Beef in Ancient Egypt Cabbage Leaf

A glimpse into the food and foodways of the ancient Egyptians over their 3,000-year history

The pyramids, temples, and tombs are the tangible symbols of ancient Egypt that most people are familiar with. Aspects of the daily lives of the ancient Egyptian, nevertheless, are little known but immensely intriguing.

'What did they eat?'

When I am asked this seemingly simple question, I often notice myself giving a blank face while racking my encephalon for straightforward answers. A couple of facts make it hard for me to answer: What people refer to every bit 'the aboriginal Egyptians' represent some 3,000 years of history—with 3,000 years of respective food traditions and developments. New cultures brought in crops or cooking techniques; climates changed and created dissimilar conditions for institute cultivation; agricultural developments made mode for new crops; and foods fell in and out of mode. The bear witness that remains leaves united states with much knowledge about the raw ingredients, but most naught about preparation methods or dishes. No written menus survive from ancient Arab republic of egypt. And then, although I may not have simple examples of the dishes the aboriginal Egyptians cooked and ate, the knowledge we have of their nutrient is still vast. What makes information technology nigh fun for me equally an archaeologist is that nosotros tin can get different $.25 of information from unlike sources, all little bits of a puzzle that help united states of america meliorate reconstruct aboriginal Egyptian foodways. Keep these challenges in heed every bit you read this exploration of the food of ancient Arab republic of egypt.

A timeline of nutrient in Aboriginal Egypt (Click to enlarge)

Design: Maijane Saba

Bread

Animal-shaped bread from the Tomb of Kha (TT 8), Deir el-Medina, Dynasty eighteen (ca. 1550– 1295 BCE), New Kingdom.

NICOLA DELL'AQUILA AND FEDERICO TAVERNI, COURTESY OF MUSEO EGIZIO DI TORINO

Breadstuff was a nutritional staple used in many ritual and funerary traditions. It was fundamental to the Egyptian economic system, from cereal harvest and processing, to breadstuff baking and exchange. A well-rounded understanding of bread and its production can exist formed from illustrations on tomb walls, textual testify, archaeological remains, ethnographic observations, and experimental archaeology. Hundreds of loaves of bread have actually survived from ancient Egypt, every bit they were placed in tombs for the deceased to swallow. They came in a variety of shapes, including discs, oblong mounds, cones, triangles, and animal and human shapes. The surviving loaves are also invaluable in showing us how they were baked with some showing signs of scorching where they were either closer to the fire or placed on a shelf inside the oven.

Emmer wheat was the primary cereal used for bread only occasionally, barley was also used. The low gluten content of both flours precluded any significant ascent of the dough and yielded thick, dense loaves. Archaeological staff of life loaves, whether whole or fragmented, often too contain unground cereal grains, which could have been either inadvertently included or deliberately added. Other elements are also occasionally present: Spices such every bit coriander; dried fruit such as figs or dates; cracked grains for a whole-wheat type loaf; or even colouring agents. Firm dough that could exist shaped by manus, or dough of a more liquid consistency poured into dirt bread moulds are both depicted on tomb walls. Based on microscopic analysis, a wetter dough seems to accept been more mutual—at least during the New Kingdom. The dough was baked in a variety of manners that inverse over time, equally documented on tomb walls. These include baking directly over hot ashes; placing the dough on a stone over an open flame, or in ovens, either on an inside shelf (or stone slab) or by slapping sparse, flat discs of dough onto the inner walls (only known in the New Kingdom, ca. 1550–1070 BCE); or baking on a girdle above the flame.

Vegetables and Pulses

Vegetables and pulses were an important nutritional accompaniment to bread. Onions, peculiarly spring onions, were e'er role of the standard tomb offerings and were fifty-fifty included in a meal depicted on a tomb wall. Lettuce, very like to baladi lettuce with big leaves, was a staple also often depicted in offering scenes in addition to beingness allegorical of Min, the ancient Egyptian god of fertility. Egyptian cucumber ('atta) was too depicted in offering scenes. Other types of cucumbers and gourds were known to the aboriginal Egyptians but identifying them precisely based on the creative evidence is fraught with difficulties.

Mallow (khobizza) is a field weed that has grown aslope cereals since ancient times, and it is probable that the aboriginal Egyptians realised its tastiness and nutritious value early on. Olive finds are occasional until the New Kingdom (ca. 1550–1070 BCE) and only become frequent in the Graeco-Roman period, when olive oil was pressed in big-scale facilities. Other oils, such every bit linseed and castor may also have been bachelor although prove for either is uncertain.

Pulses such as lentils were also widely consumed. Lentils take been found commonly on archaeological sites. In a Theban tomb, for example, several tightly packed balls of what seem to exist cooked brown lentils were institute. Lentils would have been either consumed chocolate-brown ('ads bi-gibba) or candy to remove their brown seed coats and served orange. It is conceivable that they would take been made into a soup-similar batter, but evidence for that is non available. A few chickpeas accept been establish, and there are even little faience models believed to exist chickpeas dating to the Centre Kingdom. Some peas have as well been institute, but far too few to determine whether they were a dietary component or a wild contagion of other pulse crops.

Fava beans, the backbone of modern Egyptian cuisine, were probably not consumed past ancient Egyptians. The remains of fava beans are far too few to make that supposition, and they seem to take only become popular later in the Graeco-Roman period. In fact, information technology is believed that priests may have been forbidden from eating them, just how far this taboo would have gone downwardly the bureaucracy of Egyptian society is not known. What is certain, all the same, is that the ancient Egyptians ate some kind of bean. Beans are mentioned as part of the provisions provided by the state to workers working in Deir el-Medina, and Ramesside kings distributed hundreds of jars of 'shelled beans' amongst workmen, but the ancient Egyptian word for the beans in question has not been adequately translated however.

One of my favourite components in aboriginal Egyptian food is the tiger nut (hab al-'aziz), known besides by its Spanish name, chuffa. A fellow member of the papyrus family, its tubers are delicious eaten fresh, stale, or roasted. It has been establish as an offering in tombs since very early on in Egyptian history during the Predynastic Menstruation. It was boiled in beer (at least in Hellenistic times), which made it sweeter. It was also the main ingredient in the closest thing we have to a recipe from ancient Egypt, carved on the walls of the tomb of a vizier called Rekhmire (ca. 1479–1400 BCE) in the Tombs of the Nobles in Luxor.

Fruit

Bowl containing dates, from the tomb of Hatnefer in Thebes, Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Dynasty 18 (ca. 1550–1295 BCE), New Kingdom. Hatnefer was the mother of Senenmut, Queen Hatshepsut'due south well-known official. She died in her seventies, outliving her husband, Ramose, and several other family members. When his mother died, Senenmut provided her and the rest of his deceased family members with sustenance for the afterlife, including baskets of food containing various types of bread, dates, raisins, dom-palm fruit, some kind of breadstuff pudding, and other foodstuffs.

©THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF Fine art/ROGERS FUND

Fruits were a very mutual element of funerary offerings and were certainly part of the diet. Dates were rare prior to the Eye Kingdom (ca. 2030–1660 BCE), probably because the appointment palm needed bogus pollination to comport fruit, which was only introduced from Mesopotamia in the Middle Kingdom. The dates would take been consumed fresh or dried, allowing them to be stored afterwards their season was long gone. They may also have been roasted. Today in many Egyptian villages, fresh dates are left to dry in the sun and turned over every day or so to ensure uniform drying, but the aboriginal drying process may have been aided by the addition of lite heat. Stale dates were sometimes added to bread or cakes, and the fruits may have been pressed to create wine or at to the lowest degree to sweeten grape-based wine.

Dom, a hard, chocolate-brown fruit is one of the most common offerings presented to the dead in tombs. The dom-palm itself is very oftentimes presented in tomb scenes. A listed offer includes 'dom cakes', which suggests that they were also used for baking, although how they would have been incorporated in a cake is unknown.

2 types of figs were known, sycamore figs and common figs. The mutual fig fruits were slightly bigger than the sycamore figs and sweeter. Both could have been eaten dried or fresh and added to breads or cakes.

Grapes were of the most popular and dearest fruits and came in several colours and varieties. They were non only a tasty, refreshing fruit, but could also be dried for storage or to impart boosted sweetness to cakes and breads, every bit attested in actual finds of bread with added raisins. With fresh grapes being the basis of wine, dried raisins may accept as well been added as sweeteners or to back up  its fermentation.

Pomegranates offered a tasty fruit, likewise as a succulent juice which may accept been left to ferment to produce the ancient Egyptian wine known equally shedeh. The beautiful fruit of the pomegranate was oft used in decorative motifs, appearing in amulets and jewellery. Pomegranates are wonderfully represented in the New Kingdom Theban tomb of Sobekhotep, tied together as an offering, alongside a tangle of grapes.

Christ's thorn (nabk), occasionally nevertheless on sale in winter on Egyptian street carts, are minor round fruits with dry only very tasty flesh. These were commonly found in tombs from as early equally the Predynastic Period, and their fruits were even sometimes used as beads in collars placed on mummies. They are related to juniper berries ('en-nab), which have get very rare besides.

Watermelons and other types of melons were also known in ancient Egypt. Several fruits that were one time honey past the ancient Egyptians, all the same, are no longer known in Egypt. These include persea, yellow fruits placed in tomb offerings starting from Dynasty 3. Another one is the Egyptian plum, a sweet, orange-coloured fruit also known from that period.

Meat, Poultry, and Fish

Model of a butchery from the tomb of the royal chief steward Meketre, Theban Necropolis, Dynasty 12 (ca. 1985–1795 BCE), Middle Kingdom. Royal main steward Meketre began his career nether Male monarch Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II of Dynasty 11 and connected to serve successive kings into the early years of Dynasty 12. This wooden model—one of over twenty found in his tomb—shows two men slaughtering a pair of oxen. Two other men hold bowls to catch the blood which will be afterward made into pudding. Another pair of men can be seen in the corner fanning fires under kettles. An overseer and a clerk monitor the activities which too involve the plucking of a goose. On the balcony above hang joints of meat.

©THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF Fine art/ROGERS FUND

Beef would have been, similar today, the most prized source of meat, followed by mutton, caprine animal, and pork. Butchering shops are depicted in both tomb scenes and in models of daily life found in tombs. They show how cattle throats are slit and the intestines and rib cage pulled out and that Egyptians consumed ribs, filets, and legs of beef. A find of cows with their skulls divide open, giving admission to their brains, suggests that Egyptians also enjoyed that delicacy. The presence of total heads of cows on many painted offering tables suggested that caput meat (lahmet rass) was as beloved then as information technology is today in Egypt. Texts from the third century CE evidence that offal, trotters, lungs spleen, liver, kidney, 'calf'due south pes soup' (and so probably kaware'), testicles, sausages, tripe, and brain were available in Egyptian meat shops, and it is likely that this was the case in even earlier times. The same cuts and offal of mutton and lamb were most probably also consumed. Meat may have been boiled or roasted, grilled, salted, or dried. Evidence of force-feeding of cattle and pigs is also documented. Pigs were consumed, although on occasion, were prohibited for priests. Wild boars would have been defenseless using nets or by aiming rocks. Like beef, they wold have been boiled, roasted, or grilled. Hares (or rabbits) were often seen held by their ears on tomb walls, which may suggest that they were as well eaten. Hartebeest, addax, oryx, ibex, gazelle, hippopotamus, and crocodile were some of the unusual wild fauna consumed. This is attested by the presence of cut marks on their bones.

Duck, geese, and quail were eaten in improver to wild birds. There is also show of the consumption of ostrich, and there may fifty-fifty have been ostrich farms! Scenes of the force-feeding of fowl have led scholars to suggest that the ancient Egyptians prepared foie gras only show is inconclusive: modern villagers strength-feed fowl with no noesis of foie gras. Chickens were a later arrival. There is some evidence of chickens from the New Kingdom onwards, just they certainly did not become widespread until much later. Eggshells from fowl and ostriches are a common occurrence on archaeological sites, where they were oft reworked into beads (especially ostrich shells, which are thicker). Eggs were probably commonly eaten. Yet, how they would have been prepared is non documented. Whether they were used in other foods, such as baked goods, is also unknown.

Wooden model of a man fanning a roasted
duck, excavated in Assiut, Dynasties 11–12
(ca. 2055–1795 BCE), Center Kingdom .

NICOLA DELL'AQUILA AND FEDERICO TAVERNI, COURTESY OF MUSEO EGIZIO DI TORINO

Almost a hundred species of Nile fish were eaten, including tilapia (bulti), catfish, and Nile perch which are consumed until today. Mullet roe (batarekh) and salted fish were exported throughout the Mediterranean. Fish would take been grilled, salted, or dried. Dried, stinky fish ( feseekh ), commonly eaten today for Egyptian Easter, probably has its origins in ancient Arab republic of egypt. Fish were caught either in nets or using hooks and lines, or fifty-fifty past spear line-fishing. Molluscs, including Nile oysters, were known and consumed from the Early Dynastic Flow (ca. 3100–2649 BCE). I would hope they were eaten raw, only how they were prepared is not known.

Dairy

Moo-cow milk was certainly consumed, since we accept milking scenes. Milk from other animals was also probably used. Cheese, foam, and perhaps a ghee- or butter-like production were nigh likely produced equally well, although testify is scant. Several finds (mostly round) believed to exist cheese have been found in aboriginal Egypt.

Condiments

Trivial is known about condiments. Spices such every bit coriander, cumin, dill, and fenugreek were available and known, oftentimes imported from other countries in the Near Eastward or Africa. Fenugreek was even used in bread. Salt, whether from lakes or from the ocean, was besides used.

Sweets and Treats

Gathering Honey, Tomb of Rekhmire. Facsimile painted by Nina de Garis Davies; originalfrom Thebes, Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Dynasty xviii (ca. 1550–1295 BCE), New Kingdom. The image shows the horizontal dirt hives, which are still used today in traditional beekeeping in Egypt. The bees would have been smoked out using a smoking pot to brand them remember their hive was called-for and fly abroad while the beekeepers harvested the honey.

©THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF Art/ROGERS FUND

A highly expensive article only accessible to the wealthy, honey was believed to have been created from the god Ra'southward tears that turned into a bee. Not only was information technology used equally a sweetener in foods, and probably drinks as well, it was appreciated for its medicinal and antibacterial backdrop. While it may originally have been obtained from wild bees, apiculture was definitely practiced by the aboriginal Egyptians.

A variety of cakes and pastry types were also known, many of which were sweetened using dried fruits similar raisins, dried figs, dates, or even honey. Porridges with wheat or barley sweetened with honey or stale fruits might also have been available.

Drinks

From tomb scenes, vessels, and other archaeological evidence, beer and wine production and consumption are well known, even if some elements remain less understood. Of other beverages, such equally juices, there is sadly less evidence. It is virtually likely, still, that fruit juices were well known, and drinks from dom and carob may have besides been consumed. Carob actually may take even been used as a sweetener in beverages simply finds are rare. There is no testify of warm drinks, which were certainly also available.

The Lotus Question

Yous oftentimes see lotus in tombs on offering tables, which may have been either a decorative motif, most like a garnish, but may as well have been eaten. Indeed, Herodotus talked nearly the lotus (or a blazon of water lily) being eaten, merely scholars are uncertain whether he meant the lotus flower, or if it was a misnomer for something else. In any instance, he mentioned that the 'lotus' gave a fruit that when washed and dried and pounded could have been used to make bread, while its roots were also eaten and were pleasantly sweet.

Shopping, Eating, and a Little Advice

Piffling concrete evidence is available on how the ancient Egyptians would have procured their food. It is likely notwithstanding, that many people would have had small kitchen gardens around their houses. Those who were fortunate enough to own cattle would have had a fresh supply of milk. Two scenes that look like a market are known: a woman with a brandish of spring onions, and some other with something that looks similar a round cheese or butter. Those working for the state, such every bit the pyramid builders in the Old Kingdom or those working on the imperial tombs in the Valley of the Kings, would take received provisions as function of their wages.

Other than how people may take sat for meals, we know nothing about the number of meals a mean solar day and what would have been on the carte du jour. A couple of scenes prove people seated having food in front of a table. Some even testify a complete meal. A man sitting and eating onions with a knife is probably a peasant having his midday meal. There are also scenes of men working in the fields and nosotros tin come across a repast next to them.

In spite of this famine of bear witness, we do know that table manners were desirable from the instructions given to Kagemni, the fourth-dynasty vizier of King Snefru (ca. 2575–2465 BCE).

Pieces of a Puzzle

We know about the food the ancient Egyptians ate from a variety of sources. For example, archaeological testify of kitchen spaces helps paint a picture of kitchen layouts. Identifying a kitchen in an archaeological context, however, is not always straightforward, unless it contains an oven or a kanun (an open-topped stove-like heating installation). Each had a different utilise: ovens were best for baking and for foods that required long, strong heat from all sides. Kanuns, on the other manus, were prefect for grilling foods (such as bread) and were too suitable for stewing. Near kitchen contents were ephemeral and mobile, and much of the nutrient grooming may have taken place outside in courtyards. Middle Kingdom models show us blistering spaces, butchering spaces, only these are by and large industrial-scale contexts and not private kitchens.

Although cooking scenes are not too common, a few show grilling, boiling, baking, heating, and roasting. Knives were used for cutting and long rods for roasting and grilling. Sticks (or spoon-similar implements) were used for stirring. It is likely that people ate using their easily. One of the few scenes of kitchen spaces comes from Amarna.

A huge array of ceramic vessels has been found offering a wealth of information.  Their forms indicate their uses and many show burn down marks on their side or bottom, indicating how they were used on an oven or kanun. Their contents ofttimes seep into their walls and can exist analysed today using chemicals. For example, vessels that were used to store or cook dairy products show traces of fatty and DNA analysis tin often tell us what beast that milk came from.

Archaeozoology, the report of animal remains, shows us what species were nowadays and gives conclusive testify that they were used for human consumption through the examination of cut marks on the bones. This as well shows which cuts of meat were used. Archaeobotanical (plant) remains are also a adept resource and show the dissimilar plants that were available. Although nosotros may not e'er be sure that they were eaten, or how they were prepared, in one case in a while, you have surviving plants indicating their preparation. For case, grains plant in a germinated state, such as wheat grains used to make malt for beer. Although we often have trouble being certain of how sure words are translated, texts are still an invaluable resource. Lists of bolt or offerings and labels on scenes of different cooking and food preparation-related activities provide directly show of how things were done. Artistic prove on tomb and temple walls, and even 3-dimensional art such as models placed in tombs, are as well a neat resource. Finally, finds of nutrient, such as staff of life loaves, are a cinch style to investigate how things were made using varied methods of analysis.

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Source: https://rawi-magazine.com/articles/from-staples-to-luxuries/