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Andy and I visited the museum at Ancient Mycenae and were lucky to catch another special exhibition on food. The exhibition detailed the diet and cooking practices of the ancient Myceneans (circa 2000 - 3000 BC). Despite the antiquity of their civilization, the Mycenaeans had an advanced diet. Analysis of clay pots excavated at Mycenae shows traces of honey, legumes, olives, herbs, grains, oil and wine. Refuse from shellfish indicates that the Mycenaean utilised the coastline to their south, and small animal bones reveal that the Mycenaeans ate meat. In other words, the Greek diet has not changed much in the last 5000 years! I was intrigued by the many clay kitchen instruments that have been found, including cups, bowls, ladles, sieves, cauldrons and tripods for cooking over fire. But my favourite item was a clay grill, which looked uncannily like the one we used in Norway at the Gerainger fjord. GRILLING, circa 2000 BC
GRILLING, circa 2000 AD
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Comments:
2 Comments posted on "Food in Ancient Mycenae - some things don’t change"
vegetablej on July 24th, 2007 at 10:21 am #
Looks handy, but I wonder how it worked.It looks a bit shallow for putting anything which would burn in there. Unless it was molten lava?!? Maybe the whole thing was set on top of a fire, but in that case wouldn’t it crack? Any thoughts?
kpounder on August 3rd, 2007 at 10:28 pm #
I would guess that it contained hot coals transferred from a fire, but that may be a very 21st century attitude. Unfortunately the exhibition didn’t explain exactly how it worked! It’s possible that it was placed on a fire - I think that sometimes happens with terracotta ware but agree it would have to be fairly heat resistant. Post a comment
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