Archaeologists in Turkey have announced a remarkable discovery of the oldest known bakery in the world, dating back to 6600 BC, found at a Neolithic archaeological site. According to CNN, a "largely destroyed" oven structure was discovered in an area called "Mekan 66," where there are adjacent mud-brick houses, at the Çatalhöyük archaeological site in the Konya province of central Turkey, as per the Research and Application Center for Science and Technology at Necmettin Erbakan University.
The center stated in a statement that scientists found wheat, barley, pea seeds, and round "sponge-like" remains the size of a palm around the oven. Analysis of the organic remains revealed they were uncooked and fermented bread that is 8,600 years old.
Ali Umut Turkan, the head of the excavation mission and an associate professor at Anadolu University in Turkey, described the discovery as "the oldest bread in the world." He noted, "It is a smaller version of a loaf of bread, containing unbaked yeast that has a pressed finger in the middle, which has been fermented and remains to this day with starches inside. There is nothing similar to this so far."
Additionally, wood and bread were preserved thanks to the thin clay covering the container in which they were placed, according to biologist Salih Kavak, a lecturer at Gaziantep University in Turkey. He stated, "Flour and water were mixed, and the bread was prepared next to the oven and preserved for a while."
It is worth mentioning that Çatalhöyük is one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites. It was home to about 8,000 people during the Neolithic period and is one of the world’s earliest urban settlements. The city is located on the borders of "Çumra," part of the Konya province in central Anatolia, and appears as an earth mound with a flat summit shape.
