4.500 year old food remains reveal sophisticated cooking in Early Bronze Age Syria

For the first time, researchers can now identify the contents of the cooking pots used in the ancient city of Hama 4,500 years ago. Researchers from the National Museum of Denmark, along with colleagues from Copenhagen University and the National Centre for Scientific Research in Lyon, France, have analysed the 4500-year-old animal bones, plant remains, and fats from inside the walls of cooking pots from Hama. They show that a wide range of food products were available in the city, deriving from both the city itself, from fields in the vicinity, and from the steppes and grazing areas further afield.

Barley, wheat, lentils, olives, and grapes were available, while the animal food components came from sheep, goats, pigs, cattle, and gazelle. Remains of fats in the cooking pots suggest that milk, plants, and possibly pork was cooked in the pots, and that some meals were flavoured with resinous wood.

Food from near and far

“This is the first time we have been able to identify the components of meals from inside the cooking pots at Hama. We can see that some ingredients probably came from the city itself, such as pork and grapes, while cereals, lentils and olives came from the fields in the vicinity, sheep and cattle from grazing land around the city, and gazelle from the steppe to the east”, says Mette Marie Hald, senior researcher at the National Museum and first author of the study.

Two types of cooking pots

The study also shows that cooks in Early Bronze Age Syria did not just grab the nearest cooking pot in the kitchen but chose their pots depending on the meal they were about to cook. While the locally made pots were made of clay mixed with the stone calcite, another type of cooking pot, imported from the steppe to the east, was made of clay mixed with basalt. The different clay mixtures meant that the cooking pots had different thermal properties, and the imported pots appear to have been used for a wider range of meals.

“The different types of cooking pots at Hama show that cooking in the Bronze Age involved active decision-making not only in terms of ingredients, but also in terms of tools used in the preparation of specific meals”, Mette Marie Hald says.

Flavoured with resin

The study also shows that some meals were flavoured with resinous wood.

“We know from recipes written on clay tablets from the Bronze Age that resinous wood was added to meals to enhance their flavour, and we can see this practice from some of the cooking pots at Hama”, Mette Marie Hald says. “Interestingly, all the cooking pots that contained traces of resin had symbols impressed or incised into the clay. Perhaps those pots were chosen specifically for the resin-flavoured meals to avoid carrying that particular flavour over into other types of meals afterwards”, she adds.

FACT SHEET

• Hama was excavated between 1931 and 1938 by archaeologists from the National Museum of Denmark
• Researchers have been working on the collection of finds from Hama housed in Copenhagen within a research project supported by Independent Research Fund Denmark since 2021 (grant no. 1024-00107B).
• The food remains have been identified using microscopy and chemical analysis.
• The study is published in ”Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports”. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352409X26004554