WEBVTT - What Did Ancient Egyptian Bread Taste Like? with Sam Kean 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:17.920 You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:25.639 and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will? What's that Mango? So you 0:00:25.680 --> 0:00:27.320 remember our pal Sam Keene? 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.240 Of course I remember. Sammy was one of our first 0:00:29.280 --> 0:00:31.080 science writers at Mental Floss, And it's just. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:33.159 One of the best of the best, it really is. 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:35.440 And he went on to write all these bestsellers like 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:39.120 The Disappearing Spoon, The Violinist's Thumb, Caesar's Last Breath, and 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:40.239 he's got a new one out. 0:00:40.360 --> 0:00:42.199 First of all, I love the names of all of 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.080 his books, like they just sound so intriguing. 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:46.479 So tell me what this one's about. It's called Dinner 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:49.159 with King Tut and it's all about how this crazy 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:53.000 world of rogue archaeologists are recreating the sites and sounds 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:56.960 and smells and tastes of lost civilizations. Like instead of 0:00:57.080 --> 0:01:00.200 just being on a field site dusting off fragments of pottery, 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:03.360 he's using evidence from the shards to make delicious Egyptian 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.840 beers and breads and testing out theories about mummies by 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:09.840 trying to actually mummify a piece of store bought fish. 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:12.000 Oh really, Yeah, he did it with a piece of 0:01:12.360 --> 0:01:15.880 grocery store red Snapper. Oh wow. But it is an 0:01:15.880 --> 0:01:18.800 incredible book and it's so fun to read, and I 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.480 honestly can't stop telling people about it. So I thought 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:22.959 it'd be fun to invite him on the show and 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:48.200 catch up about the book in person. So let's dive in. Sam. 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.440 It is such a pleasure to have you on the show. Hi, 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:57.000 thanks for having me. You know, I feel like I 0:01:57.040 --> 0:01:59.880 have known your name forever because back at Mental Flaws, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.560 Will and I used to run that like anytime we 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.920 needed like a great science piece, it'd be like, oh, 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:08.720 let's see what Sam Keene is up to. I really 0:02:08.760 --> 0:02:13.360 appreciate your voice and your writing and the topics you covered. 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.880 But then I was blown away when I think it 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:18.359 was your first book, The Disappearing Spoon came out right 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:21.520 and it immediately rose to the top of the charts, 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:26.520 and you've been cranking out bestsellers ever since. But I'm 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.880 really excited to talk about this new one. Dinner Wick 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:34.760 King tut how rogue archaeologists are recreating the sites, sound, smells, 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.920 and tastes of lost civilizations. Thank you so much for 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:38.280 being here. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:39.320 Well, I appreciate it. Thank you. 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:42.280 So tell me a little bit about this because you 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:47.880 have in your preface this little bit about how archaeology 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.359 is fascinating in theory, but somehow when you got out 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:54.800 into the field, working as an archaeologist isn't as exciting 0:02:54.840 --> 0:02:56.280 as you'd hope. Can you talk to me a little 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:56.720 bit about that. 0:02:57.120 --> 0:02:59.000 Yeah, I'd always just had a bit of a gripe 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:03.480 with the field that I loved the big picture things 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:07.760 that you learned from archaeology about humankind, where we came from, 0:03:07.880 --> 0:03:10.840 how we spread across the globe, all of these big, 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:14.760 rich questions about humanity. But then I would get to 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.520 actual archaeological digs where they're doing work, and it was 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:21.560 just a bunch of people sitting around in the dirt 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:26.840 brushing off little potshards with toothbrushes or dental picks or something. 0:03:27.480 --> 0:03:31.240 It just seemed like the most tedious work imaginable. Just 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:35.480 day after day of that over and over, and I 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:38.480 just could not imagine actually doing that work. And as 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:42.080 a writer especially, there just wasn't much to say about 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:44.360 the work that they were doing. Even though the conclusions 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.880 were big and really interesting, the day by day work 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.800 was just kind of tedious. And another thing that kind 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.400 of frustrated me was that you know, they were talking 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:58.880 about and investigating civilizations from vastly different places, everywhere, from 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.400 the Arctic to to Peru, just all over the world. 0:04:02.800 --> 0:04:05.720 But every dig looked exactly the same. Again, just people 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:09.960 sitting around in the dirt brushing things off and lattened 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:13.480 it and sort of subtracted the differences and made every 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:16.360 archaeological look the same, even though you were talking about 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.080 much different groups and cultures and civilizations. So those two 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:23.479 things kind of turned me off about traditional archaeology, which 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.760 is why I wrote this book, which focuses on a 0:04:25.800 --> 0:04:30.400 different field called experimental archaeology, but they're actually doing and 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:33.400 creating things. It was much more interesting and sensory rich. 0:04:35.000 --> 0:04:39.040 That's really really cool. And I feel, you know, similarly 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:43.360 about science, and that I'm fascinated by science. I'm fascinated 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.040 by the discoveries and the Eureka moments and all these things. 0:04:47.160 --> 0:04:51.159 And when I was in high school, I volunteered in 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:55.560 a university lab where we studied moths and behavior, and 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.680 just every day was so slow and so tedious, and i' 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:03.159 thrilled other people who love that, but for me, it 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.640 just wasn't quick enough. The stories didn't move fast enough. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.000 The conclusions didn't come fast enough. But tell me a 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:13.480 little bit about how you found this field of experiential 0:05:13.560 --> 0:05:15.040 or experimental archaeology. 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.840 Yeah, I think I first heard about someone who was 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.760 throwing what's called an ad laddle. So it's essentially a spear, 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:25.200 but instead of throwing with your hand, you have a 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.320 little kind of stick that's an extension of your arm, 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:31.160 and because it's longer than your arm, you get a 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:33.919 little more leverage, a little more pop when you throw it, 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.400 so it allows you to throw it faster and hit 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.719 something harder when you're hunting. And I saw someone who 0:05:39.720 --> 0:05:41.920 had made an old fashioned at laddle, and they were 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:46.920 very common in prehistory, probably the most common hunting weapon 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:49.080 that people used all over the world, much more so 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:52.120 than just regular spears. And I'd never heard of this, 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.520 and I thought, wow, this is really cool. And I 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.600 saw someone there's a video of them throwing it, and 0:05:57.640 --> 0:05:59.680 they were throwing it under these targets or these dummies 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.120 or something, and I just thought, wow, now that's kind 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:07.080 of fun archaeology. Someone doing needing something and you get 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:09.560 to go out there and you know, actually experience it 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.119 a little bit. And I sort of filed that away 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:13.720 and thought, you know, if I ever want to write 0:06:13.760 --> 0:06:16.760 about archaeology, that could be sort of an entry to 0:06:16.839 --> 0:06:19.520 the field for me. It was probably almost a decade 0:06:19.560 --> 0:06:22.320 ago at this point, and once I sort of had 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.960 that on my radar, I kept coming across little stories 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:29.080 where even if the overall story was about a regular 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.839 archaeology dig, there might have been a little experimental component 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:36.000 with it, And so I just kept filing these stories away, 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:40.160 sort of gathering string and eventually, when it came time to, 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:42.520 you know, write another book, I thought, maybe I'm going 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:44.720 to look into this and see And once I did, 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.080 I found out there was a whole journal dedicated to this, 0:06:47.200 --> 0:06:49.599 and there's kind of this little subculture of people who 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:52.560 enjoy running these types of experiments. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.279 It's really incredible, and you talk about doing everything from 0:06:56.400 --> 0:07:00.520 like tattooing someone, firing someone out of a cap to 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.080 making acorn bread. I mean, it really feels so joyful 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.440 and exciting. But on the other hand, it feels like 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.320 there are some incredible scientists involved with this, and also 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:16.720 some enthusiasts and hobbyists and almost amateurs and involved as well. 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.520 And so I'm curious, how do you figure out which 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.440 are the experiments worth indulging in. 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.120 It wasn't just archaeologists or the enthusiastic amateurs that we 0:07:26.200 --> 0:07:28.400 talked about, but in a lot of cases, there are 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:32.800 also indigenous communities who have kept these traditions alive for 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.600 a long time, and they are the ones who are 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:40.680 turning around and teaching archaeologists about how these things work, so, 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:44.400 you know, disabusing them of myths they had or correcting 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.920 them when they were wrong. So one thing that was 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:48.840 sort of interesting and heartening was that it really was 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.320 a two way street with archaeologists talking to these communities 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.360 about things that they knew, you know, wisdom that had 0:07:55.360 --> 0:07:58.720 been passed down in stories, poems, songs, things like that, 0:07:59.280 --> 0:08:02.960 and them kind of using this to advance our knowledge 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:06.000 of what the past was like. But it's sort of 0:08:06.080 --> 0:08:07.960 just whatever stood out to me is interesting. You get 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.120 you develop a nose for a story, and especially for 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:14.480 this book, I wanted to go and do things that 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:17.720 I thought would make good stories for the book. So 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.440 I could have gone and like tried to grind my 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:23.720 own grain or something like that, and that would have 0:08:23.720 --> 0:08:25.520 been okay. I mean, that's an important thing, and I 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:27.920 did a little bit of that, but it just wasn't 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:31.040 as rich as you know, spending a day with this 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.480 guy who built this thirty foot tall catapult and spending 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:38.040 an afternoon hurling these giant stones around. That just made 0:08:38.040 --> 0:08:40.920 for a much more lively experience being able to do 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.480 things like that. I also kind of wanted to throw 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.920 myself into some difficult situations, even though I knew I 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:52.240 was probably gonna be floundering around, in part because that's 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:54.679 just what people had to experience back then. Things were 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.320 not easy. Even making food or making clothing or shelter 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:02.520 was quite difficult back then, and me floundering around was 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.000 part of the experience. And you know, I think it 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.720 made for some more entertaining scenes, just me screwing things 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.080 up over and over. But you know, one thing I 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.760 liked about the field was that it was so sensory rich, 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:17.800 all of the smells and tastes and the sounds, but 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.560 a lot of it was me dealing with the emotions, 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.280 the frustrations, the joy when I finally got something right 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:28.600 after spending hours strewing it up over and over and again. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:30.600 That's just something I don't feel like you get as 0:09:30.679 --> 0:09:35.920 much of with traditional archaeology. Is the emotions that were 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.840 involved in trying to do things the things that we 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.200 take for granted nowadays, just making food and basic things 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:42.600 like that. 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.720 Yeah, it's really so fun. But the other thing that 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.280 was interesting is you do something experimental with this book. 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:54.840 You actually throw in fiction in between the segments of 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:58.080 explaining about the archaeology and when you. 0:09:58.080 --> 0:09:59.679 Talk about why you chose to do that. Yeah, So 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:01.680 the book it kind of does work on two tracks. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.240 Each chapter really immerses you in a specific time in 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:09.280 a specific place. So you know, ancient Egypt when they 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.080 were building the pyramids, or the Roman Empire, or the 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:16.000 Viking Age, or Africa seventy five thousand years ago when 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:19.559 modern humanity was just starting to emerge. And I really 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:23.439 wanted it to be immersive because that's what experimental archaeology 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.600 does really well, is it puts you in that time 0:10:25.640 --> 0:10:29.720 in that place. But me going around and doing these 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.920 experiments could only get the reader I felt like part 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:36.000 way there. And one thing that fiction does that's really 0:10:36.080 --> 0:10:39.679 nice is you're immersed in the character's mind. You're experiencing 0:10:39.720 --> 0:10:43.240 it as they experienced it. So the premise of the book, 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:46.560 each chapter you live a day in the life of 0:10:46.600 --> 0:10:48.920 that person from the time they wake up to the 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.720 time they go to bed that night, and strange, unusual 0:10:52.760 --> 0:10:55.079 things happened to them, just like they would have to 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:58.160 people back then, and fiction was just a better way 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:03.240 to get at that experience and make it as immersive 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:07.520 as possible. So everything that happens to the characters could 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.600 and did happen to people back then. It's based on 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:14.640 archaeological research, but fiction was just a way to sort 0:11:14.640 --> 0:11:16.280 of enrich the experience. 0:11:16.559 --> 0:11:19.880 I just found it really compelling, these short stories interwoven 0:11:20.000 --> 0:11:24.240 with these nonfiction bits. I've got to say, it was 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:29.080 a wonderful read. But were there any either fun or 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:32.760 wild or bizarre experiments that you tried and they just 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:34.439 got left on the cutting room floor. 0:11:37.640 --> 0:11:40.240 There were a few disasters in the book, things that 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.440 just went sideways quickly anticipate maybe I should have. One 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:48.200 of them was and you know, it sounds a little gross, 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:53.440 but one material people would use to tan leather way 0:11:53.440 --> 0:11:55.720 back when was they would use urine. They would use 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.440 it to kind of strip the fats off and to 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:01.600 toughen up the skin. And so I tried that with 0:12:01.679 --> 0:12:05.200 a piece of salmon skin that I'd gotten from the store. 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:08.520 Tried to soak it in urine and see what would happened, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:11.760 and it did not go well. Kind of mold that 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:16.479 in there. It was so disgusting. I quickly jettisoned that project. 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:18.839 Probably held on longer than I should have, but that 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:22.000 that did. 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:27.200 Not go well, I love it. So let's talk about Egypt. 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:32.880 So you tosses into this incredible scene where they're building 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:36.920 a pyramid, and the pyramid construction is almost over, and 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:40.520 you decide to show it to us through the eyes 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:43.679 of a baker. So I'm curious, like, why did you 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:47.679 choose a cook or a baker for the perspective on 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:49.360 this building of a paramid. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:52.520 One thing I wanted to do was to put the 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.240 chapters in the perspective of kind of an everyday person, 0:12:55.320 --> 0:12:58.320 someone that we can relate to, kind of an everyday person, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.840 and a baker would have been one just a very 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:07.240 typical classic job in ancient Egypt, and it was a 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.000 very important job then because bread was the staple of 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:13.240 the Egyptian diet, and I knew that there were people 0:13:13.280 --> 0:13:19.600 out there recreating Egyptian style breads and beers. And by 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.679 making him the main character, I knew I could sort 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.720 of get into those things and talk about some very 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.200 important things in Egyptian life. So, in addition to sort 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:32.080 of the fun dramatic plot things that happened, by making 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:35.480 him a baker, you could actually deepen your understanding of 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:36.960 just Egyptian culture in general. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:40.600 And I love it. His life does go sideways very quickly. 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.080 But one of the things that I was curious about 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.720 is I had never picked up on the fact that 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:51.079 pyramids were also like the tallest monuments, that I took 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.160 another four thousand years to build something taller, is all right? 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:59.600 The biggest pyramid was built around the twenty seven hundred BC, 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:02.840 twenties undred BC something like that, and not until I 0:14:02.840 --> 0:14:07.040 believe almost thirteen hundred eighty was there another structure in 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.320 the world that was taller than that. It was a 0:14:09.360 --> 0:14:13.120 cathedral in England, I think. But yeah, so for roughly 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.520 four thousand years that was the pyramids. There were the 0:14:15.640 --> 0:14:18.079 largest structures on Earth, which is unbelievable. 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:20.800 You know, there are these things that you kind of 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:23.320 take for granted, but that the scale of the achievement 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.880 at that time is stunning. And also, I think you 0:14:26.960 --> 0:14:29.960 said something in the book like we are so much 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:34.520 closer to when Jesus was born than when Jesus was 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:36.880 to the pyramids, which which is also crazy to me, 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.080 like I hadn't even put on perspective. 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.520 Yeah, the gap of time between the pyramids being built 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.800 and you know Jesus or Juliuses or anyone around that age, 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.840 that's a longer gap of time by several centuries than 0:14:49.880 --> 0:14:52.720 the time from Jesus or Juliuses are to us. 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:57.680 Now, that is just unimaginable. It's crazy, but fascinating for 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.880 a perspective. So you start with this baker and one 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:04.560 of the things that struck me was that there was 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:09.000 a village basically created around the idea of building these pyramids. 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:09.560 Can you talk me? 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:12.920 Yeah, they were really labor intensive to build these pyramids, 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.880 given how big they were, given how many blocks there were, 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:19.480 and the fact that you just had to move these 0:15:19.520 --> 0:15:22.720 things up the up to the very top. Somehow. They 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:26.160 didn't have pulleys back then. They didn't have wheels in 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:29.480 Egypt at the time, and so you had a lot 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:33.960 of people working on moving these stones. And when you 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.280 had that many people, you need to provide things for them. 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.000 They need tools to cut the blocks, they need to eat, 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.400 you need to build homes for them. It was essentially 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:46.520 an entire city around these pyramids just to get them built. 0:15:46.520 --> 0:15:49.800 It was a huge part of the Egyptian economy essentially 0:15:49.840 --> 0:15:53.320 was getting these pyramids built, everyone working on them. So yeah, 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.920 there was a whole industry and then all the peripheral 0:15:56.920 --> 0:15:59.200 industries to build these pyramids. 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.200 Yeah. And that's what struck me as so interesting was 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:05.480 that the baker himself. I thought it was just like 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.960 a royal baker who made bread for Kufu or whichever, 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.800 a king or pharaoh. But instead the baker is actually 0:16:13.880 --> 0:16:18.640 responsible for making all the bread for all the workers 0:16:18.720 --> 0:16:22.720 working in this community. And that was crazy to me. 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:24.440 Can you talk to me a little bit about that. 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:26.840 Yeah. So when we think of a baker nowadays, or 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.160 and probably especially back then, we'd probably think, you know, 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.880 a little mud oven or something, and you're slipping in 0:16:31.960 --> 0:16:33.920 a loaf of bread here and there and making it. 0:16:34.000 --> 0:16:38.000 But this was much more of an industrial process where 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:42.560 you had hundreds and hundreds, maybe even thousands of bread 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:45.000 molds out there in a field. It would look like 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:49.400 a giant giant egg carton with the molds that they use. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:51.800 They use these kind of conical molds to put the 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:54.160 bread in, and if you'd gone outside the hut, it 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.960 would have just been thousands of these molds, and they 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:01.840 had people walking around dumping dough in them and moving 0:17:01.840 --> 0:17:04.800 from one to the other, just kind of working, working, working. 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:09.280 So it wasn't really a kind of a bespoke artisanal process. 0:17:09.359 --> 0:17:14.000 It was about timing and workflow and managing people. So 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.000 it really was kind of modern in some ways, and 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:19.560 that you had to take all these things into account 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:21.960 and as opposed to, you know, just baking something in 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:23.760 an oven like you might expect, it was a whole 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.560 industry involved in getting these people fed. 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:30.960 Yeah, it felt almost like a factory. I like this 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.520 sense of producing this much food at these quantities for 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:38.760 this immense number of people every single day. It was 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:42.800 just crazy. But also, you know, from your own experiments, 0:17:42.880 --> 0:17:44.680 you found out that this bread is delicious. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:49.160 It was incredibly good. I talked to a guy out 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:53.359 in la named Seamus Blackley. He in a previous life 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:57.199 actually invented the Xbox gaming system that's sort of just 0:17:57.320 --> 0:17:59.439 called the Frame, and then he got out of that 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:01.880 and he has his own company now. But one thing 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.919 he does is he bakes heirloom bread. He started with 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.000 medieval bread, and then decided he wanted to try Egyptian bread. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:12.480 And then he got really really into it. He flew 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:19.240 over to Egypt with microbiology equipment. He swabbed dormant yeast 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:22.440 out of bread molds that they found from archaeological site, 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:25.480 so he got authentic yeast. He built a fire pit 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.960 in his backyard in Los Angeles. He sourced the type 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:32.240 of wood that people in ancient Egypt would have used. 0:18:32.280 --> 0:18:35.480 He sourced heirloom grain that they would have used. He 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.199 had someone make him a mold, and authentic mold. A 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:40.720 potter friend made him the molds that they used, and 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:44.400 he just kept baking bread until he got the recipe 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:47.280 right and got a nice looking loaf for bread. And 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.160 so I went up there, talked to him, and got 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:52.560 to try some of this bread. It was bigger than 0:18:52.600 --> 0:18:55.919 I expected, and it was shaped like you know, the 0:18:55.960 --> 0:19:00.399 old NASA mercury space capsules that they would send astrona in, 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:02.800 like those blunt cones, that's what it looked like. It 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.240 was probably you know, a foot wide or so and 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:09.199 maybe eight or nine inches tall. And this bread was 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:12.359 two days old, and he warmed it up in the 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.680 company microwave for me, and even then it was amazingly good. 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:18.600 This was some of the best bread I've ever had 0:19:19.119 --> 0:19:21.800 in my life. And it was very, very simple. It 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.440 was just a few ingredients. There was emmer grain, which 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.200 is the type of wheat they used. There's coriander in it, 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.120 some salt, some yeast, and some water and that was it. 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.560 And I was blown away by how delicious this bread was, 0:19:34.560 --> 0:19:36.680 even though it wasn't quite fresh out of the mold. 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.080 I mean, if it had been fresh, I would have 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.160 been scun probably fallen over, it was that good. 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.879 Yeah, you said it compared with the best breads in 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.760 like Parisian bakeries and things like that, and I was 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.639 it made my mouth waters description. I really want to 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.320 try some. But the other thing about it I was 0:19:54.359 --> 0:19:58.560 curious about is how do they know what the ingredients 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:03.760 were in this bread? How do archaeologists and hobbyists figure 0:20:03.760 --> 0:20:06.040 out what goes into this bread. 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:09.040 They have a lot of loaves actually from you find 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.680 them in tunbes and pyramids and things like that, and 0:20:11.760 --> 0:20:16.680 you can analyze the starches and figure out what was 0:20:16.720 --> 0:20:19.160 in there. So you might find a little bit of coriander, 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:21.720 and you can analyze the bread, the starches in there, 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:23.560 and they can tell you know roughly how long they 0:20:23.560 --> 0:20:26.359 were baked, things like that. So because we have some 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:32.720 examples of ancient basically petrified bread, they can get that 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.760 microscopically and figure out sort of reverse engineer and figure 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:40.040 out what would have gone in there. Also, you know, 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:42.840 you're making bread. There's just not a whole lot of 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.560 ways to make bread. So you're gonna have some yeast 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.040 in there, you need some water in there, You're gonna 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:51.679 have to grind the flowers. So just by the nature 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.120 of bread, you're sort of constrained in how many ways 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:57.560 you can do it. And we have found thousands of 0:20:57.600 --> 0:21:00.560 molds as well, so we know the basic way they 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:03.000 baked the bread, and based on that they can kind 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:06.679 of re sort of piece together how they must have 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:08.440 baked the bread in the first place. 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:13.399 That's so cool. And the other thing I really found 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.400 delightful about the bread bit was that you point out 0:21:16.400 --> 0:21:19.720 that the bread had to be good, because if it wasn't, 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:23.000 all these workers would have sort of revolted. They needed 0:21:23.040 --> 0:21:27.040 really good food to keep them happy. And you point 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:30.959 out that these laborers were also paid in beer as well. 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:36.440 About one third gallons daily, which I guess is roughly 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:38.359 ten pints. I never would have figured out out on 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.119 my own. But but can you talk to me a 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:43.080 little bit about the beer and why that was so 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:44.959 important to this community of Worcos. 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.040 Yeah, so bread and beer were essentially the staple foods 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:53.080 of the Egyptian diet, and so water sources were necessarily 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:55.919 clean back then. The Nile was there, so plenty of 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:58.840 water coming in, but people were using it to clean clothes. 0:21:58.840 --> 0:22:01.399 People were using it as literally in some cases, so 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:04.119 not the safe as water to drink. Whereas if you 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.439 ferment something, you know, make it into a beer, the 0:22:07.720 --> 0:22:10.840 alcohol in there can kill some microbes, so it's safer 0:22:10.880 --> 0:22:15.040 to drink that. And this probably was not as high 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.000 ABV as beer we would drinking nowadays. It was probably 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.880 fairly low level, maybe like you know, two to two 0:22:20.880 --> 0:22:23.640 and a half percent something like that, but still they 0:22:23.640 --> 0:22:26.119 were drinking in most of the day. And what I 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.800 found I thought was really interesting was that we're sort 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.920