Tabun oven

[1] The tabūn oven has historically been used to bake flatbreads such as taboon bread and laffa, and has been in widespread use in the greater Middle East for centuries.

According to an 11th-century Judeo-Arabic commentary on the Mishnah, with a later recension made by an unknown Yemenite Jewish scholar (1105 – 1170 CE), the Arabic word tabūn (Arabic: الطبون) is equivalent to the Mishnaic Hebrew word כופח‎ = kūppaḥ,[2][3] and which, according to Maimonides, produces a heat greater than that of a fire built between two support walls or a support wall having a semi-cylindrical shape carrying a cooking pot (כירה‎ = kīrah), yet does not produce a heat greater than a regular earthenware baking oven (תנור‎ = tannūr) and which was usually a permanent fixture.

[4] Unlike the fire built between two support walls holding a cooking pot and which flame is exposed to the open-air, the tabūn is a large, overturned earthenware bowl and covers over completely the heated place (usually a bed of smooth stones, upon which a fire is built).

[5] Since the tabūn is built with an opening at its top that can be sealed with a ceramic lid, allowing it to be completely smothered over in ashes, dough that is spread out over the stone-lined bottom is quickly baked into bread.

[6] In some cases, in addition to the hole at the top, there is a second side opening called the "eye of the oven", used for stoking the fire and clearing away the ashes, and which is closed by a detachable door.

[9] Bread dough was spread out on the pebbled floor of the tabun oven's interior, with hot coals and embers scattered with ash piled on top of the exterior shell, along with dried cattle dung.

[16] When the smoke stops, the lid is removed and chunks of dough are hand flattened and placed directly on the limestones.

The soil is wetted and made into a thick clay mixed with chopped stubble and straw from harvested wheat.