer 1975 - Aliabad; Mulder-Heymans 2002 - Hauran and Jebel Druze area; Al-Othman & Galan 2003 - Tell Beydhar; Akar 2007 - Aççana; Parker 2011 - SE Anatolia) and donkey, goat or sheep excrements (Mateiciucová 2010 - Tell Arbid) as a fuel, and even plastic bottles (Mateiciucová 2010 - Tell Arbid), which is not very healthy, but efficient. In some cases, wood (Fig. 144) or cotton plant wood is available (Mulder-Heymans 2002 - Khabur, Euphrates river areas; Akar 2007 - Aççana). Straw is also used (Al-Othman & Galan 2003 - Tell Beydhar; Parker 2011 - SE Anatolia), as well as coal (Al-Othman & Galan 2003 - Tell Beydhar). Forbes also mentions dregs of pressed olives as a fuel (Forbes 1966, 64).

It should also be noted that tannur and tabun ovens (other variant of bread oven, see chapter 3.4.) were fuelled differently- in case of tannur, the fuel was put inside the core (Mulder-Heymans 2002), while in the second case the fuel was put around the bread oven to heat it thoroughly (Mulder-Heymans 2002).

Fig. 14. Tannur with burning wood in its interior (M. Wilding)

Fig. 15 provides an overview of the above mentioned characteristics of the ethnographically investigated tannur ovens in the Near East sorted according to their references.

4 The experimental tannur from Tell Arbid (see p. 23) was burned during its first firing- first firing was done prior to the baking process 27

Fuelling Author Year Use (context) Fuel Function technique

wood, straw, twigs and in the house or in the baking, other food Forbes 1966 shrubs or the inside courtyard preparation dregs of pressed olives

always fixed in one inside at Avitsur 1977 place, not easily wood bread making the bottom portable

wood, brushwood, dung, roots, inside at McQuitty 1994 domestic bread making, cooking chaff, olive the bottom pulp, modern ones use gas

sunk into the ground, incorporated into a manure, Krafeld- inside at 1994 Lehmbank (working bushes, straw, bread making Daugherty the bottom table), or freestanding rarely wood in a room or yard

in a courtyard, household use, preferably in the manure corner, but also (cowdo), all Mulder- inside at bread making, cooking, 2002 freestanding examples kinds of wood Heymans the bottom boiling water, roasting meat in the field (used by (i.e. cotton nomads?), sometimes plant) in ovenhouse, also factory tannurs in cities

wood, domestic, might charcoal, or inside at Symons 2003 become communal to bread making dung-and- the bottom save fuel straw cakes

animal dung, mixtures of Lyons and freestanding/ set into 2003 dung, reeds, inside bread making D'Andrea benches or floors and wood, chopped straw

usually outside of house compounds in an oven shelter, individually or Parker 2011 inside specifically for baking bread communally owned (saving fuel), NE Anatolia: tannurs located indoors (heat)

Frank 2011 domestic inside bread making

Fig. 15. Overview of defining characteristics of tannurs - use and function

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3.3. Tannur variants

Based on ethnographic observations presented in the studied literature, it must be held that the tannurs in the Near East occur in several variations. The two basic variants that can be distinguished are the following (Seyedin-Dijojin, pers. comm. in 2012):

 a tannur positioned in a pit in the ground (baker is in sitting position)

 a tannur built above ground (baker in standing position)

The first variant- ovens sunk in the floor- were mentioned also by Kramer (1975, 99) who attested these in the Iranian village of Aliabad, and by Digard (who calls them “tanirs”, Digard 1981, 178-179; see Figs. 16 and 17). Krafeld-Daugherty mentions underground tannurs attested at modern Boĝazköy, Alişam and Takht-I Suleiman in Turkey and provides their sketches and detailed cross-section drawings (1994). In case that the tannur is fully placed under the ground and its top opening is thus at the level of the floor (half-sunk variant is mentioned by Mulder-Heymans 2002), it has a tunnel- like shaft for air (Kramer 1975, 99). This shaft is named “dâmadon” (Digard 1981. In Fig. 18 we can see variants of tannurs according to Dalman (1932).

Fig.16 Sunk variant of tannur (Digard 1981) - tanir

Fig. 17. Underground tannurs (Kramer 1975)

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The second variant built above ground seems to be more common and widespread, and it has been studied for example by Mulder-Heymans (2002) and Parker (2011). This variant is the more common one in Syria (Mateiciucová pers. comm. in 2012)

In addition to this rough division into two main groups, further subtle differences can be distinguished which are related to the ways of the tannur use. In this regard, we can distinguish three pairs of variations, based on: permanence of the location, position of the core and degree of core´s inclination.

Permanence of the location:

 moveable - smaller, portable tannurs- they might be used by nomadic populations due to the fact that they are not difficult to carry (Forbes 1966)  immobile - permanently fitted in a selected spot (Bottéro & Meadow 2004)

Position of the core:

 attached tannurs - tannurs with superstructure/working table, sometimes attached to wall for protection and insulation, or places in the corner  freestanding tannurs - according to Mulder- Heymans (2002) these occur in the Khabur region and since they are usually located away from settlements in the fields, she supposes that they are probably commonly used by semi- nomadic populations, or agriculture workers who spend a considerable amount of time away from home.

Degree of core´s inclination:

 tilted (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 14; Parker 2011, 609; also Mateiciucová pers. comm. and personal observation) - tannurs with inclined core. The inclination of the core helps the baker to access the top opening with ease. My assumption is that especially the bigger cores are usually to be inclined, while the smaller ones might remain upright without any loss of efficiency.  upright tannurs

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Last, but not the least, Mulder-Heymans (2002) attested yet another unusual variation of the common tannurs, which she calls tannurs with neck. She has documented this variation in the Khabur region and she believes that this “neck” could serve as additional protection against bad wind (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 16)

Fig. 18. Five variants of tannurs according to Dalman (after Forbes 1963, quoting Dalman 1932)

3.4. Other types of bread ovens

Apart from the fact that the tannur as a fire installation can occur in more variations, it has also been confirmed that more varieties of bread ovens except the tannurs are utilized in the contemporary Near East. The feature most similar to the tannur is called tabun (Fig. 19). Let us see what the difference is between these two kinds of bread ovens. Noor Mulder Heymans (2002) produced operable definitions of tannur and tabun ovens based on her ethnoarchaeological investigations in Syria. I have created a simple table to pinpoint the main differences she sees between the two kinds of features (Fig. 20).

Fig. 19. Tabun (Photo: Frank 2011)

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Fig. 20. Differences between tannur and tabun according to Mulder-Heymans (2002)

Mulder-Heymans sees the tannur and tabun as two different features (Fig. 20), with different size and shape, but her main argument is that the two types are used to bake two different kinds of bread. She also notes that the two kinds of ovens are used in different areas (although sometimes also next to each other) - she writes that tannur is used in northern part of Palestine and in Lebanon (Mulder-Heymans 2002), but she does not precisely state, which areas use the tabun instead. It can partially be deduced from her article that the tabun is commonly used in Hauran and Jebel Druze areas in Syria (see Fig. 35), but we do not know whether she attested them in other areas as well - either she does not mention it, or she did not observe the practice. In her article, Mulder-Heymans (2002) provides us with simplified drawings of tannur and tabun, to be seen in Figure 21:

Fig. 21. (Left) Tannur, (Right) Tabun (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 3)

Other difference is that while the fuel can be the same in both cases, wood is a preferred kind of fuel in tannurs and manure is more common for tabuns (this is her ethnographical observation). This definition is perhaps not easy to be applied to all the archaeological situations from different periods and to sometimes very poorly 32

preserved installations dating back to as early as the Late Neolithic. We have to keep in mind that observations of Mulder-Heymans (2002) only apply to more or less current situation in modern villages of various regions in the Near East, although she proceeded in comparing her findings to bread ovens excavated at Tell Hadar (Israel). The disadvantage of the definitions proposed by Mulder-Heymans (2002) is that they are vague in statements about area of occurrence. Mulder-Heymans does not mention different fuelling technique of tabun and tannur (also in her drawings the fuel is positioned inside tabun and tannur ovens- Fig. 21).

Another definition of tannurs and tabuns is provided by T. Canaan (1962). Figure 22 shows the main points of his comparison of tannurs and tabuns.

Fig. 22. Differences between tannur and tabun after Canaan (1962)

It is obvious that the two kinds of bread ovens seem to be quite similar. According to Mulder-Heymans (2002), they are used to bake slightly different bread. On the other hand, Canaan (1962) emphasizes that the firing technique of tabun is different, because it is done on the outside of the oven (the fuel is not put inside the oven like in a tannur). Another difference is in the areas of use - both Mulder-Heymans (2002) and Canaan (1962) mention that the tannur is used in different regions than tabun. Is it because people in various places use different names for their bread ovens, or were these really two kinds of fire installations that can be recognized and studied as two separate units with structural differences? If so, and if we agree with the hypothesis that the tabun and tannur ovens existed in past as two kinds of bread ovens, they can easily be mistaken, especially when the feature that we excavate is in bad state of preservation. In that case, a reliable method of distinction between the tannur and tabun ovens should be proposed in order to enable their proper recognition and description by excavators.

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Fig. 23.Tabun- a), b), c) Possible ways of bread baking, d) Firing on the outside, e) Openings (a,b,c,e inspired by Mulder-Heymans, pers. comm. in 2012; d by Canaan 1962)

Yet another helpful definition of tabun and tannur, applicable to archaeological remains, is introduced by Adam Jonathan Aja (2009) in his dissertation on „Philistine Domestic Architecture in the Iron Age I“ (Fig. 24). Here again, the contrast is in fuelling methods of the two installations. The fuel of tabun is placed on the outside and the bread cooked in the heated interior (Fig. 23 a,d). If the fire is built inside the tabun, the ash must be cleaned out before the dough is put in, because the bread is baked on the floor rather than on the wall, like in case of tannur.

Fig. 24. Differences between tannur and tabun after Aja (2009)

R.J. Forbes (1966) relates the word ṭȃbȗn to the Arabic taban and Hebrew ṭȃman, meaning “to hide”- this is because the bread dough is baked inside oven, and not in contact with the ashes. The following reference on the tabun comes from his book:

“The simplest form is an inverted open dish, some 80 cm in diameter, about 26 cm high and with a wall diameter of 3 cm. At the top there is an opening, some 26 cm in diameter with an 8 cm flat rim to hold a pottery lid. It is heated from the outside by covering it with dung or other fuel which is set alight” (Forbes 1966, 64).

Avitsur (1977) has come with an explanation of the invention of this type of oven - he states that the tabun was developed to overcome shortage of wood fuel, caused by excessive increase in population and consequent deforestation during 3rd-7th century AD (Avitsur 1977, 239). The invention of tabun (which was, according to Avitsur, not

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sudden, but rather gradual) came as a solution to the need to use substitute fuels (Avitsur 1977, 240). Tabun can burn even low-grade burnable materials and it is fired externally.

McQuitty (1994) disagrees with the argument that the tabun is fired externally - she states that the fire is built on the floor of the tabun (McQuitty 1994, 56). She further notes that the tabun usually occurs in North and South Jordan. Another difference that she sees between tannur and tabun is their quality- she believes that while the material of tabun includes large amount of chaff, the tannurs are usually better made with finer fabric (McQuitty 1994, 57).

Based on the ethnographic observations done by Mulder- Heymans (2002) and other researchers in contemporary Syria (and other areas in the Near East), there seems to be a distinction between two very similar bread oven models. In order to avoid confusion in the use of the local terms (the words are used differently in different areas, but sometimes they might function as synonyms) and misinterpretation of archaeological record, the archaeologists should try (in the future) to establish firm definitions of the tabun-like and tannur-like ovens, based on their structural differences such as the wall angle and form. Fuelling techniques (dung/straw, inside/outside) should be clarified and documented, because the way of fuelling might be a relevant indicator of the oven type. Unfortunately, the situation of sources is by far not sufficient. Last, but not the least, a building technique of tabun and tannur is probably different as well- the angle of tabun walls indicates that the manufacturer needs a supportive construction (perhaps wickerwork) to add the clay to. The wickerwork construction is burned during the first firing. The tannur core, on the other hand, is usually built in coils, or otherwise, but without the need for support (Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2013). It must also be remembered that there might have been a considerable regional variation and we should pay more attention to the weak points the definitions to help us determin what a „typical“ tannur really is.

The question of what should be the crucial element in recognizing a tannur/tabun archaeologically therefore remains open, because we cannot identify these features with certainty by guessing their original fuelling strategy. I would like to propose a

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method based on the wall angle of the preserved features.5 When we look at some of the drawings (Fig. 21, 25 and 26) we might notice, that while the tannur is rather an open form, more cylindrical, the tabun is a closed form- its walls are in a sharp angle with the base and if the feature had a big opening on top, it would probably collapse. The strategy of future work might lead to more information on the angles of the bread oven walls. I would like to stress that this is a working hypothesis that needs further investigations. A preliminary chart of basic differences between tannur and tabun ovens is to be seen in Fig. 27.

Fig. 25. Different depictions of tabun (Forbes 1963 after Dalman 1932)

Fig. 26. Tabun- scheme by McQuitty (1994), bab = top opening, sanur = bottom opening, gato = tabun lid

5 An impulse for this hypothesis originally came from Dr. Phil. Maximilian Wilding 36

Fig. 27. Differences between Tannur and Tabun oven

Another way of bread making known from the report of Mulder-Heymans is waqdiah:

“Waqdiah is a combination of a Tannur, a Tabun and a Saj6. It shows a domed conical 80-100 cm high clay construction with a large opening on the frontal side. This opening is horizontally split in half by a metal sheet on which one can bake the bread. On the bottom, under the metal sheet the fuel is placed. In several places it served more as a chicken cot” (Mulder- Heymans 2002, 198).

The waqdiah is also mentioned by A. McQuitty (1994, she also describes fire installations arsah and mogadeh, very similar to waqdiah - see Fig. 28). The report by Mulder-Heymans is based on her ethnographic observations, and she has attested the waqdiah (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 198) in Syria. However, its evidence in archaeology is scarce.

6 Saj is a metal pan used mainly by Bedouins- see p. 37 37

Fig. 28. Modern waqdiah and arsah - scheme by McQuitty (1994)

In some of the ethnographic sources we encounter a furnace called “furn” (Fig. 29) - Forbes (1966) defines this installation as internally fired tabun with a bottom. According to Avitsur (1977) the main characteristic of a furnus oven (Hebrew spelling furna, Arabic furun) - is that the bread is baked on the floor, near the hearth and usually while the fire is going. Fuel of furnus oven is varied: wood, tree-trunks, branches, twigs, olive pulp residue, etc. Avitsur (1977) considers it to be the most sophisticated of the traditional ovens, that can be both domestic and communal (used in bakeries).

Fig. 29. The cross section of a furn (Forbes 1963 after Dalman 1932)

Last, but not the least, I would like to mention other ways of making bread, except bread ovens. Mulder- Heymans (2002) and Canaan (1962) both list saj, a domed metal pan, as the technique used by the Bedouins to bake their bread quickly and effectively while they are travelling (and, according to Canaan 1962, it can also be used by peasants, working in the fields which lie far from their habitations). One side of the metal pan is concave. The metal pan is placed over a fire surrounded by bricks and the bread dough is flapped on top of the pan. This installation is temporary, it can be removed quickly and carried easily. The saj is used for example in the Balikh region 38

(Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2013). R.J. Forbes (1966) also mentions the saj (spelled ṣȃǧ) as the “hot-plate”, along with another variant- the zantȗ´ (mushroom-shaped clay disc). According to his book, the ṣȃǧ is a flat convex round dish, 34-50 cm in diameter and 7 to 8 cm high. He states that although nowadays it is made of iron, this form can be traced back to a pottery variant. The zantȗ´ has about 16 cm in diameter (Forbes 1966, 63). Avitsur also mentions this device, which he spells zantu´a and it is defined as “a rimless round plate made of clay from which extends a long stout handle” (Avitsur 1977, 235). Along with the zantu´a, Avitsur recognizes other pottery baking trays as well, namely the ra´afim and the mahvat/mahreshet (Avitsur 1977, 235; see also Forbes 1966, 63; he mentiones mahabat as frying pan).

Small stones (radaf) can also be used, if metal pan is not available (Canaan 1962). The stones are placed very close to each other and heated. Then their surface is cleaned and the dough bakes on the hot stones. Sometimes the Bedouins can use small tannurs as well - they carry the portable cores with them (Forbes 1966).

Jar hearths, made from spouted jars, can possibly be used for bread baking as well- their function is very similar to small portable tannurs, and they might be used by nomadic populations. This kind of facility with the spout used as a draft hole was attested at archaeological sites of Tell Razuk and Abu Salabikh (Iraq; Krafeld- Daugherty 1998).

There have been suggestions made by some researchers that other early bread-baking methods might have used ceramic trays or moulds. These trays, so-called griddles, have a long history for example in Ethiopia (Lyons, D´Andrea 2003), but the author of this thesis is not aware of any archaeological examples known from the Near East. There is a theory that the so-called Bevelled-Rim Bowls (typical for Uruk period in Mesopotamia) were in fact bread moulds (Goulder 2010). Although this is by far not the only theory concerning the function of this simple, yet enigmatic ware, several articles have been written on the topic and they deserve to be mentioned at this point (Beale 1978; Millard 1988; Jamieson 1989-90; Goulder 2010) . A summary of the above mentioned facilities used in bread making can be seen in Fig. 30.

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Type of fire installation Brief description Authors Canaan 1962, Forbes 1966, Avitsur 1977, Tannur Bread oven, open form McQuitty 1994, Mulder-Heymans 2002, Aja 2009 Canaan 1962, Forbes 1966, Avistur 1977, Tabun Bread oven, closed form McQuitty 1994, Mulder-Heymans 2002, Aja 2009 McQuitty 1994, van der Steen 1991, Waqdiah/Arsah/Mogadeh Domed construction with metal sheet Mulder-Heymans 2002

Furnus Oven Forbes 1966, Avitsur 1977

Canaan 1962, Forbes 1966, Avistur 1977, Saj Portable metal pan Mulder-Heymans 2002, Aja 2009

Zantu´ Portable metal pan Forbes 1966, Avitsur 1977

Radaf Hot stones Canaan 1962

Jar hearth Oven constructed of spouted jar Avitsur 1977, Krafeld-Daugherty 1998

Beale 1978, Millard 1988, Jamieson 1989- Mould Bevelled-rim-bowls 90, Goulder 2010 Ancestor of metal pan- mahvat, mahreshet, Ceramic tray Forbes 1966, Avitsur 1977 ra´afim

Fig. 30. Overview of the basic bread making installations in the Near East

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3.5. What other fire installations might be confused with bread ovens?

The bread ovens are by far not the only kind of fire installations that can be found both in contemporary and ancient settlements in the Near East. Except from bread-baking, there are many other activities that require manipulation with fire – cooking, baking, boiling water, drying, heating and the firing of pottery, to mention the most common functions. The fire installations that I have described in the previous chapter (e.g. tannur, aqdi, aqdiah, saj, etc.) are fit to fulfill some of these functions - they are primarily bread-baking ovens, but they might also be utilized in cooking and they are a source of heat as well. However, they are not fit for other activities, such as firing of pottery, for which a kiln is much more suitable. Also, sometimes an oven is not necessary when a simpler fire installation is sufficient - a hearth or a firepit. In archaeological contexts, the situation is similarly diverse. Apart from tannurs, other oven types (as well as hearths and fire pits) were omnipresent at most human settlements in different periods of the past.

To confuse a bread oven with some other kind of fire installation (e.g. a pottery kiln, or industrial furnaces, such as metallurgical furnaces) during an ethnographic observation is highly improbable. However, to interpret more or less preserved remains of fire installations in archaeology can be a difficult task, given that the archaeologists have to work with limited evidence (for example, the organic materials do not preserve well and the features might be damaged). They also cannot interview the studied populations in a way that the ethnographers might. The archaeologists have to focus on the physical properties of the fire installations. It is common in archaeology of the Near East to utilize ethnographic analogies in some cases, when it is deemed useful and when a similarity of situation is presumed (e.g. geographic or time proximity, but also in case of high resemblance of features). If we know how modern kilns and bread ovens look and function in traditional Near Eastern societies, it might help us understand the archaeological remains of fire installations that we are trying to interpret as kilns and bread ovens. Of course, the archaeologists should always be careful when they use such analogies, but careful ethnographic observations might provide them with useful hints. Unfortunately, another problem with ethnographic analogies has become more and more urgent recently - the rapid disappearance of traditional methods of life in the Near East due to modernization of 41

techniques (e.g. pottery manufacture is not done in traditional kilns at a domestic level any more, and plastic vessels are becoming more common along with metal ones, etc.). In some cases it might no longer be possible to use ethnographic observations, because the Near East nowadays is subject to massive change of lifestyle (e.g. tannur bread is baked in gas stoves- Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2013).

Let us now have a look at several fire installations that, in my opinion, can be confused with tannur-like ovens in archaeology in order to see the differences between these, with emphasis on those elements that might be helpful for archaeologists when interpreting the features. Based on the studied literature I suppose that there are three types of fire installations that might be confused with bread ovens:

 domed ovens  pottery kilns (industrial furnaces)  hearths and fire pits

Domed ovens:

The main difference between the tannurs and domed ovens is probably their building technique - the domed ovens are built of mudbricks while the tannurs are cylinders or cones made of clay. Bottéro and Meadow (1994, 49-50) assume that the domed ovens in ancient Mesopotamia were used to bake leavened bread (while in the tannurs, unleavened pancake type of bread was baked) – to prepare dough for leavened bread, some kind of yeast was necessary, and they suppose that the ancient people of Mesopotamia used beer or leftover soured soup to assure that the dough would rise (Bottéro & Meadow 1994, 49). This kind of bread was filled with air bubbles, it was soft inside and surrounded by a crust of a different flavor (Bottéro & Meadow 1994, 49). A leavened type of bread, however, needed different conditions to bake- environment filled with hot air, so that there was empty space around the bread to be baked. This environment was created in a dome oven. Balls of dough were placed on the base of the oven which had been cleared of traces of fuel (Bottéro & Meadow 1994, 49-50). Unfortunately, I was unable to find more sources to explain further differences between the domed ovens and tannurs, and also to learn about functions of the domed oven. It is possible, that by domed oven, a furn (see chapter 3.4) is meant. 42

To my extent of knowledge, it has been proven by the archaeological excavations that the domed ovens might coexist with tannurs at the same site (e.g. Tell Hamoukar, Tell Brak - in these cases they are attested in official residences and formal buildings, see p. 60 and 62) and that the archaeologists recognize them as two different kinds of fire installations. The domed ovens from Hamoukar and Brak are built of mudbricks, while the tannurs are cores made of clay coils. It might be possible, that the tannurs are domestic ovens existing in living areas of the common people, while the domed ovens are used institutionally (e.g. the oven from Tell Brak, see p. 61). This hypothesis, however, needs further investigation and at this point I cannot introduce sources to support or to disprove it. I have decided not to include domed ovens in the chapter about bread ovens because they are usually not mentioned by the authors who write about bread oven types (e.g. Forbes 1966; Avitsur 1977; McQuitty 1994; Mulder-

Heymans 2002). It is possible that the domed ovens had different functions, and they are usually bigger than tannurs (e.g. Fig. 44; also Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2013).

Pottery kilns:

As far as I am aware, pottery kilns are not commonly used in the Khabur region nowadays, as they have been replaced with modern ways of pottery making, and I am currently not familiar with any contemporary ethnographic works on pottery kilns from the Near East that I could utilize for the purposes of this thesis. I believe that to be able to see the main differences between archaeological remains of pottery kilns and tannurs, one needs above all practical skills and one should not overlook useful hints such as associated finds- e.g. wasters of clay might be found in or around kiln remains. The kiln is also constructed differently. There is some literature on early pottery kilns that might be useful for archaeological comparison (e.g. Majidzadeh 1975). Majidzadeh writes that “a kiln consisted of a permanent firebox and a stoke- hole. A perforated grate on the top of the firebox was the third permanent part if the kiln was a double-chamber. This permanent portion of kiln was usually built with mud-bricks and plastered on the inside. If the kiln had an underground firebox, the height of its walls was either at ground level or, more often, a little higher” (Majidzadeh 1975, 220).

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I am currently aware of two cases when it was not possible to unambiguously classify a fire installation as kiln or a tannur. First case comes from the Khabur region- it is a circular fire installation from Bronze Age Tell Ziyadeh which has been interpreted as tannur, but Hole (1999) notes that it might have been a kiln as well. The second example is from Tell Asmar, where a kiln was excavated, but it could be other type of oven as well (see Fig. 31).

Fig. 31. A 3rd Millenium fire installation from Tell Asmar, interpreted as kiln, but possibly being another type of oven (Moorey 1999 after Frankfort et.al. 1932: Fig. 31)

Hearths and fire pits:

The hearths can come in many shapes (oval, rectangular or irregular), they can be permanent or moveable (firedog), simple or elaborate, lined with stones, mud-plaster, sherds or pebbles and they can also be supplemented with accessories (such as grills, racks). Hearth (akkadian kinȗnu, Bottéro & Meadow 2004) is a kind of universal fire installation that is “archaic and ageless, the easiest to install as well as to use, for either the short or the long term, in both direct and indirect cooking” (Bottéro & Meadow 2004, 46). If the oven is in a very bad state of preservation, it might be confused with a hearth, especially if it is constructed above floor level (i.e. not a pit installation), circular and elaborate. The oven typically has an enclosed top- this is one of the distinguishing features between an oven and hearth (Voigt & Meadow 1983, 60), but if the oven collapsed, it might be difficult to reconstruct its original structural appearance. However, the archaeologists usually have enough skill and knowledge to 44

recognize ovens such as tannurs from hearths in the archaeological record. Archaeologists also tend to create their own typologies of fire installations (differing from site to site). It is useful to have these typologies in mind to see what criteria were applied and whether the interpretation by the excavators is correct/wrong and why.

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4. How to recognize tannur-like ovens in archaeology: basic criteria

Judging from the ethnographic evidence on tannur bread ovens in the Near East that I was able to collect for the purposes of this thesis, I assumed that the tannur ovens are defined primarily on the basis of those of their characteristic features that might be divided into two main groups:

 shape and form: physical properties of the tannur, such as its typical ground plan, average measurements, building material, presence/absence of openings, form of the core, associated features  use and function: use (context), fuel, fuelling technique, function

I believe that for the creation of an auxiliary archaeological definition of tannur the most important categories are those from the first group (shape and form): i.e. circular ground plan, clay as the main building material, presence of openings (bottom and possibly top opening), cylindrical/conical form of the core. The reason for this is the fact that these are all physical qualities and they are (by many authors - such as Mulder-Heymans 2002 or Parker 2011) considered to be typical for tannurs. The fire installations are very likely to preserve to such extent that we can derive this information with enough certainty and not too much confusion. I decided to exclude the measurements as typical indicator of tannur, because although it is important to measure the oven and to document its preserved height, more investigation is necessary to see whether any pattern exists in average measurements of tannur ovens in the Near East throughout history. The question of size of tannur ovens is, in my opinion, still too complex and yet unanswered - in other words, we cannot say that to define a fire installation as tannur, it has to be of a certain size, because we don´t know what a typical tannur size is and whether there even is such thing (the size might depend on the use of the oven - communal or individual, or environment - if there is shortage of fuel, the ovens might be smaller to use less fuel, etc.).

I would like to include a category of inclination of the oven walls in the definition (idea originally suggested by M. Wilding). The angle of walls can tell us whether we are dealing with a tannur-like oven, or perhaps with some other type of oven- e.g. the closed form of tabun. Especially if only small portion of the original height of the oven 46

is preserved, we can still see if the angle is very sharp (pointing to tabun) or nearly perpendicular (tannur). It is also possible to measure the angle of walls from existing pictures and drawings of cross sections of previously excavated ovens to review earlier interpreted units.

From the second group of characteristic features (use and function), I have decided to select fuelling technique as critical for archaeological definition of tannur-like ovens, because most authors (Forbes 1966; Avitsur 1977; McQuitty 1994; Krafeld-Daugherty 1994; Mulder-Heymans 2002; Symons 2003; Lyons & D´Andrea 2003; Frank 2011; Parker 2011) agree that the tannur is a type of oven which is fuelled internally. This fuelling technique is also the main difference between tannur and tabun oven. Although it is not always possible to say with certainty what was the fuelling technique of a fire installation (especially if it was cleaned, or if it was used as a litter bin after it fell out of use), chances are that we can find at least some traces of fire and ashes. From their position it is possible to guess (with some caution) the original fuelling technique of an oven.

The categories of use, context, function and fuel are not relevant for the archaeological definition of the tannur-like ovens, because they are very complex and they cannot be generalized to create an auxiliary model of tannur-like oven. They should always be carefuly documented and studied in order to improve our understanding of the tannur- like ovens in the past, but at this point it is not possible to say, for example that the primary function of tannurs in the Khabur region in Bronze Age was bread making. Firstly, it is very difficult to determine any function of an installation that is no longer in use and secondly, in case of bread baking, not much direct evidence is preserved to confirm this practice (to bake bread, one needs hands, water, dough and an oven- the last of which is the only thing preserved in its original location7). There have been several attempts to use ethnographic analogies to ask these complicated questions about function and context of tannur-like ovens in the past (e.g. Meyers 2007; Parker 2011, leading to studies of gender in archaeology, archaeology of food, etc.) but their conclusions are not yet sufficiently explicit to help establish a definition. Similarly, the fact that a tannur is surrounded by a superstructure is not a defining element-

7 Although there are some examples of preserved bread loaves known from the Near East (see Avitsur 1977) 47

tannurs could exist without superstructure, although presence of one might support the interpretation.

Summary:

Defining elements of tannur-like oven in archaeology:

 ground plan → circular, round  material → clay (possibly addition of hair, straw, salt, etc.)  openings → top opening (if the oven collapsed, this opening might not be attested), bottom opening for fuel (present at the base)  form of core → cylindrical/conical  fuelling technique → internal (judging from position of ashes)  wall angle → slight, not very sharp (exact estimation needs further investigation)

Secondary elements that might be helpful for tannur definition, but can be missing:

 presence of mudbrick superstructure or oven shelter  inclination of core

4.1. Creating a tool- worksheet

There have been several attempts to create satisfactory tools for archaeologists to maximize the potential of information gained from excavation process of tannur-like ovens. In this thesis, I have applied two of such attempts - worksheets and charts proposed by McQuitty (1994) and Mulder-Heymans (2002). Their proposals can be seen in figures 32 and 33. McQuitty (1994) has based her worksheet on physical properties of tannur-like ovens, their condition and associated structures. Her worksheet is simple and clear, although it does not cover some more detailed nuances of the tannur-like ovens. From this worksheet, however, one cannot get information about the basic elements that I have highlighted in the previous chapter as defining for the tannur-like ovens in archaeology (except for “material”). The information provided

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in this type of worksheet is desirable, but it does not help us to estimate whether a described installation is tannur or other kind of oven (perhaps this kind of worksheet is suitable for additional use once we´ve already interpreted the installation as tannur- like and fulfilling all the basic criteria described in previous chapter).

Features of Oven Field Observations

Relationship to structures

Condition Good/fragmentary

Material Description of fabric

Floor of oven

Height/diameter Measurements

Relationship with surface

Stone/mudpacking/superstructure

Other associated structures

Fig. 32. Proposal of worksheet for excavated tannur-like ovens by McQuitty (1994, 73)

The worksheet by Mulder-Heymans (2002), on the other hand, is perhaps too detailed for fast and transparent treatment. It introduces some very useful categories, such as “associated finds”, “colour” or “number of ovens per site/house”, and it is helpful in providing the excavator with a list of possible options (e.g. in case of “position”), but it is not as concise and clear as might be required during fast and efficient excavation process. It is more suitable for a specialist devoting exclusive attention to fire installations.

The proposed worksheet that I have created (Fig. 34) is a combination and selection of the above mentioned proposals. As it is marked in the figure itself, I have tried to include:  general excavation information  information about shape/form  information about use/context

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This tool should serve not only to gain enough information to define a fire installation as tannur-like, but also to collect additional information such as size and associated finds. It is applied in the practical part, including the case study from Tell Arbid Abyad.

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Clay ovens: Area in excavation

Locus

Date

Type of oven: Tannur

Tabun

Other

Opening at the top: yes/no

Small opening at the bottom: yes/no

Opening halfway: yes/no

Inside diameter of the top of the oven: cm

Inside diameter of the bottom of the oven: cm

Total height of the oven: cm

Estimated original height of the oven: cm

Type of clay:

Paste composition:

Addition of temper: yes/no

Temper to be identifiable: yes/no

Straw Manure Goat hair

Oven constructed with coils: yes/no

The size of the coils: H cm x L cm

Oven constructed with loaves: yes/no

The size of the loaves: H cm x L cm

Oven with sandwich wall: yes/no

Exterior of oven covered with sherds: yes/no

Coat of clay over the sherds: yes/no

Outer face smoothed: yes/no

Outed face with a slip layer: yes/no

Munsell soil colour chart:

Colour on the interior:

Colour on the exterior:

Position:

Location of the oven in a courtyard: yes/no

Location of the oven in a corner: yes/no

Covered by a roof: yes/no

Inside an ovenhouse: yes/no

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Near a house: yes/no

Near a building: yes/no

In a kitchen: yes/no

In a street: yes/no

Oven area:

Oven walled off by a row of stones: yes/no

Postholes for cover for ovens: yes/no

Foundation of the oven:

Placed on a surface of: Clay Stone Sherds Combination

Placed on a platform of mudbrick: yes/no

The oven was dug in: yes/no

The oven was placed in a work pit: yes/no

With empty space around: yes/no

Is there a worktable next to the oven: yes/no

Communal use of the oven: yes/no

Several together: yes/no

How many?

Finds inside the oven:

Ash, Charcoal, Potsherds, Complete Pot, Bones, Stones, Seeds, Residue of Food, Other

Finds outside the oven:

Loom Weight, Grinding Stone, Pots, Sherds, Ovenlid, Organic Material, Silo, Metal Objects, Bones, Stones, Charcoal, Other

Size of the site:

Number of houses:

Number of ovens in total:

Number of ovens per house:

Conclusions:

Sketch of an oven Print of an oven

Fig. 33. Detailed worksheet for tannur-like ovens in archaeology by Mulder-Heymans (2002, 6-7)

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ID

Name of Site

Trench

Excavated by (Team)

Reported by (Reference) General excavation information Original Designation of the Feature

Type of Fire Installation (Tannur, Tabun, Furn, Domed oven)

Datation (Period, Phase)

Condition (Good/fragmentary)

Ground Plan

Diameter Bottom

Diameter Top

Preserved Height

Estimated Original Height

Wall thickness

Construction Material (Clay, Temper, Plaster, etc.)

Construction Technique (Bricks/Coils, impressions of Wickerwork, oven wall lining, etc.) Shape and form Form of the Core (Cylindrical, Conical, Beehive)

Foundation (Floor, Stones, Plaster, etc.)

Openings (Number, Position)

Direction of the Bottom Opening

Inclination of the Core (Yes/No, Angle)

Angle of the Walls

Cross Section (Shape + Photo/Drawing)

Does it have Superstructure/Working Table?

Location within Site (Context)

Associated Features

Associated Layers

Number of Ovens in Total (per Site)

Number of Ovens per Trench

Fuel Use and context

Fuelling Technique (Internal, External)

Traces of rebuilding/repairing

Associated Finds/Lots within the Oven (also pottery, bones, etc.)

Associated Finds/Lots around the Oven (also pottery, bones, etc.)

Other (Additional Notes)

Fig. 34. Archaeological worksheet for tannur-like ovens

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5. Tannur-like ovens in the Khabur region 5.1. Ethnographic evidence from the Khabur region

The region of Khabur valley, also known as the Khabur triangle, is a steppe-country in Northern Syria. River Khabur (an Euphrates tributary) is rising at Ras-el-´Ain (“The head of springs”) on the Turkish frontier and then flows down to the Euphrates south of Deir-ez-Zor through Syrian territory (Rowlands 2011, 144).

Fig. 35. A map showing six main areas where Mulder-Heymans (2002) conducted her ethnographic investigations. Khabur and Balikh regions (no. 5) were part of the investigations. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com

According to Mulder-Heymans and her work (written 10 years ago), the tannurs were widely spread in the Khabur area at that time. They were built outside the house, about 100 metres away and free standing, not attached to any construction to protect them (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 16). Mulder-Heymans observed tannurs in a village of As Suwar located in the Khabur area (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 16) - the tannurs belonging to the villagers were located outside the houses, they were free standing, but they were surrounded by a clay and stone constructions. They had a small front bottom opening and a top opening. The fuel was cotton wood. The ashes were raked out of the oven before the baking process. Sometimes the back of the oven had a small additional 54

opening in the back for extra air circulation. The tannurs in the Khabur valley were used specifically for bread baking. Some of the tannurs had a “neck” (Mulder- Heymans 2002, 16)- a higher back part (perhaps as a protection against wind). Mulder-Heymans suggests that these tannurs free standing in the fields were used by semi-nomadic people during the summer (while working on the field) and she assumes that perhaps the situation might have been similar in the history, when Khabur was inhabited by nomadic populations (Mulder- Heymans 2002, 16). At contemporary Tell Arbid the tannures are usually located outdoor, freestanding, surrounded by superstructure with their opening oriented towards west (Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2013).

5.2. Archaeological evidence from the Khabur region

Fig. 36. A map of Syria showing 11 selected archaeological sites in the Khabur region. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com

In order to create a study of tannurs in the Near East at a BA level, a selection had to be made in order to provide an overview of the archaeological evidence on bread ovens that I would be able to handle and evaluate at an acceptable level. Although I

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would like to study tannurs on a much larger scale in my future work, it was not possible to collect more evidence and to include it in this thesis due to limited accessibility of sources and shortage of time. I would therefore like to state that conclusions in this thesis are preliminary and partial, based on a selection of texts (see Fig. 39 for used references) - The details which the studied reports lack might be (and in some cases probably are) mentioned in other texts and excavations reports (both published and unpublished) that I am not familiar with.

Name of site Datation of features Description

Abu Hafur Bronze Age Urban site, tannurs in buildings, level 3, L.2: tannur built horizontally, also other fire installations

Al-Raqaï 3rd Millennium Small farming village, tannurs both indoor and outdoor (in courtyard), conical shaped tannurs, reinforced with clay, bricks and galets (rollers?)

Atij 3rd Millennium (Nineveh 5) No domestic architecture, only storage grill plan buildings (Bedouins?)

Bderi Bronze Age -

Djassa al-Gharbi 3rd Millennium -

Knedij Bronze Age Plastered, in corner

Mashnaga Uruk period Tannur no 1884 in kitchen (space 1880)

Mohammed Diyab Bronze Age (Khabur period 1900- Regional metropolis 1550),

Rad Shaqrah 3rd Millennium (Early Dynastic, 3 ovens in locus 22/D Neo-Assyrian)

Umm Qseir Bronze Age Tannur perhaps in a kitchen, in rectangular building, near wall

Fig. 37. List of sites in the Khabur region, where tannur-like ovens were attested by Sánchez (2012)

I have worked with evidence from 11 sites in the Khabur region, namely Tell Arbid, Tell Barri, Tell Beydhar, Tell Brak, Tell Chagar Bazar, Tell Fekheriyeh, Tell Gudeda, Tell Hamoukar, Tell Leilan, Tell Mozan and Tell Ziyadeh (see locations in Fig. 36 and datation in Fig. 39). I am also familiar by other sites which yielded tannur-like ovens, mentions of which are to be found in a work of Sánchez (2012) - see Fig. 37 for an overview of the sites where Sánchez attested tannur-like ovens. Unfortunately I have not been able to collect more precise information about tannurs from these sites and therefore I have decided not to include them in my thesis.

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Comment on the state and nature of studied sources

Although the bread ovens belong to the most common features excavated at archaeological sites (e.g. at Tell Barri there were 69 of them excavated during three campaigns 2000-2002), they scarcely receive any specific attention. They are usually just briefly mentioned in excavation reports and it is very difficult to draw any conclusions whatsoever based on this general, incomplete kind of information. The most detailed published, specialized reports on bread ovens that I am currently familiar with come from excavations of Ubaid - Early Iron Age Kenan Tepe (SE Turkey; Parker 2011), Early Dynastic Abu Salabikh (Iraq; Crawford 1981) and Late Ninevite 5 Tell Arbid (Syria; Ławecka 2008), only the last of which comes from Syria (from Khabur region). With the exception of the report of Ławecka (2008), I have been working with general excavation reports, which are not focusing on fire installations and are therefore lacking detailed information about these.

Chronology

A simplified timeline in Fig. 38 has been created to serve as a quick handle to the Near Eastern periodization. Many Near Eastern archaeological sites use different chronological systems (e.g. Jezireh Periodization, Amuq Sequence); therefore it was deemed useful to align various periodization systems into one complex scheme for better orientation.

Fig. 38. Timeline- Near Eastern Periodization

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Name of site Datation of features Reported by

Tell Chagar Bazar Late Neolithic (Pre-Halaf, Halaf) Cruells et al. 2013

Tell Brak Chalcolithic (Late Chalcolithic) Emberling & McDonald 2001-2009, McMahon 2007

Tell Hamoukar Chalcolithic (Late Chalcolithic), Bronze Age Gibson 2000, Colantoni & Ur 2011

Tell Ziyadeh Bronze Age (Ninevite 5, Early Jezireh) Hole 1999

Tell Beydhar Bronze Age (Early Bronze Age) Lebeau 2006

Tell Gudeda Bronze Age (Ninevite 5) Routledge 1998

Tell Arbid Bronze Age (Late Ninevite 5) Ławecka 2008

Tell Leilan Bronze Age (Akkadian) Forrest & Mori 2007

Tell Mozan Bronze Age (Akkadian) Bucellati & Bucellati 2007

Tell Fekheriyeh Bronze Age (Middle Assyrian) Bartl 2010

Tell Barri Neoassyrian, Roman, Parthian, Hellenistic Pecorella, Pierobon-Benoit 2003-2005

Fig. 39. Overview of the selected sites in the Khabur region, the datation of the studied tannur-like ovens and their references

Tell Chagar Bazar is a site located in northeastern Syria, to the south of the city of Amuda, Khabur Region. The initial excavations at the site were carried out by Sir Max Mallowan in 1934 under the auspices of the British Museum and the British School of Archaeology in Iraq. A new joint mission of the General Direction of Antiquities and Museums of Syria (Abd el-Massih Baghdo from the Antiquities Department of Hassake) and the University of Liège (Önhan Tunca), with the cooperation of the Universitat Autònoma of Barcelona (under the coordination of Walter Cruells) was established in 1999 (Cruells et al. in press).

Several tannurs8 were present in all phases at Chagar Bazar, from Proto-Halaf up to Later Halaf. They had circular plan with a short corridor (Fig. 40). Sizes are running from 1,4 m in diameter up to more than 2 m. Most of them have been rebuilt more than once. Some of the tannurs were built on the plastered floors of dismantled circular buildings (Cruells pers. comm.).

Domestic fire installations (also interpreted as “tannurs”) were associated with buildings of quadrangular plan. These “were usually constructed with walls of 20 cm

8 i.e. fire installations interpreted as tannurs by excavators 58

thick of modelled mud-bricks and covered with a curving superstructure, creating a dome. Most of these installations have a simple opening, although some examples are provided with a small corridor access. The interior of the chamber is finished with a mud plaster marked by traces of fire and some of these structures underwent more than one reparation, which included the plastered floors and also parts of the wall.” (Cruells et al. in press, 5)

Fig. 40. Oven with corridor entrance from Chagar Bazar (Gomez-Bach 2012)

Tell Brak lies in the Upper Khabur plain of northeastern Syria (Al-Hasakah Governorate). The site was firstly excavated by Max Mallowan in 1937-38 and in 1976 the Tell Brak Excavation Project was established by David Oates (Tell Brak Project 2008). The ovens are Late Chalcolithic and they were reported by Augusta McMahon, Geoff Emberling and Helen McDonald. In levels 20 and 21, several ovens were excavated in 2007. Two large domed ovens and several smaller cylindrical ovens were associated with level 20, along with ash dump layers (rich in animal bones). Level 21 has several mud-brick and pise structures and it was similarly dominated by ash pits and domed ovens (McMahon & Oates 2007). The excavators state that large- scale cooking installations were found in mid 4th millennium formal tripartite structure. This included a large domed oven (Fig. 41), probably used for feasts, excavated in 2000. A large number of mass-produced pottery plates and a lot of hare bones were found around it. (Emberling & McDonald 2001) This oven is a very interesting and well preserved example of a communal oven used probably for cooking. It is built of mudbricks. It might have served for bread baking as well, although it is not a tannur as defined in chapter 4. 59

I would like to stress that in this case the excavators do not specifically mention tannurs among the excavated ovens. The report of excavators lacks detailed descriptions of these cooking-installations and without illustration and more information we have no other choice but to believe their interpretation. The „cylindrical ovens“ might have been tannurs, but this cannot be confirmed judging only from their shape briefly mentioned in the reports.

Fig. 41. Domed oven from Tell Brak (after Emberling & McDonald 2009)

Tell Hamoukar is located in the Jezireh region of Al Hasakah Governorate, in the very NE part of Syria, close to Iraqi border and it has been excavated by Oriental Institute Chicago (The Oriental Institute 2013). Mid-fourth millennium ovens were excavated in 1999 in Area B and they were reported by McGuire Gibson. Remains of four, possibly five successively used ovens were found in one room. They were built of mudbricks, partially fired due to their usewear. They had an igloo shape, were ovoid in plan and had a domed mudbrick roof. Gibson interprets their function as cooking facilities: “The ovens were used for a variety of cooking activities, probably for bread baking and beer making as well as for the cooking of meats. In the debris within and around the ovens, we have recovered many animal bones as well as abundance of charred grains, including wheat, barley and oats” (Gibson 2000, 8). These domed ovens were not used for normal family cooking but rather for institutional feeding.

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Fig. 42. Tannurs from Tell Hamoukar (after Colantoni & Ur 2011, 28)

Fig. 43. Tannur Lids from Hamoukar (after Colantoni & Ur 2011, 44)

Two years later, in 2001, a late 3rd Millennium BC residential quarter was excavated at Hamoukar. In an external courtyard L. 12/13/18, separated from activity area, two tannur-like ovens were found (Fig. 42). Their diameters were 0.94 m and 0.6 m. Large sherds of incomplete storage vessels and some complete vessels were found close to them (Colantoni and Ur 2011, 29), along with two tannur implements (Fig. 43; these might possibly be tannur lids9). Later, in 2005, a room with installations of three grinding stones fitted in clay benches was excavated (room l) - This was probably a kitchen in which cereal was ground into floor. Next to the room l, room m comprised of a single large oven. Ashes from this oven were found in vast amounts in room l (Colantoni and Ur 2011).

Tell Ziyadeh is located in North-Eastern Syria and it was excavated by Yale University. A “tannur area” was excavated at the site in 1999 and it was reported by F. Hole (1999). The tannur area was built against outside west wall of a grill building.

9 see Bottéro & Meadow 2004, 48 61

The tannur-like oven was probably constructed in an open area and it was built against wall, perhaps on ashy remains of a previous tannur. F. Hole states that: „This latest tannur was largely intact, composed of nine mud bricks around the perimeter, set upright but slanting inward. Re-peated firing of the tannur had baked the inner surfaces of these bricks to a depth of a centimeter or more. The tannur was open only at the top, like examples that are seen in the region today“ (Hole 1999, 270).

Because of a large amount of cooking ware sherds found around the tannur-like oven (Fig. 44), Hole (1999) admits the possibility that this oven was ether a kiln used to fire the pottery, although its form corresponds with that of a bread oven.

Fig. 44. Tannur from Tell Ziyadeh (Hole 1999, 270)

Tell Beydhar (ancient Nabada) lies in Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria and it has been excavated since 1992 by European Centre for Upper Mesopotamian Studies and the Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums of Syria. The directors of the projects are Marc Lebeau and Antoine Suleiman (Tell Beydhar 2013). A bakery has been excavated close to the temple sector, dating back to the Early Bronze Age. It consisted of three rooms- first one was used in cereal grinding process (special tables with basalt grinding stones were found) and it was situated at a higher level than the other two rooms with large ovens- large enough for providing the personnel of this sector of the city with bread (Lebeau 2006). Just like in case of Tell Mozan, no more information was found about these ovens.

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Tell Gudeda lies roughly 500 metres from Tell 'Atij on the bank of Khabur river, 13 kilometres south of Hassake. It has was excavated in years 1987-88 and 1992-93, by Mission Archéologique Canadienne en Syrie, directed by Michel Fortin of Université Laval (Routledge 1998). The founding date of the site is approximately in the mid-to- late Ninevite V period. Ovens were common in all phases of the settlement; they were made of fired clay. The diameters ranged from 0.40-0.80 metres and their preserved height reached up to 0.60 metres. The bottoms of the ovens are mostly embedded in shallow pits and they sometimes rest on a foundation of stones or broken sherds. The fuel was probably placed in the interior of the ovens; this assumption is based on the fact that large quantities of ash were found inside or adjacent to the ovens. Most of the ovens were found in small rooms, with an exception of one cluster of four ovens in a courtyard of stratum I. The excavators have an impression that this might be the case of large-scale public use of them, stating that over forty basalt grinding stones were found adjacent to the cluster (Routledge 1998, 244-247).

Tell Arbid is a settlement located in the upstream region of the river Khabur in the NE Syria, 30 km south of Syrian-Turkish border and approximately 30 km south-west of the modern city of Qamishli. The very first archaeological investigations of the site were carried out in 1930s by British archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, who was the first one to detect traces of settlement from 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. Since 1996, the site has been excavated by joint Polish-Syrian archaeological expedition lead by Professor Piotr Bielinski (Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, University of Warsaw) and Dr. Ahmad Serrieh (Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums, Damascus University). The project focuses above all on the investigation of a town dating back to Ninive 5 period - 1st half of 3rd mill. BC, Early Bronze Age (Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology 2011). The fire installations from the site were reported by D. Ławecka (2008). The circular ovens (excavated between 1998-2006) were of three different kinds. First group of installations had the typical shape of tannurs known from ethnological observations: the ovens had hole at base, narrowing form, they were freestanding on the floor (unlike modern examples which are set into mud benches). Their walls were inlayed on the outside with sherds and they were located in courtyards and domestic contexts. They were sometimes associated with finds of bowls. The second group comprises of larger dug in ovens, also lined with sherds. Third group is made up by small round ovens (2 examples were 63

excavated) of 0,3 and 0,45 m in diameter and 0,35 m high, with very big bottom openings. Figures 45 and 46 depict some of the excavated round ovens at Tell Arbid.

Specific examples of features from Tell Arbid are described in great detail in Ławecka´s report:

“One example is an oven about one meter in diameter, dug into the floor of a house courtyard from the end of the ED III period; the house must have already been abandoned at the time. A partly preserved pavement of small stones and sherds was uncovered on the bottom, the base of the oven being 0.65 m below the relevant ground level. The outline of the pit is clearly distinguishable. Isolated potsherds were used to line the oven walls on the outside. This category is represented by two other ovens, one uncertain, the other very well preserved. The former has a bottom lined with small stones and the outlines of a pit dug in the floor to accommodate it, which are discernible despite the eroded context hindering the interpretation. A clay tray was found inside it. The other well-preserved installation comes from Locus 5, Square 35/66 and it leaves no doubt that it had been dug intentionally into the ground, leaving the top part projecting well above the surface” (Ławecka 2008, 564).

Fig. 45. Round oven of Akkadian date, dug into the courtyard of an earlier house. Square 36/65, Locus 23. Drawing C. Sauter, digitizing M. Momot; photo J. Wierzbicki (Ławecka 2008)

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Fig. 46. Big (foreground) and small round oven and half of an oval one (right) in Locus 5 (square 35/66). Late Ninevite 5 or ED III (Photo A. Reiche) Ławecka 2008

Tell Leilan is situated near the Wadi Jarrah in the Khabur River basin (Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria) and it is a place of Yale University Tell Leilan Project (Weiss 2007). The tannur-like ovens from the site are dated to the Akkadian Period. In Leilan IIb1 phase, two round tannur-like ovens were found built in a courtyard. The better preserved one had an opening at its bottom and it was filled with sherds. The site also yielded multiple intensely used ovens (14 in total, but not all contemporaneous), associated with grain processing facilities. They were quite large (1-3 meters in diameter) and they needed to be rebuilt frequently when the ash piled up on the floors of the workspaces around them. When the ovens were no longer usable, new ones were built (the new ones were often inside the bigger ones). These ovens were standing next to a room that was probably used as the central granary and they might have been used for the processing of grains rather than bread making! (Forrest & Mori 2007, 51) Presence of other tannur-like ovens is confirmed by the photo documentation available at the official website of the excavation project, although unfortunately no description of the depicted ovens is provided (Fig. 47).

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Fig. 47. Bread ovens from Dudu palace, Tell Leilan (after Weiss 2007)

The first soundings at Tell Mozan (ancient Urkesh) were carried out by Max Mallowan. The site has been excavated since 1984 under the direction of Giorgio Buccellati (UCLA) and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati (California State University), is situated in Al-Hasakah Governorate, northeastern Syria (Buccellati & Buccellati 2006). Here, in the Palace of Tupkish founded in the fourth millennium BC, a kitchen was identified at the site because of a large tannur-like oven in the centre, other cooking installations and impressions of two seals of Tuli, the “female cook of the queen” (Bucellati & Bucellati 2007, 12). No more information was found about this large tannur-like oven.

Tell Fekheriyeh is located in north-eastern Syria, in Al-Hasakah Governorate (close to Turkish border), and the excavations were carried out by Syrian Directorate-General of Antiquities and Museums (led by Dominik Bonatz) and the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology at the Freie Universität Berlin in cooperation with the Slovak Archaeological and Historic Institute (Slovenský archeologický a historický inštitút 2007). The fire installations were reported by Peter V. Bartl (Bartl 2010, 9-16) and excavated in 2010. Several tannur-like ovens were excavated at Fekherieh, belonging to the Middle Assyrian level. Some of the tannur-like ovens have been rebuilt several times, and they were encircled by mud-bricks. The ovens were filled with ashy deposits- this might point to a long duration of use. An example of a tannur- like installation can be seen in Fig. 48. Tannurs were not the only kind of ovens attested at this site- the report also mentions octagonal (polygonal) ovens made of mud-bricks and plastered on the inside, which were probably domed, but their function

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is not clear. The report does not mention size and total number of tannur-like ovens that were excavated.

Fig. 48. Central area under House I with tannur-like installation and small walls, Tell Fekhreriyeh (after Bartl 2010, 9)

Tell Barri (ancient Kahat) is a site located in Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria. The site is situated along the Wadi Jaghjagh, a Khabur tributary. It has been excavated by Università di Firenze (University of Florence) led by Paolo Emilio Pecorella and Mirjo Salvini) and Università "Federico II" di Napoli (University of Naples Federico II) led by Raffaella Pierobon-Benoit (Italian Archaeological Mission at Tell Barri 2013). The tannurs mentioned in this thesis were excavated during successive campaigns in 2000, 2001 and 2002 and they were reported by Pecorella and Pierobon-Benoit. In the reports (written and published in Italian), maps or architecture and drawings of cross sections were provided, in which tannurs were included. Due to the fact that I was unable to successfully translate the reports, I was able to draw only limited evidence from them.

During the three campaigns in 2000, 2001 and 2002, a total number of 69 fire installations interpreted as tannurs were found, 35 of which were excavated in 2000, 18 in 2001 and 16 in 2002. They were attested in sectors A, B, C, D, G and J of the site. Their most common ground plan was circular (Fig. 49), although there were some furnaces with different ground plan which were also interpreted as tannurs (semicircular, ovoid elongated and ellipsoid). Sizes of the tannurs varied from 0.3 m in diameter to 1 meter (with the usual average being 0.6 – 0.75 m in diameter). The excavators documented also thicknesses of preserved walls of the cores - these varied from 3 to 10 cm (in one case it was 60 cm). The positions of all these ovens were 67

measured by theodolite and the data is available in the reports. Datation of the studied tannur-like ovens, excavated during the campaigns 2000-2002: Neoassyrian, Roman, Hellenistic and Parthian.

Fig. 49. Some of the tannur-like ovens from Tell Barri (dated to Neoassyrian period) Pecorella 2003, 70.

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5.3. Evaluation of the archaeological evidence

As can be seen in Fig. 50, I have applied the auxiliary definition of tannur-like ovens (created in chapter 4) to information collected from the selected sites in the Khabur region. Despite the fact that a lot of information is still missing and the conclusions in this thesis are therefore preliminary, the table shows that some of the installations do not meet the definition of “tannur-like”. At least in some cases the interpretations of the excavators can be questioned, especially if there is no firmly established and generally accepted definition of tannur-like ovens for archaeologists.

Site Interpreted Ground plan Material Openings Form of core Fuelling Wall angle as technique

Tell Chagar Tannurs Circular with Clay ? ? ? ? Bazar corridors

Tell Brak Cylindrical ? ? Bottom Cylindrical ? ? ovens opening

Tell Tannurs Circular Clay ? ? ? ? Hamoukar

Tell Ziyadeh Tannur Circular Mud bricks Top opening Conical Internal ?

Tell Beydhar Bread ovens ? ? ? ? ? ?

Tell Gudeda Circular Circular Fired clay, ? N/A, the ovens Internal ? ovens sometimes were embedded foundations in pits (dug-in) of stones and sherds

Tell Arbid Tannurs Circular Clay inlayed Top opening, Narrowing- ? ? with sherds bottom conical, three + possible opening (dug- different variants tabun in variant with no bottom opening)

Tell Leilan Tannurs Round Clay Bottom ? ? ? opening

Tell Mozan Tannur ? ? ? ? ? ?

Tell Tannurs Circular Clay ? Core + mudbrick Internal ? Fekheriyeh supestructure

Tell Barri Tannurs Circular, Clay ? ? ? ? semicircular, ovoid, ellipsoid

Fig. 50. Archaeological evidence about tannur-like ovens from the selected sites in the Khabur region

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The studied reports often lack detailed information about the construction, size, fuelling and openings of the described ovens. Information about total number of ovens, angle of walls, inclination of the core, preserved height and other measurements is also missing completely in most cases. More accurate conclusions could therefore not be assumed due to the incomplete state of available published evidence about tannur-like ovens in Khabur region.

Furthermore, it was not possible to apply the proposed worksheet (chapter 4.1) to the evidence collected from these sites due to the fact that the studied reports provided generalized information about more entities (ovens). The worksheet is a tool applicable to individual fire installations, but it is not appropriate to describe sets of more ovens at one time.

Tell Chagar Bazar

At Chagar Bazar, some of the Late Neolithic features interpreted as tannurs are probably miserpreted - judging from their keyhole ground plan, which is not typical for tannur-like ovens. These ovens had a corridor like elongation of the bottom hole - the function of this corridor is unclear an it seems that in this case the fire installations do not represent the tannur type of ovens. Analogy for keyhole shaped ovens can be found for example at Tell Sabi Abyad (Akkermans 1989, 71), where they are not interpreted as tannurs, but rather as kilns. Furthermore, the ovens found in rectangular buildings at Chagar Bazar, also interpreted as “tannurs” in the original report, are probably misinterpreted as well- they are constructed differently and they are probably domed ovens rather than tannur-like. However, this conclusion is preliminary and it is based on very brief information and photo documentation, therefore it needs more investigation.

Tell Brak

Cylindrical ovens from Tell Brak (McMahon & Oates 2007) might be tannur-like, judging from their “cylindrical” shape, which is very typical for this type of ovens. They coexist with domed ovens at the site. No more conclusions could be made due to lack of evidence. 70

Tell Hamoukar

In case of Tell Hamoukar there is evidence of domed ovens and tannur-like ovens which are distinguished by the excavators (Gibson 2000; Colantoni & Ur 2011) . The tannur-like ovens were found in association with storage vessels and with two lids, which might have been used as tannur lids (it is known from ethnographic evidence that the tannur oven is usually closed with a lid during the baking process to prevent the heat from escaping). Judging from the photograph, the ovens seem to have the typical tannur-like ground plan and shape, but it might be helpful to measure the wall angle to exclude the possibility that these ovens were tabun-like (fuelling technique is also not specified to estimate the oven type more accurately).

Tell Ziyadeh

It has been noted by Frank Hole (1999) that the Ninevite 5 tannur from Tell Ziyadeh might actually be a kiln rather than tannur (see p. 66).

Tell Beydhar

At Tell Beydhar, an Early Bronze Age room interpreted as bakery was excavated (Lebeau 2006). The interpretation results from presence of large communal ovens associated with special tables with basalt grinding stones. This might imply that the ovens are either of tannur/ tabun type, or furn type. Without further information about the form of the ovens no conclusion about the type of the ovens can be made.

Tell Gudeda

Ovens were common in all phases of the settlement; they were made of fired clay. The diameters ranged from 0.40-0.80 metres and their preserved height reached up to 0.60 metres (Routledge 1998). The bottoms of the ovens are mostly embedded in shallow pits and they sometimes rest on a foundation of stones or broken sherds. The fuel was probably placed in the interior of the ovens; this assumption is based on the fact that large quantities of ash were found inside or adjacent to the ovens. Most of the ovens 71

were found in small rooms, with an exception of one cluster of four ovens in a courtyard of stratum I. The excavators have an impression that this might be the case of large-scale public use of them, stating that over forty basalt grinding stones were found adjacent to the cluster (Routledge 1998, 244-247).

Tell Arbid

More variants of tannur-like ovens were excavated at Tell Arbid (Ławecka 2008), some of them perhaps being tabuns rather than tannurs (e.g. Fig. 46 in the foreground- the depicted ovens seems to have a closed shape with sharp angle of walls- this needs verification). However, the tabun-like ovens are not common in Khabur area nowadays. Ethnological evidence on tannurs from Khabur areas is provided by Mulder-Heymans (2002) in her report. Dug-in tannur-like ovens were also attested at Tell Arbid (and also Tell Gudeda).

Tell Leilan

At Tell Leilan, a bottom opening was attested at the bottom of one of the tannur-like ovens (Forrest & Morri 2007). Bottom opening is one of the typical features of tannur- like ovens. Judging from the photo documentation (Fig. 47), the wall angle of the ovens also seems to correspond with the definition of the tannur-like ovens - they are almost upright, only slightly inclined. However, the ovens were associated with grain processing facilities and the excavators suggested that the function of the ovens might have been grain processing, not bread making.

Tell Mozan

In case of Tell Mozan, the kitchen is interpreted as such because of presence of tannur in its center along with seals of the cook, but no further information is found in the report by Bucellati & Bucellati (2007) about its shape and construction. This oven could easily be a domed oven like at Tell Brak, where a domed feasting oven was excavated (this one was not a tannur, although cylindrical ovens were also excavated at the site, possibly being of a tannur type, again lacking detailed information).

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Tell Fekheriyeh

At Fekheriyeh, several tannur-like ovens were excavated (Bartl 2010). They were filled with ashy deposits - this probably refers to their internal fuelling technique (i.e. they were probably not tabun-like). Furthermore, the tannur-like ovens are said to be encircled by mud-bricks, which is uncommon for tannur-like ovens, but the presence of mud-brick might point to existence of superstructure. Unfortunately, information about openings was not provided in the studied report, which would be another useful hint in defining the ovens clearly as tannur-like. The octagonal ovens made of mud- bricks were probably domed, which is another example of coexistence of domed ovens and bread ovens at one site.

Tell Barri

The youngest studied evidence of tannur-like ovens comes from Tell Barri (Pecorella 2003; Pecorella & Pierobon-Benoit 2004; Pecorella & Pierobon-Benoit 2005). Some of the studied features, however, might not have been tannurs- some of the installations interpreted as “tannurs” by the excavator were of elongated and ellipsoid ground plan, which does not fit into our definition of a tannur-like oven. Without further information it is not possible to determine which of the features were really tannur-like according to our definition. In Fig. 49 we can see example of tannur-like ovens that (judging from their overall appearance) are interpreted correctly.

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5.4. Case study: Tell Arbid Abyad

Tell Arbid Abyad is a small settlement mound with total surface of 0,5 ha, rising only 2 m above present surface. It is located approximately 700 m east from Tell Arbid. The site has been the subject of attention of Czech archaeological mission from Masaryk University under the leadership of Inna Mateiciucová since 2005. Although the site has been considerably damaged by intensive agricultural activity, erosion and bioturbation, archaeologists have been able to reveal remains of a settlement dating back from Proto-Halaf to Early/Middle Halaf period. The excavation was initiated in 2007 (Mateiciucová & Wilding 2010).

Fig. 51. Location of trenches at the site of Tell Arbid Abyad during seasons 2007 - 2010 (PANE Archive 2010)

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Trench J 12

Trench J 12 is neighboring with trench K 13 (Fig. 51). It is orientated in N-S direction, and it was excavated during the season of 2010 (24.5.2010- 4.7.2010). The trench was 8 m long and 1.5 m wide. Trench J 12 is (along with K 13 excavated in 2008 – 20009 and J 9 excavated in 2007 – 2009) a part of a cut through the Tell. The situation in the trench was probably an open area, with possible traces of intentional terracing. The trench was very rich in various finds (clay sling missiles, sling-stones, fragments of grinding, bone implements, figurines, tokens and sealings). There were also some wall remains, mud-brick debris and traces of lime plaster on the surface (Mateiciucová & Wilding 2010; field documentation 2010).

Feature A

Tannur-like oven found in Northern part of the trench J 12, with crumbled rim of pink/orange colour and grey/white plaster lining on the outer side, measuring approximately 50 - 60 cm in diameter, 20 cm high (preserved height). Its walls were approximately 5 cm thick. Northern semicircle of the feature was discriminable, southern less visible. Fill contained ashy soil, pieces of decayed oven, fragments of plaster lining, recent roots, pottery sherds, bones and also silex. All the fill was taken in samples for floatation and further analysis. No other finds were associated with this feature. This circular feature was surrounded by remains of mud brick walls (features J, K and L) running in N-S and E-W directions (Figs 54 and 55). Unfortunately, the feature itself was badly preserved. To the west, an ashy surface was visible (feature E; Figs. 54 – 56). This feature has been discovered next to circular oven A, giving us a reason to believe it could have been associated with the oven. It is an irregular area of grey ash and dark yellowish brown burned clay. It may also indicate the location of the original opening of the oven in its S-W part (Mateiciucová & Wilding 2010; field documentation 2010). Photographs of the cross section of the feature A and its standing remains after removing the fill can be seen in Figs. 52 and 53. The sketch of cross section of the feature is provided in Fig. 56.

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Fig. 52. Cross section of tannur-like oven A from trench J 12 with oven will (PANE Archive 2010)

Fig. 53. Remains of tannur-like oven A from trench J 12 after removing the oven fill (PANE Archive 2010)

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Fig. 54. Location of the feature A in association with ashy surface (feature E) and wall remains (features J, K and L)

Fig. 55. Location of the feature A (orange) in association with ashy surface (feature E- blue) and wall remains (black). Source: Ortophoto taken on June 7th 2010 (PANE Archive 2010)

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Fig. 56. Percentage of ash ratio in Feature A, associated with Feature E. (N marks the North) Source: field documentation from Tell Arbid Abyad 2010

Fig. 57. Cross section of the Feature A showing the approximate percentage of ash ratio and traces of plaster. (W marks the West, E marks the East) Source: field documentation from Tell Arbid Abyad 2010

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Fill of the circular oven A (Locus 401) comprised of grey ash and soil, it was an interspersed composition of medium hardness and it contained inclusions of ash, fragmentary pieces of the oven, roots, some pottery, and fragments of lime plaster (lining of oven?). The fill was taken in samples for floatation and further study. Three samples (no. 1416, 1417, and 1420) were subject of archaeobotanical analysis done by Petr Kočár from Západočeská universita, Plzeň (Mateiciucová & Wilding 2010). In all cases the samples contained traces of cerealia.

Arguments for tannur-like oven

Judging from the structure of the feature A from trench J 12, it might be (with some caution) interpreted as tannur-like oven. Despite the very poor state of preservation of the feature, it still possesses several of the typical characteristics of tannur-like ovens as I have defined them in chapter 4 (see Fig.58- application of the definition to qualities of feature A and Fig. 59- application of the worksheet).

Firstly, its ground plan is circular and its form seems to be slightly narrowing towards the top (conical), although it is difficult to say this for sure since only 20 cm of the original height have been preserved.

The walls of the feature are only slightly inclined, which points rather to a tannur-like oven than a tabun, but the feature is very poorly preserved to determine the original angle of the walls. It could just as well be a tabun, or perhaps another kind of oven. No wasters of ceramics have been found around the furnace to indicate a pottery kiln. Traces of fire are present, which can be taken as evidence for the function of the feature as fire installation, but the temperature was probably not too high- it was possibly an oven, but not a kiln. The core itself is built of clay, not mud bricks; therefore it is not a domed oven10. It was plastered and it was not rebuilt. It is possible that it has been in use only for a short period of time.

The diameter of the feature was 50 cm; therefore it is slightly smaller than Bronze Age tannur-like ovens from Tell Arbid (Ławecka 2008) and modern tannurs from the area. There might have been a bottom opening in the feature- a surface of ash to the south- west of the feature and a gap in the circular ground plan of the feature might be indicators of this. We do not know anything about the fuel of the oven, although

10 It is also too small to be a domed oven (Mateiciucová, pers. comm. in 2013) 79

samples of the fill and ash have been taken. Unfortunately, not all of them have been analyzed. The analysis of few of the samples confirmed presence of cereals. If we use analogies from ethnology (Mulder-Heymans 2002 and Mateiciucová 2012, personal comm.), animal dung might have been used as fuel.

The core of the oven is surrounded by remains of walls, but probably no superstructure, although the situation is unclear. The walls might have had protective function against wind. The context of the oven was in domestic area, probably in an outdoor space (to clarify this, we would need to perform further fieldwork in neighboring sectors), and it was likely associated with house excavated in trench J10, level 2.

Site Tell Arbid Abyad

Interpreted as tannur-like / tabun-like ?

Ground plan circular

Material clay with plaster

Openings possibly a bottom opening

Form of core conical

Fuelling technique possibly internal?

Wall angle slight, almost upright, cca. 80 %

Fig. 58. Auxiliary definition applied to tannur-like feature A from Tell Arbid Abyad

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ID 1

Name of Site Arbid Abyad

Trench J 12

Excavated by (Team) Masaryk University 2010

Reported by (Reference) Trench Supervisor Lenka Tkáčová; Mateiciucová & Wilding 2010

Original Designation of the Feature A

Type of Fire Installation (Tannur-like, Tabun-like, Furn, Domed oven) Tannur-like / Tabun-like ?

Datation (Period, Phase) Late Neolithic

Condition (Good/fragmentary) Fragmentary

Ground Plan Circular

Diameter Bottom 60 cm

Diameter Top 50 cm

Preserved Height 20 cm

Estimated Original Height ?

Wall thickness 5 cm

Construction Material (Clay, Temper, Plaster, etc.) Clay

Construction Technique (Bricks/Coils, impressions of Wickerwork, oven wall lining, ? etc.)

Form of the Core (Cylindrical, Conical, Beehive) Conical

Foundation (Floor, Stones, Plaster, etc.) ?

Openings (Number, Position) Perhaps a bottom opening

Direction of the Bottom Opening West

Inclination of the Core (Yes/No, Angle) No

Angle of the Walls Slight, cca. 80 %

Cross Section (Shape + Photo/Drawing)

Does it have Superstructure/Working Table? No

Location within Site (Context) Open area

Associated Features Building in trench J 10, walls J, K, L, ashy surface E

Associated Layers

Number of Ovens in Total (per Site) ?

Number of Ovens per Trench 1

Fuel ?

Fuelling Technique (Internal, External) Internal?

Traces of rebuilding/repairing No

Associated Finds/Lots within the Oven (also pottery, bones, etc.) Pottery, bones, stones, silex

Associated Finds/Lots around the Oven (also pottery, bones, etc.) Pottery, bones, stones, silex

Other (Additional Notes) -

Fig. 59. A worksheet for tannur-like oven A in trench J 12, Tell Arbid Abyad

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5.4.1. Other fire installations from the site

Feature A was not the only fire installation excavated at Tell Arbid Abyad. There are several other features that might also be tannur-like, but in this thesis it was not possible to pay attention to all of them in greater detail due to the lack of space. The main reason for selecting feature A into the case study was the fact that I have been personally involved in its excavation process and I have thusly been able to interpret it more precisely. However, the following features also need further examination and interpretation:

Trench I 9, feature J: A circular structure made of light red pink hard soil with plant temper, ca. 100 - 120 cm in diameter. In western direction from the feature, an extended area of mud bricks was found. According to the excavator, there is a gap in southern part of the feature wall. It could be an animal hole, but it could have been the opening of the oven. Traces of fire were attested in association with the feature. There was also some evidence of terracing. (Laššák 2008; field documentation 2008)

Trench J 9, feature R/T: In this trench an extended oven-base (Feature R) has been found, although the situation was very disturbed by later building activities and it is impossible to say whether these were really remains of an oven or other kind of fire installation. The feature was buried by a foundation of Bronze Age (?) mud brick wall. If we suppose that the fragmented feature is a former oven, the original oven might have been levelled down deliberately, so that only the floor-level remained more or less intact. There seem to be minor traces of thermal exposure (reduced burning?), although the direct evidence remains limited. Since only centimetres of the former feature have remained, its meaning will never be fully known, except that they supposedly belonged to some open yard, rather than a house. (Wilding 2007; Field documentation 2007)

Trench K 13, feature A: This feature is oval, slightly irregular in its ground plan, with discriminable borders, made of clay (perhaps a tannur floor). It was 22 cm thick and it measured 174 - 102 cm. The fill consisted of orange soil with traces of high temperature. Black patches were visible around it. (Humpola 2008; Field documentation 2008)

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Trench L11, feature ?: A tannur-like oven built in two stages. (Hole 2009; Field documentation 2008)

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6. Conclusions

In the practical part of my work I evaluated (using the definition developed in chapter 4) data from 11 sites in the Khabur region. I will now turn to some preliminary conclusions that I have been able to deduce from the information presented in subchapter 5.2.

Fire installations interpreted as tannurs:

The following sites yielded fire installations interpreted as tannurs by their excavators.

 Tell Chagar Bazar  Tell Hamoukar  Tell Ziyadeh  Tell Arbid  Tell Leilan  Tell Mozan  Tell Fekheriyeh  Tell Barri

Possible misinterpretations:

It seems that at several of the studied sites at least some of the fire installations were misinterpreted from various reasons. I would like to emphasize that this conclusion is preliminary due to lack of available information. Judging from physical appearance of the fire installations from the following sites I assume that they are possibly misinterpreted:

 Tell Chagar Bazar (ovens with corridor access)  Tell Ziyadeh (might have been a kiln?)  Tell Mozan (lacking detailed description)  Tell Barri (semicircular, ovoid and elipsoid ovens)

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Fire installations which are possibly tannur-like:

Data from the following sites leads me to conviction that at least in some cases the fire installations were not interpreted as tannur-like, but their physical properties might correlate with the definition proposed in chapter 4. There is not enough evidence available in the studied reports to support this conclusion.

 Tell Brak (cylindrical ovens)  Tell Beydhar (bread ovens)  Tell Gudeda (circular ovens)

Fire installations which are possibly tabun-like- due to the angle of the walls and closed form:

In subchapter 3.4. I have presented ethnographic evidence of common bread oven types that might be confused with tannur-like ovens. The fire installation most similar to the tannur is the so-called tabun (tabun-like in archaeology) and it is a closed form with sharp angle of the walls (see Fig. 20 right). In the studied evidence there is currently only one case of fire installation interpreted as tannur-like that might have been tabun-like.  Tell Arbid (Fig. 41 in the foreground)

Coexistence of domed and tannur-like ovens

It seems that tannur-like ovens were more common in domestic contexts, and they were commonly located outdoor (this is still common in the Khabur area nowadays). On the other hand, the domed ovens (Hamoukar, Brak) were located indoor and in case of Brak the oven was built in a formal building (this provides another parallel to Mozan). Another difference between domed ovens and tannur-like ovens is that while the first are built of mudbricks, the tannur-like ovens are usually made of fired clay (fired during the first use) and only their superstructure (Tell Fekheriyeh) is made of bricks. Domed ovens and tannur-like ovens can coexist at one site and it needs further investigations and analysis of evidence to confirm the differences and similarities of the two. Late Chalcolithic tannur-like ovens are known only from Hamoukar. At Tell

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Brak and Hamoukar, domed ovens were present in Late Chalcolithic (no tannur-like ovens). In the Bronze Age, we no longer encounter the domed ovens, but tannur-like ovens are becoming more common in domestic contexts (although this is probably due to lack of comparable evidence!) At Chagar Bazar, some of the ovens were interpreted as tannures, but I think that they are domed ovens (they are very big and built of mud bricks). There were also some keyhole shaped ovens, also interpreted as tannurs, but these might not be tannur-like at all (if we apply the definition from chapter 4). It is possible that at Chagar Bazar the tannur-like ovens coexist with domed ovens, but I do not have enough evidence at hand to confirm this hypothesis.

Domed ovens coexisting with tannur-like ovens at one site:

 Tell Chagar Bazar?  Tell Brak  Tell Hamoukar  Possibly also Tell Fekheriyeh (polygonal ovens)

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Late Neolithic tannur-like ovens?

Apart from a possibly tannur-like feature A from trench J 12 excavated at Tell Arbid Abyad (see chapter 5.4.), Late Neolithic tannur-like ovens (according to their original interpretation) have been excavated also at Tell Chagar Bazar (Khabur region) and Tell Sabi Abyad (Balikh region). These sites might provide analogous information to feature A about occurrence of tannur-like ovens in this period.

The “tannurs”11 from Tell Chagar Bazar differ a lot from feature A- due to the fact that they usually have a corridor-like access which the feature A lacks (it is also very possible that the discussed ovens from Chagar Bazar are not tannur-like at all- see p. 62). The ovens from Tell Chagar Bazar are also bigger (1.4 m – 2 m in diameter) and they occur in circular buildings, while the feature A is associated with rectangular building and it is located outside.

At Tell Sabi Abyad (located in Balikh River plain, Raqqa province of Northern Syria) both keyhole shaped and tannur-like ovens were excavated (Akkermans 1989). They were round, built in clay coils with 0.65 – 1.35 m in diameter. The ovens had a narrowing shape, typical for tannur-type, and both the interior and exterior showed mud plaster coating (in one case traces of replastering were attested). The interior was hardly burnt, the exterior was unfired (Akkermans 1989). These ovens provide a decent analogy for tannur-like oven A from Tell Arbid Abyad (Fig. 59):

Sabi Abyad Feature A Diameter 0.65 – 1.35 m 0.5 – 0.6 m Shape Narrowing shape Conical (narrowing) Fuelling technique Internal Internal Plastering Y Y Location Outdoor, unroofed area Outdoor area Associated architecture Wall fragment (wind-screen) Wall fragments

Fig. 59. Comparison of tannur-like ovens from Sabi Abyad and Feature A from Tell Arbid Abyad

11 i.e. ovens interpreted as tannurs by excavators 87

The information that I have been able to collect suggests possible differences in tradition at Tell Chagar Bazar (keyhole shaped ovens, domed ovens), Tell Sabi Abyad (tannur-like ovens and keyhole shaped kilns) and Tell Arbid Abyad (tannur-like oven). This hypothesis, however, needs verification and more evidence for its support.

In section 5.4, I tried to describe and interpret feature A as possibly tannur- or tabun- like. I would like to stress that this interpretation is preliminary and cannot be confirmed. If it really is a case of tannur-like oven, this would be the earliest evidence of this type of oven excavated in the Khabur region (if the furnace Chagar Bazaar really is misinterpreted as shown in chapter 5.3). By taking the first small step forward in interpretation of the Late Neolithic tannur-like oven from Tell Arbid Abyad, I would like to create an impetus for further investigations of the cultural tradition and continuity in the occurrence of the tannur-like ovens in the Late Neolithic Khabur and Balikh region.

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Summary

The main goal of this thesis was to provide a decent introduction to the topic of bread ovens of the tannur type in the ancient Near East with respect to ethnological examples. By defining this kind of feature and presenting a number of archaeological case studies from the Khabur region, I have set myself a basis to expand my investigations in the future. I wanted this thesis to stimulate interest in the tannur phenomenon and to be an impetus for further research of the phenomenon.

The investigation of the tannur-like ovens calls for more detailed archaeological studies of tannur-like ovens and especially for more emphasis on the excavation process of the tannur-like ovens in order to gain as much information as possible from the actual remains. The installations should be carefully excavated and specialised worksheets should be used in their documentation. Excavators should pay more attention to the differences between the types of bread ovens (e.g. tabun, furn). The topic needs to be reconsidered and more comparable data collected from the sites.

In the case study from Tell Arbid Abyad I have tried to demonstrate the process of interpretation of a tannur-like fire installation (feature A), utilizing the newly created definition and the specialised worksheet. The feature was excavated carefully and a lot of evidence was collected during the excavation process. Photo documentation and sketches of the archaeological situation were made as well as GIS reconstructions. Despite the bad state of preservation of the feature, it is possible to deduce enough information to interpret the oven as tannur-like or tabun-like. We need to be very careful in further interpretations- it cannot be confirmed that the feature was tannur- or tabun- like.

There are several possibilities of the future research of tannur-like ovens. Firstly, a space analysis of the tannur-like ovens in the Khabur Region is a hitherto unexplored issue. I believe that the study of the contexts in which the tannur-like ovens occur might initiate a fruitful discussion about the relation of the tannur-like ovens to certain ways of life (e.g. sedentary vs. nomadic).

Open to further research is also the question of cultural tradition of the tannur-like ovens in the Khabur Region (and other regions). I have outlined such an approach for example on pages 88-89. I believe that discussions about the context and cultural

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tradition will contribute strongly to our understanding of both the fire installations and the past communities of people inhabiting the Khabur Region.

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Cruells, Walter Dr. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Gomez Bach, Anna Prof. Asoc. Lab. (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona)

Mateiciucová, Inna Mgr. PhD. (Masaryk university, Brno)

Seyedin- Dijojin, Mojgan Dr. (Iranian Cultural Heritage Organisation, Archaeological Research Center, Tehran)

Wilding, Maximilian Dr. phil. (Masaryk university, Brno)

Other sources

Field documentation from Tell Arbid Abyad (seasons 2007-2010) 98

List of figures

Fig. 1. An overview of commonly used variants of the term “tannur” according to regions Fig. 2. An overview of archaic forms of the term “tannur” Fig. 3. Tannur dialectology. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com Fig. 4. Dialectology of “bread oven” terms. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com, modified after: Behnstedt 2009 Fig. 5. An overview of authors who provided ethnographic (E) or ethnoarchaeological (E/A) definitions of tannurs Fig. 6. (Left) Placement of the Core on the ground and on the layer of stones, (Right) Inclination of a tannur Fig. 7. Tannur core inside an unfinished superstructure. Tell Arbid (M. Wilding 2008) Fig. 8. Separate basement of stones and a superstructure of tannur from Beydhar (Al- Othman and Galan 2003, 512) Fig. 9. Cylindrical shape (Left), conical shape (Right) Fig. 10. Ground plans of tannur cores with superstructures Fig. 11. Depiction of openings of tannur oven Fig. 12. Tannur manufacturer in Tell Arbid cutting the bottom hole into experimentally made tannur core. The tannur was made in 2007 and it was installed at the excavation house of Czech team in 2008 (Photo: I. Mateiciucová) Fig. 13. Overview of defining characteristics of tannurs- shape and form Fig. 14. Tannur with burning wood in its interior (M. Wilding 2008) Fig.15. Overview of defining characteristics of tannurs - use and function Fig. 16. Sunk variant of tannur (Digard 1981) - tanir Fig. 17. Underground tannurs (Kramer 1975) Fig. 18. Five variants of tannurs according to Dalman (Forbes 1963 after Dalman 1932) Fig. 19. Tabun (after Frank 2011) Fig. 20. Differences between tannur and tabun according to Mulder-Heymans (2002) Fig. 21. (Left) Tannur, (Right) Tabun (Mulder-Heymans 2002, 3) Fig. 22. Differences between tannur and tabun after Canaan (1962)

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Fig. 23. Tabun - a), b), c) Possible ways of bread baking, d) Firing on the outside, e) Openings (a,b,c,e inspired by Mulder-Heymans, pers. comm. in 2012; d by Canaan 1962) Fig. 24. Differences between tannur and tabun after Aja (2009) Fig. 25. Different depictions of tabun (Forbes 1963 after Dalman 1932) Fig. 26. Tabun- scheme by McQuitty (1994), bab = top opening, sanur = bottom opening, gato = tabun lid Fig. 27. Differences between Tannur and Tabun oven Fig. 28. Modern waqdiah and arsah - scheme by McQuitty (1994) Fig. 29. The cross section of a furn (Forbes 1963 after Dalman 1932) Fig. 30. Overview of the basic bread making installations in the Near East Fig. 31. A 3rd Millenium fire installation from Tell Asmar, interpreted as kiln, but possibly being another type of oven (Moorey 1999 after Frankfort et.al. 1932: Fig. 31) Fig. 32. Proposal of worksheet for excavated tannur-like ovens by McQuitty (1994, 73) Fig. 33. Detailed worksheet for tannur-like ovens in archaeology by Mulder-Heymans (2002, 6-7) Fig. 34. Archaeological worksheet for tannur-like ovens Fig. 35. A map showing six main areas where Mulder-Heymans (2002) conducted her ethnographic investigations. Khabur and Balikh regions (no. 5) were part of the investigations. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com Fig. 36. A map of Syria showing 11 selected archaeological sites in the Khabur region. Source of blind map: www.d-maps.com Fig. 37. List of sites in the Khabur region, where tannur-like ovens were attested by Sánchez (2012) Fig. 38. Timeline- Near Eastern Periodization Fig. 39. Overview of the selected sites in the Khabur region, the datation of the studied tannur-like ovens and their references Fig. 40. Oven with corridor entrance from Chagar Bazar (Gomez-Bach 2012) Fig. 41. Domed oven from Tell Brak (after Emberling & McDonald 2009) Fig. 42. Tannurs from Tell Hamoukar (after Colantoni & Ur 2011, 28) Fig. 43. Tannur Lids from Hamoukar (after Colantoni & Ur 2011, 44) Fig. 44. Tannur from Tell Ziyadeh (Hole 1999, 270)

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Fig. 45. Round oven of Akkadian date, dug into the courtyard of an earlier house. Square 36/65, Locus 23. Drawing C. Sauter, digitizing M. Momot; photo J. Wierzbicki (Ławecka 2008) Fig. 46. Big (foreground) and small round oven and half of an oval one (right) in Locus 5 (square 35/66). Late Ninevite 5 or ED III (Photo A. Reiche) Ławecka 2008 Fig. 47. Bread ovens from Dudu palace, Tell Leilan (after Weiss 2007) Fig. 48. Central area under House I with tannur-like installation and small walls, Tell Fekhreriyeh (after Bartl 2010, 9) Fig. 49. Some of the tannur-like ovens from Tell Barri (dated to Neoassyrian period) Pecorella 2003, 70. Fig. 50. Archaeological evidence about tannur-like ovens from the selected sites in the Khabur region Fig. 51. Location of trenches at the site of Tell Arbid Abyad during seasons 2007 - 2010 (PANE Archive 2010) Fig. 52. Cross section of tannur-like oven A from trench J 12 with oven will (PANE Archive 2010) Fig. 53. Remains of tannur-like oven A from trench J 12 after removing the oven fill (PANE Archive 2010) Fig. 54. Location of the feature A in association with ashy surface (feature E) and wall remains (features J, K and L) Fig. 55. Location of the feature A (orange) in association with ashy surface (feature E- blue) and wall remains (black). Source: Ortophoto taken on June 7th 2010 (PANE Archive 2010) Fig. 56. Percentage of ash ratio in Feature A, associated with Feature E. (N marks the North) Source: field documentation from Tell Arbid Abyad 2010 Fig. 57. Cross section of the Feature A showing the approximate percentage of ash ratio and traces of plaster. (W marks the West, E marks the East) Source: field documentation from Tell Arbid Abyad 2010 Fig. 58. Auxiliary definition applied to tannur-like feature A from Tell Arbid Abyad Fig. 59. A worksheet for tannur-like oven A in trench J 12, Tell Arbid Abyad

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