Panes, hogazas y fogones portátiles. Dos formas cerámicas destinadas a la cocción del pan en Al-Andalus: el hornillo (tannur) y el plato (tabag)

Abstract

En este trabajo pretendemos identificar diversos repertorios cerámicos aparecidos en contextos arqueológicos altomedievales rurales del levante peninsular, con dos sistemas portátiles de coción del pan -el hornillo o tannür y el plato o tábaq-mencionados en las fuentes literarias árabes, relacionándolos, en algunos casos, con objetos similares mencionados en las fuentes latinas y visigodas. Estudiamos también sus orígenes y perduraciones, pero mientras que el plato figura en las tradiciones tardorromanas de panificación, el hornillo, de tradición semita, parece ser introducido en al-Andalus con la conquista islámica.With this work we want to identify several pottery's series found in rural archaeological sequences of the Middle Ages beginning from the Eastern part of the Iberian Península with two portable methode for bread-baking -the portable furnace or tannür and the baking-plate or tábaq-cited in the literary Arabian sources, contrasting with similar objects quoted by Latin and visigothics sources. This study includes also their origin and perdurance but, whereas these baking-plate appear in the Late Román baking technology, the portable furnace was, apparently, introduced in al-Andalus with the Islamic conquest.

Sources of geomaterials in the Sicani Mountains during the Early Middle Ages: A case study of Contrada Castro, central western Sicily

“…The ceramic handmade bread‐baking plate (CST‐24) (Figure 11 (1a,b)), also known as ‘testo/testello’ (Giannichedda & Zanini, 2011), whose paste has been grouped in MPP‐5, is recorded (in terms of typology) in many rural contexts of peninsular Italy from the 6th/7th century throughout the Middle Ages (Augenti, 2016). Furthermore, it has been argued that similar forms of flatbread baking plates were not only recorded in Roman and Byzantine contexts in Egypt and Chios (Reynolds, 2016) but also in southern Spain such as in Visigothic and Byzantine sites and, more often, related to the so‐called ṭābaq (Gutiérrez Lloret, 1991) in Islamic contexts of al‐Andalus (Amorós Ruiz & Gutiérrez Lloret, 2020). This type of ceramic artefact, probably used for cooking flatbreads, is hardly been recorded in the Early Medieval Sicily (similar examples from late 7th–8th c. AD layers of Cignana in Agrigento province, Rizzo et al, 2014).…”

Ceramics in transition: ceramics from the first Islamic period in the western Mediterranean – the example of al-Andalus

“…5). Furthermore, as the century goes by, new shapes appear, such as the tannūr , which is an oven for baking bread of oriental tradition (Gutiérrez Lloret 1991, 1996b), the waterwheel bucket ( qādūs / arcaduz ) (Gutiérrez Lloret 1996c; 2012, 264–69; García Blánquez 2014) and the Islamic oil lamp ( candil ). These objects represent different cultural traditions and, more importantly, are proof of the introduction of new types of food and agricultural practices with irrigation (Gutiérrez Lloret 2015, 80), corroborated in an early period in the region of Tudmīr, in the south-eastern area of al-Andalus (Gutiérrez 2019).…”

“…The weight of the pre-Islamic tradition in the Umayyad collections is the framework that explains the continuity or reappearance of traditionally Mediterranean shapes (at least since the Roman world) in the repertoires from the early Islamic period. Examples are the plate for baking bread or ṭābaq (Gutiérrez Lloret 1991; Reynolds 2016, 158–67), which can be also found in Visigothic contexts from the central part of the Peninsula (Serrano Herrero et al 2016, 307) and in the Byzantine Cartagena (Laiz Reverte and Ruiz Valderas 1988). This perspective in part explains why we find shapes and decorations in the eighth century similar to the Umayyad ceramics from the Eastern Mediterranean, such as painted decorations and jugs with wide mouths, in different parts of the Iberian Peninsula, such as the Duero valley (Zozaya Stabel-Hansen et al 2012), the central part of the Peninsula (Serrano Herrero et al 2016) or Córdoba (Casal et al 2005).…”