page_title: Oven
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Oven / History
caption_attribution_description: Utilitarian terracotta object, Museum of Cycladic Culture, Akrotiri excavation artifacts, Santorini, Cyclides, Hellas (Greece). LC I, 17th century BC.
context_page_description: Ovens are closed, heated containers which are used for heating, baking, and drying. It is used the most often in cooking and pottery. They provide even, dry heat to all surfaces of food inside them. An indoor oven can have an electric heating element, or be fired by natural gas or coal. Outdoor ovens are often made of brick or clay and are buried in hot coals. An oven which is used for making pottery is called a kiln. An oven used for heating or industrial processes is called a furnace. They are hot inside, and often things come out of them hot.
context_section_description: The people in the settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization were the first to have an oven inside of their mud-brick houses by 3200 B.C.
  People who study the history of food give credit to the Greeks for making the baking of bread into an art. A type of oven called Front-loaded bread ovens were created in ancient Greece.
caption: Ancient Greek portable oven
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2007:04:03 00:23:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "218", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "CYBERSHOT", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2007:04:03 00:23:54", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "851", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2376", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/30", "EXIF FNumber": "16/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:04:03 00:23:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:04:03 00:23:54", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "46/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1536", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "642", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed"}