Woman baking bread

This painted limestone statuette depicting a woman baking bread was discovered at Giza within Tomb G 2415.

According to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, where this piece currently resides, the statue was broken in antiquity and was fixed via a wooden peg, holding the base together. If you look closely, you can still see the crack underneath her resting hand, which holds a stick prodding the ceramic vessels before her.

Dating from around 2420–2323 B.C., making it a 5th Dynasty, Old Kingdom piece, this statuette would have been a funerary item, providing the deceased with ongoing baking of fresh bread for eternity.

Bread was a staple of the Ancient Egyptian diet for all classes. The female baker seen here uses an Ancient Egyptian traditional way of heating food items by using ceramic vessels placed within hot ash. This is a practice that still goes on today in modern Egypt; take a walk down a Cairo souq and the traditional coffee would often still be heated within hot ash. It is proposed that the combination of heat from top and bottom baked the bread in just over an hour and a half.

Bread was a staple of Ancient Egyptian daily life, baked in clay outdoor ovens; simple, dome-shaped structures made from mud and straw that harnessed the sun’s heat.

Using grains like emmer wheat and barley, ancient bakers ground flour by hand, mixed it with water and natural yeasts, and flavoured it with herbs or honey. Dough was shaped into loaves or flatbreads, then baked directly on the hot clay surfaces or inside the ovens, producing crisp exteriors and soft, chewy interiors.

Remarkably, this ancient baking tradition endures in the Egyptian countryside today, where villagers continue to prepare bread in taboun ovens, using nearly the same methods and ingredients as their ancestors. These communal ovens and the scent of baking bread form a living link between Egypt’s rich past and its present-day rural life.

The naturalistic style of this ancient masterpiece, showcases the woman in a thoughtful pose, hand on head, as she awaits. The serenity of her gaze has been captured by the anonymous artist and is a timeless depiction of humanity partaking in the rituals of daily life.

Summary:

Woman baking bread

Old Kingdom, reign of Niuserra, 5th Dynasty, c. 2420–2323 B.C.

Tomb G 2415, Giza.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 21.2600