Clay oven facts for kids
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A clay oven, also called an earthen oven or cob oven, is a very old type of oven. People have used them for thousands of years in many different cultures. Before modern stoves and ovens were invented, these clay ovens were super important for baking, especially bread. Most clay ovens looked pretty similar, with only small differences in size or the materials used to build them. In ancient times, you'd often find these ovens built right on the ground in courtyards or farmhouses.
In places like the Arabian Peninsula, the Middle East, and North Africa, people often baked bread in clay ovens. Some were called tabun ovens, and others were known as tannour or mas'ad. The tannour oven, which is similar to the Hebrew word for 'oven', was often shaped like a cone with the top cut off. It had an opening at the top or bottom to add fire. Some were shaped like cylinders with an opening at the top. These ovens were used by families, neighborhoods, or whole villages long ago, and you can still find them being made in parts of the Middle East today.
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How Clay Ovens Were Used
Clay ovens have been used for centuries in the Middle East to bake flatbreads like taboon bread and laffa. But they weren't just for baking! People also used them for cooking. They would place pots inside the oven's space, right on top of hot coals covered with ash. If food needed to cook for a long time, like overnight, they would cover the oven's opening with a large clay pot and seal it with old rags to keep the air out.
If the oven had an opening on the side, the door had to be left a little open at first. This allowed air to get in and help the fire burn. Clay ovens were a bit different from clay stoves. With stoves, pots sat directly over the fire, but with ovens, the pots were placed inside the heated space.
Types of Middle Eastern Clay Ovens
The Tabun Oven
A researcher named Gustaf Dalman studied the tools and ways of life in Palestine in the early 1900s. He took pictures of several clay ovens. One type was the tabun. It looked like a big, bottomless clay pot turned upside down and stuck firmly to the ground. The floor of the oven was made of smooth pebbles. The pot shape was wider at the bottom and narrower at the top, where the opening was. This opening was used to start the fire and put in the dough.
Another tabun oven had a second opening on the side, called the "eye of the oven." This side opening was for stoking the fire and cleaning out ashes. It had a door that could be removed. Both types of tabun ovens had a ceramic lid to cover the top opening. These ovens were usually small and placed inside a baking hut to protect them from weather. Some tabun ovens were even built partly underground. To bake, hot coals and embers (often from dried animal dung) were placed on top of the clay oven's outer wall. The bread was then baked on the pebbled floor inside.
The Tannour Oven
The word tannour is often used in Arabic and Hebrew to mean any place where bread is baked with fire. In Yemen, most clay ovens were used for both baking and cooking. They were cylindrical, about half a person's height, with a wide-open top called the "mouth of the oven." The fire was started through this top opening. A small air-hole at the bottom, called the "eye of the oven," helped air circulate and allowed ashes to be removed.
These ovens had a flat, removable ceramic lid that could also hold extra pots. To bake, flat dough was pressed against the inside wall of the oven, where it stuck until it was cooked. Even unleavened bread for Passover was made this way. Special pots for dishes like kubaneh were placed on the oven floor, on top of the dying embers. These ovens were almost always built inside baking rooms or kitchens next to a courtyard.
The tannour ovens in Palestine were about 70 to 100 centimeters (2.3 to 3.3 feet) tall and cylindrical. They were 60 to 70 centimeters (2 to 2.3 feet) wide at the bottom and got narrower towards the top. Some tannour ovens could even be made from large water jugs! The Tandoor oven, popular in India, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan, is related to the tannour.
In ancient Palestine (1st and 2nd centuries CE), cylindrical clay ovens with top openings often had a flat, removable clay lid. This lid usually had holes to keep heat in and let smoke out. In some places, like villages near Aleppo, Syria, the tannour oven was vaulted and egg-shaped, with the opening at the front. These were built above ground on a base of earth and stone. Their walls were thick, about 9 to 15 centimeters (3.5 to 6 inches). In Europe and Britain, similar dome-shaped ovens were built on raised bases for easier use. Bread was baked on the brick or tile floor inside.
The Furn Oven
The furn is another type of oven, and its name comes from Greek and Latin words for "furnace." It was also made of clay. An old Jewish scholar named Rashi described it as a large oven with its opening on the side, like a masonry oven.
A geographer from the 900s, al-Muqaddasī, wrote about the furn ovens he saw. He said that farmers had these ovens. Some made small bread ovens (tannûr) in the ground using burnt bricks. They would line these with pebbles, burn dried animal dung inside and on top, then remove the hot ashes. The bread was then placed on the hot pebbles to bake.
Gustaf Dalman also saw furn ovens in Palestine. Most were small and made of clay, with two parts. The bottom part was for the fire, and the top part was for baking round, leavened dough on a flat surface. In Palestine, these ovens were also called ʻarṣa. The bread baked in a furn could be as big or smaller than bread from a tannour.
Today, furn can also mean a "public bakery" where many loaves of bread are baked to be sold. Sometimes, villagers bring other foods, like green chickpeas, to be roasted in these ovens.
The Saj Griddle
The saj (pronounced saaj) is different from a clay oven. It's a curved metal griddle used for baking thin, unleavened dough. Dalman described it as being used by Bedouins from Syria to Arabia because it's portable, unlike the tabun or tannour. It's still used today by Bedouins and other people in Israel-Palestine, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iraq. The saj rests on large stones, and a fire is lit underneath it.
Yemeni Ovens
In Yemeni homes, the kitchen or baking room was often next to an open courtyard. It had a special hearth, which was a freestanding base made of mud-bricks or stones. This base was usually about 2.5 meters (8.2 feet) long and 60 to 110 centimeters (2 to 3.6 feet) high. Built into this base were three separate ovens (tannûr). The spaces between the ovens were filled with wood ash, which is light and holds heat well.
In the early 1900s, a German researcher named Carl Rathjens described ovens in the Old City of Sana'a, Yemen. He said they were made by Jewish potters from burnt clay. They looked like round pots without bottoms, open at both ends, and had a half-circular hole on one side. They were built into the mortar base so the side-hole was at the front, about 15 centimeters (6 inches) above the floor. Wood, charcoal, or dried dung was fed through this hole, and cooking pots were placed on the top opening.
Ancient Italian Baking Covers
In ancient Italy, people used something called a clibanus (Latin) or klibanoi (Greek), which meant "baking oven." These were often earthenware covers. People would clear a spot on the floor, make a small pile of hot coals, and place the baking cover over them. Once the cover was hot enough, they'd lift it, sweep the coals aside, and put the dough on the hot floor. Then, the hot cover was placed back over the dough, and coals were piled around its sides to bake the bread. This method was similar to how the tabun oven worked in the Middle East.
Romans also baked bread directly on hot ashes and embers, placing it on leaves or tiles on a low hearth and covering it with embers. This kind of bread is now known as an ash cake. Later, small ovens were built into kitchen ranges, and even larger, more efficient ovens called furnus (masonry ovens) were developed. There were also portable versions of the clibanus.
Getting Ready to Bake
What Fuel to Use
Many different things could be used to heat a clay oven. People used dried animal dung, dried bird droppings, chopped tree branches, wood chips, or charcoal. The choice of fuel often depended on what was available in that country.
In Yemen, people used wood from specific trees like ḍahya or qaraḍ, which was sold in the wood market. Poorer people often used tamarisk trees for kindling. Sometimes, for lighter baking like making laḥūḥ (a sponge-like flatbread) or roasting grains, they only needed a small fire. For this, women would collect leaves and splinters that fell from trees, especially tamarisk leaves. They also used briquettes made from dried animal droppings, with sheep dung being the best and donkey manure the least useful.
Heating the Oven
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If a clay oven had a top opening, it would be covered. If coffee kettles needed heating, they were placed on top of the oven as the fire was first lit. For a tabun oven, which had no top opening, fuel was spread on the outside of the oven's shell and lid. Once the fire started, the fuel was covered with ash. If damp wood was used, it would smolder for hours, filling the baking room with smoke. After the initial flames died down, the kettles were removed, and the oven was ready for the dough, which was made to stick to the inner wall. The amount of fuel used depended on how much baking was needed.
In Yemen, when a woman wanted to light her tannour, she would arrange different kinds of wood inside. First, thin splinters or twigs, then thinner pieces of wood, followed by thicker ones. She would place two briquettes of sheep dung on either side of the wood pile. Then, she would put all the cooking pots and coffee kettles on top of the stove to heat. A special bush called jiʿdin was great for lighting because it had a sticky, flammable substance. The fire was started by inserting a burning rag or paper.
Baking the Bread
Once the smoke cleared, the lid was removed. Chunks of dough were flattened by hand and placed directly on the limestones inside (for a tabun oven). Most ovens could bake 4 to 5 loaves at once. Then, the opening was sealed, and the fire was stoked using hot embers and ashes. When the bread was ready, the lid was removed, and the bread was taken out. This process could be repeated, or other dishes could be baked using metal or pottery trays. The bottom of the bread would take on the shape of the pebbles or other materials used for the oven floor. This way of baking was unique, saved money, and made food that smelled and tasted wonderful.
In Yemen, after the fire was lit in the larger tannour and the pots started boiling, the flames were allowed to die down. The person cooking would remove the pots and kettles from the stove top and begin baking bread on the oven's inner walls. Flattened dough was applied to the damp inner wall of the oven so it would stick. Traditionally, the dough was flattened on a maḫbazeh, a round, knitted baker's pillow used for protection when putting dough into the hot oven. If bare hands were used, the baker would wet the dough surface with water from soaked fenugreek seeds to prevent sticking. When bubbles appeared on the bread's surface, it meant it was ready.
After baking, the bread was removed. If there was a lot to bake, a dry piece of wood was put into the oven's mouth. Its flame would help cook and steam the outer layer of the bread. This wood was called mudhwa. When baking was finished, a hard-to-burn piece of wood, often a knot from a tree trunk, was placed in the oven. A cake of sheep dung was added, and both were buried in the fire with a thin layer of ash. This made them burn slowly, keeping the oven hot for a long time. This ash covering was called tubnah. To keep cooked dishes warm, all the cooking pots and coffee kettles were placed around the small pile of ash-covered coals inside the oven. Then, the side opening was sealed with its removable door. In Jewish culture, especially on days when new fires couldn't be built, hot coals were pushed aside and covered with ashes. The entire clay oven was then covered with a larger earthenware pot, sealed with old rags, to keep the heat inside. This way, soup or coffee would stay hot.
Experienced bakers knew when they needed only a light heat, like for roasting grain or baking lahoh. In these cases, they would add inexpensive, light wood to the oven. In 18th-century English clay ovens, if the oven got too hot, it was often cooled down with cold water or by wiping the floor with a wet mop.
How Clay Ovens Are Built
In the Land of Israel during ancient times, the baking oven (called tannour in Hebrew) was built similarly to the tabun oven, which was popular among Arabs. Like the tabun, it was made like a large, bottomless clay pot, turned upside down and permanently fixed to the ground with plaster. This was usually done in a family's courtyard, often inside a baking hut.
These smaller, pot-shaped ovens are made from yellow pottery clay. The clay is mixed with chopped stubble and straw from wheat harvests until it's thick. The dome-shaped shell is then formed by hand. It's usually about 76 to 101 centimeters (30 to 40 inches) wide at the base, 38 to 51 centimeters (15 to 20 inches) high, with an open top about 38 centimeters (15 inches) wide. The oven wall is about 2.5 to 5 centimeters (1 to 2 inches) thick. The shell is left to dry in the sun for weeks before it's fired.
Some clay ovens were built taller and cylindrical with a wide-open top. The inner layer of these ovens was made from about 2 parts sand to 1 part clay, mixed well. These ovens had thick walls, sometimes as much as 15 centimeters (6 inches). To make them thicker, wet clay (or black earth) was added to the outer shell. This clay mixture often included dried and burnt donkey or horse manure ground into ash (about 40%), a smaller amount of chopped straw, and lime, sand, or gravel. Some builders also added burnt clay, ground pieces of terracotta, or a mix of clay and charcoal. This was followed by a smooth outer coating of clay. Sometimes, small stones and pebbles were added to the clay around the oven to make it stronger. Making the walls thick helped the oven hold its heat once it was fired.
Conical clay ovens usually didn't need a flue pipe (a chimney). The wide side-opening allowed air (oxygen) to enter for the fire to burn properly, and also let out air and smoke. Other clay ovens had both a top opening and a bottom side-opening (the "eye of the oven"). The side-opening was used to add fuel and remove extra ashes.
All newly built clay ovens need to be fired for the first time before they can be used to bake bread. This was done by burning dried manure inside the oven. This process not only hardens the clay and helps dough stick to the inner wall after its second firing, but it also prepares the oven to hold heat better. The thick walls (around 6 inches) help keep the heat inside. Today, some people improvise by making baking ovens from a half-cut metal barrel that encloses a thin clay oven of the same height. The space between the metal barrel and the clay oven is filled with sand.
