page_title: Ovelgönne bread roll
section_title: Interpretation
hierarchical_section_title: Ovelgönne bread roll / Interpretation
caption_attribution_description: Mosaic in Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo.
context_page_description: The Ovelgönne bread roll is the remaining part of a bread roll originating from the Pre-Roman Iron Age of Northern Europe, which was found in 1952 during archaeological excavations in a loam mine in the Buxtehude district Ovelgönne in Lower Saxony, Germany. The piece of bread is the oldest surviving viennoiserie and formed bakery product from Europe. The find, along with a reconstruction, are in the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg in Harburg, Hamburg.
context_section_description: The circumstances and the location of the Ovelgönne bread roll in the pit is the subject of debate. Some authors suggest a cultic context. This is attributed to the halving of the bread roll before its deposition and the baked in metal pieces. Whether the metal pieces were deliberately baked in or accidentally fell into the dough is unclear. Währen questions whether "the Ovelgönne bread roll was a technical creation or a replica of a profane or ritual object." He sums up the importance of the object up as follows:
  The Ovelgönne bread roll represents the oldest bread survived of Europe, having a predefined shape, in a Wecken shaped form of fine pastry probably having a ritual and religious significance, perhaps for this reasons it has been made in its delicacy and refinement previously unimaginable.
  His opinion is based on the remarkable subtlety of the used wheat flour, which is close to grain sizes of modern flours, as well as the incision and the dipped in holes. Such dipped in holes are also known from an ancient Egyptian find dating around 2000-1778 BCE as well as from mosaics at the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna dating to the 6th Century. However, the dipped in hole on the Ovelgönne bread roll is the earliest prehistoric evidence for this technique in Europe.
caption: Four loaves of bread with dipped in holes (left) on a mosaic of Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo
exif: {}