Discoveries

June 08, 2023

Breaking Bread

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Archaeologists recently discovered one of the oldest bakeries in the southern Caucasus, Smithsonian Magazine reported.

Last year, an archaeological team uncovered the remains of a 3,000-year-old structure in the western Armenian town of Metsamor.

They also noticed that the whole area was covered with a mysterious powdery substance that they initially believed was ash. After all, some charred remains of the ancient building proved that it burned down at one point.

But a closer analysis of the powder revealed that it was wheat flour, which suggested that the large building was a bakery.

The team explained that the building operated between the late 11th and early ninth century BCE, but it did not initially start out as a bakery. They said that the furnaces in the structure were added after the building’s construction.

It could have housed potentially 3.5 tons of flour, which means that it was a site of mass production, the researchers noted.

Not much is known about Metsamor’s history, a fortified settlement first established in the fourth millennium BCE. The ancient settlement covered 247 acres before being conquered in the eighth century BCE by the Iron Age kingdom of Urartu.

Its inhabitants did not have a written language to record much about their community.

Still, researchers hope that the bakery, and the recent discovery of a tomb filled with gold pendants could shed some more light on Metsamor.

This story originally appeared in the June 08, 2023 newsletter, Far North Face Off.