Our most recent excursion to Asparn/Zaya and the MAMUZ Museum to conduct experimental archaeology related to Egyptian and Nubian cooking pots was again very successful.

This year, we focused on two tasks: 1) using dung from various sources (sheep, goat, cattle, horse and donkey) as fuel and 2) cooking actual food with the replicas of our Nubian and Egyptian cooking pots.

The experiments of both tasks were very informative and worked really well: especially horse and donkey dung is well suited to boil lentils or bulgur, but also goat/sheep and cattle dung fires do work if the pot is placed just above the glow; the Nubian cooking pot is great to sauté vegetables as well as to cook them.

I’ve written a more substantial report with some pictures on this in German. For now, I would just like to express my heartful thanks to all colleagues who made this practical class at Asparn possible and helped a lot at the spot; and of course loads of thanks go to our small AcrossBorders team. Well done, especially of our excellent cook Patrizia!