Cooking in Iron Age Alalakh: Change and Continuity in Vessels’ Functional Role

From Firenze University Press Journal: Asia Anteriore Antica (AsiAnA)

Mariacarmela Montesanto, Università degli Studi di Firenze

Now more than ever before, studies on cooking and food preparation are fashionable. Since the last 50 years food and human activities related to it are increasingly appearing in the archaeological literature (Karageorghis, Kouka 2011; Graff , Rodríguez-Alegria 2012; Graff 2018; Mee, Renard 2007; Spataro, Villing 2015; Hruby, Trusty 2017; Ivanova et al. 2018; Steel 2016; Lymperaki et al. 2016; Killebrew 1999; Ben-Shlomo et al. 20 08). Food is fundamental to human survival and activities related to food are part of our daily practice. Th erefore, daily-use ceramic wares (cooking wares) are unique tools to investigate social and political aspects of the past and can off er a deep understanding of social and cultural processes. Th is study aims to examine the temporal changes of the Iron Age cooking vessels from the site of Alalakh, located in the modern province of Hatay, southern Turkey. The starting point of this research is the examination of the Iron Age cooking vessels from two perspectives: typological and functional. The background for these changes is then discussed with special emphasis on the relation between food and social practice to understand ancient daily life and economy. Cooking vessels as containers used for the preparation of food could be a rich source of information on cooking practices. Apart from providing information on the actual food cooked in the pots through the analysis of organic remains, their shape provides a useful indicator of the techniques used for its preparation and it may be related with the kind of food cooked in them, while their size provides information over the number of people sharing the food in the relevant social context (Lis 2008; Lymperaki et al. 2016).

FOOD AND SOCIAL PRACTICE

Archaeologists have long been aware of the importance and significance of food and consequently they approached the subject in different ways (Dietler, Hayden 2010). In particular, recent studies focused on the understanding of foodways and cuisine as well as character and development of past cooking practices and cul-tural interactions. Archaeological studies have focused on the material culture of food, as well as with the sub-stances consumed. Scientific analysis on archaeobotanical and faunal remains were conducted in order to identi-fy the ancient diet and the physicality of food. However, to understand the materiality of food and therefore the cultural habits and social behaviours linked with food consumption, it is necessary to better analyse the cooking vessel’s functional role. This article focuses on the materiality of foodways, i.e. the cooking pots, and interrogates how these vessels shaped people’s lives and how changes in cooking pots’ morphology may reflect changes in social practices through the Iron Age at Alalakh.Cooking pots are one of the most easily identified groups of utilitarian pots in any ceramic assemblage and they are unique tools for investigating social and political aspects of the past as well as understanding complex social and cultural process behind historical change. The analysis of cooking vessels is strictly connected with the analysis of foodways and any change visible in cooking vessel’s morphology and function might help in identify-ing the relationship between food and social practice as their morphology can reflect modifications in diet or reci-pes that can be connected to changes within the society. Archaeologists, however, find difficult to deal with social practices, as they can only be inferred by the analysis of the remains of daily life (Steel 2016). Engaging with the materiality of pottery, in particular with the cooking vessels, and considering what can be interpreted about chang-es in social practices allow the archaeologists to assume information on daily life and economy of ancient people. One of archaeology’s contributions to the study of food and foodways is the analysis of the objects used to produce and consume food. These objects can be considered as mediators between food and social body, and they can reveal information related to their possible functions and connected practices (Stockhammer et al. 2018). For instance, the typology of the base can provide information on the type of installation used for cooking: a ring or flat base means that the pot was placed next to the fire; a rounded base suggests that the cooking pot was placed on the fire pit or directly on top of the circular oven. Furthermore, the presence or absence of handles and the typology of rim may also provide information regarding the manipulability of the vessel. In addition to this, information on rim size and vessel’s capacity may point to a larger or smaller quantity of people involved and there-fore provide information about household size and meal preparation (Montesanto 2020b). Therefore, changes in cooking vessel’s function, recipes and ways of cooking could reflect social changes, while changes in cooking vessel’s morphology and technology may detect information on ancient daily life and econ-omy and, as a consequence, helping in interpreting ancient cuisine and cultural habits. Functional traits tend to change over time at gradual rates in the way. They are introduced, drift, adopted and spread through populations and eventually replaced. As utilitarian items, cooking vessels should therefore be analysed according to their func-tional characteristics to get a better idea of behavioural processes through time (Galaty 2017).

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/asiana-1543

Read Full Text: https://riviste.fupress.net/index.php/asiana/article/view/1543