Now, more than 5,000 years later, archaeologists have unearthed it, and helped a local bakery to recreate the recipe -- with customers lining up to buy it.
“This is the oldest baked bread to have come to light during an excavation, and it has largely been able to preserve its shape,“ said Murat Turkteki, archaeologist and director of the excavation.
“But here, it was preserved because it had been burnt and buried,“ he said.
A piece had been torn off, before the bread was burnt, then buried when the house was built.
'Moved by this discovery'
“We were very moved by this discovery. Talking to our excavation director, I wondered if we could reproduce this bread,“ said the city’s mayor, Ayse Unluce.
Ancient emmer seeds no longer exist in Turkey.
At the Halk Ekmek bakery (meaning “People’s Bread“ in Turkish), promoted by the municipality to offer low-cost bread, employees have been shaping 300 loaves of Kulluoba by hand every day.
The first Kulluoba loaves, marketed as 300-gramme (11-ounce) cakes that cost 50 Turkish lira (around $1.28), sold out within hours.
Drought resistant
In the Bronze Age, the Hattians, an Anatolian people who preceded the Hittites, lived in the Eskisehir region.
The rediscovery of the bread has sparked interest in the cultivation of ancient wheats better adapted to drought.
“We’re facing a climate crisis, but we’re still growing corn and sunflowers, which require a lot of water,“ said Unluce, the local mayor.
The mayor wants to revive the cultivation of Kavilca wheat in the region, which is resistant to drought and disease.
“These lands have preserved this bread for 5,000 years and given us this gift. We have a duty to protect this heritage and pass it on.”
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