Carbonized 1,300-Year-Old Bread Loaves Unearthed in Turkey

https://ancientist.com/1300-year-old-communion-bread-unearthed-in-karaman-a-loaf-for-the-farmer-christ/

by ilamont • 9 months ago

42 15 9 months ago

ancientist.com

echelon_musk• 9 months ago

Somebody tell Seamus Blackley. Maybe there is some salvageable yeast.

msuniverse2026• 9 months ago

Would this have been done using a pan with a reversed pattern or hand skills?

ofalkaed• 9 months ago

A pan, the dough would not hold such detail through baking if done by hand.

doodlebugging2• 9 months ago

It would likely have been done using a mold similar to the ones in this article about Roman breadmaking in Pompeii. [0] This story did make it to HN a couple or three years ago, maybe longer, and has been updated since.

[0]https://tavolamediterranea.com/2018/06/14/baking-bread-roman...

There's some bullshit about no part of the website being reproduced, etc at the bottom of the article but I ignored it since they posted it online where anyone can read it and they mentioned earlier traffic from HN so I'm sure they're totally okay with us abusing their materials, maybe as long as we all purchase something from their shops. /s

bcraven2• 9 months ago

"NO PART OF THIS WEB SITE [...] MAY BE REPRODUCED, DISTRIBUTED, COPIED, PLAGIARISED, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, INCLUDING [...] VERBAL CONVEYANCE"

Imagine asking people not to talk about your work. Astonishing.

inreverse• 9 months ago

The entire website seems fake! The quoted archaeologist sounds like GPT.

bcraven2• 9 months ago

Author: https://www.anatolianarchaeology.net/author/oguz/

They may be using AI for some language conversions, but I think they are real.

inejge• 9 months ago

I noticed that too, but I suspect that people's GPT-meters may be a bit too hair-trigger these days.

Idea for a study: take a bunch of GPT-sounding snippets from a verified pre-LLM corpus, along with an equal number of typical LLM generated ones. Randomize and ask test subjects to tell them apart. I suspect it would be a bloodbath. (Random chance at best, or heavily biased toward false positives.)

wewewedxfgdf• 9 months ago

Usually you can freshen up stale bread by putting it in the toaster.

kazinator• 9 months ago

Staling is a transformation in the starch molecules that is reversed by heat.

A good way to freshen up stale bread without toasting it is to steam it.

If it doesn't need moisture, a few seconds in the microwave oven does the job.

esperent• 9 months ago

My favorite method: spritz with water on both sides. A few seconds in the microwave. Then a minute or two in the toaster. Even very stale bread is as good as new.

elcritch• 9 months ago

It’s not just ordinary bread. It looks to be prosphora, or communion bread [1]. In Eastern Orthodox churches communion bread is leavened and it is prepared by hand often by laity [2].

I find it beautiful that such a small but sacred action still looks to be done the same way 1300 years later.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosphora 2: https://www.stdemetriosmi.org/parish-resources/prosphora-bak...

rich_sasha• 9 months ago

Is "carbonised" a euphemism for "overbaked" here?

Carbonized 1,300-Year-Old Bread Loaves Unearthed in Turkey

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