8600-Year-Old World’s Oldest Bread Found in Excavation Work in Çatalhöyük!

Scientists discovered an 8,600-year-old bread in Çatalhöyük, one of the first urbanized settlements in human history. Thus, the oldest known bread emerged in Konya.

In Çatalhöyük, located in the Çumra district of Konya, a bakery structure was discovered in the area called “Mekan 66,” where adjacent mudbrick houses are found and entered from the top.

A significantly damaged oven was found surrounded by wheat, barley, pea seeds, and what is believed to be food-sized residue. Analysis conducted at the Necmettin Erbakan University Science and Technology Research and Application Center (BİTAM) determined that the spongy residue was a fermented bread dated back to 8,600 years ago.

Archaeologist Türkcan, who stated that modern archaeology also examines the archaeology of foods, said; “We need to say that the starting point of food archaeology is Anatolia. Çatalhöyük is one of the important stops here. We have shown with Turkish excavations that we can detect such organic residues with very precise documentation and detailed work.”

Türkcan emphasized the important place of Çatalhöyük Neolithic City in this area, saying: “After careful documentation, the small, round spongy find in the corner of the oven turned into bread. The thin layer of clay covering the structure has preserved all these organic residues, both wood and bread, until today. Radiocarbon tests conducted at TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM) showed that our sample could be dated back to approximately 6600 BC.”

“We can say that this finding in Çatalhöyük is the oldest bread in the world.” “This organic residue is a shrunken version of a bread loaf. It hasn’t been baked but has been fermented and has survived until today with its starches. Such an example has never been encountered before.”

Çatalhöyük was already a center of many firsts. “The world’s first textiles were also found in Çatalhöyük. Wooden artifacts were also in Çatalhöyük. Wall paintings and drawings were added to this. In this sense, Konya and Turkey are very fortunate.”

It seems that many more things will be found in this excavation area called Mekan 66 in the coming days. What do you think about this? Let’s meet in the comments.