Mayans Used Clay Balls for Cooking
2012 12 07
By Cassie Ryan | TheEpochTimes
Excavation of a Mayan kitchen in Mexico has yielded numerous fired clay balls that contain microscopic food residue, such as maize, beans, and root vegetables.
Seventy-seven balls about 1 to 2 inches in diameter, and hundreds of fragments were discovered at Escalera al Cielo in Yucatán. They are made of local clay and are over 1,000 years old.
U.S. researchers worked with Millsaps College and Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) to investigate what cooking techniques these balls were employed for.
“We propose that the balls were used either in pit oven cooking installations or heated and placed directly into pots containing soups/stews, or perhaps used to keep food warm,” wrote study co-author Stephanie Simms from Boston University in an email.
“We have no direct evidence of a hearth or pit oven—the clay balls appear to be in a storage location on the back corner of a kitchen where they could have been gathered up and recycled/reused—so it is also possible that they were used in another manner, perhaps heated in a cooking fire and placed directly into the cook pot.”
Pit oven cooking times vary from one to two hours up to a day or more. As suitable stone resources in this region were limited, the clay balls could have been used instead.
“This cooking method involves digging a shallow pit, lining it with stones, building a fire on top of the stones and waiting until it is reduced to embers, then placing packets of food wrapped in (maize or other) leaves or whole roots, squash fruits, etc. on top of the heated stones, and covering them with earth and leaves to seal in heat,” Simms explained.
[...]
Read the full article at: theepochtimes.com
Related Articles
Foods of the Maya World
Mayan ball court was celestial marker used to observe solstices
"Dramatic" New Maya Temple Found, Covered With Giant Faces
Latest News from our Front Page
|
Exorcism? Pope Francis caught on video performing strange ritual on disabled man
2013 05 23
Pope Francis has been embroiled in a scandal after footage emerged today appearing to show him giving a man an exorcism in St Peter’s Square.
The astonishing incident between the Pontiff and the person in a wheelchair, took place immediately after Pentecostal mass on Sunday May 19.
The video shows how a priest leans across the boy or young man to tell ... |
NBC’s Chuck Todd: The Obama administration is trying to “criminalize journalism”
2013 05 23
This is Chuck Todd, NBC’s political news director saying this.
From: againstcronycapitalism.org
"Why Are We Not Calling This Fascism?"
"Chris Hedges, Truthdig, joins Thom Hartmann. The AP scandal is just the latest example of an ongoing - and often corporate backed - assault on our most basic democratic rights."
From: informationclearinghouse.org
DOJ broke own rules in AP investigation
"Amid the Justice Department scandal, perhaps more ... |
IRS Scandal - "This is Tyrannical"
2013 05 23
The IRS’s Job Is To Violate Our Liberties
By Ron Paul | the-free-foundation.org
“What do you expect when you target the President?” This is what an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent allegedly said to the head of a conservative organization that was being audited after calling for the impeachment of then-President Clinton. Recent revelations that IRS agents gave “special scrutiny” to organizations ... |
EU Leaders to Sidestep Lisbon Treaty Rule
2013 05 22
The Lisbon Treaty clearly intends for the size of the European Commission to be reduced below its present size of 27 members. But EU leaders have reached unanimous agreement to sidestep the provision -- and even plan to add a seat to the table for the Croatians.
From the outside, it looks as though the European Union is hopelessly divided. Northern ... |
The Soviet Story
2013 05 22
The Soviet Story is a 2008 documentary film about Soviet Communism and Soviet–German collaboration before 1941 written and directed by Edvīns Šnore and sponsored by the UEN Group in the European Parliament.
The film features interviews with western and Russian historians such as Norman Davies and Boris Sokolov, Russian writer Viktor Suvorov, Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, members of the European Parliament ... |
| More News » |
|
|
|
|
