Eight 5,000-year-old bread pieces unearthed at Turkish mound
Archaeologists found the bread beside an oven in a room, and wheat and lentil remains were discovered nearby.
Eight pieces of bread that were burned around 5,000 years ago have been unearthed at Seyitomer Mound in western Türkiye, Turkey's state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported on Thursday.
The mound stands inside a thermal power plant complex, and digging there began so that the lignite deposits beneath it could be brought into use.
The Kutahya Museum Directorate is carrying out the work under the supervision of archaeologist Sevgi Gurdal, who also directs the Kutahya Archaeology and Mining Museum.
Gurdal told Anadolu that the team is still working through the Middle Bronze Age and Early Bronze Age layers of the mound.
Last year, researchers found an oven inside a room, with the remains of shelves running along one of its walls.
Gurdal said the finds date to the first quarter of the Early Bronze Age, placing them at nearly 5,000 years old.
She said the bread was found between the shelf supports near the oven, and that remains of wheat and lentils lay around it.
The discovery has drawn visitors to the local museum.
Kutahya province lies in western Turkey, a region with a long history of lignite mining and numerous ancient settlement mounds.
Archaeologists typically dig such mounds, known in Turkish as höyük, to trace the successive communities that built and rebuilt on the same site.
