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ESKISEHIR: In the early Bronze Age, a piece of bread was buried beneath the threshold of a newly built house in what is today central Turkiye.
Now, more than 5,000 years later, archaeologists have unearthed it, and helped a local bakery to recreate the recipe — with customers lining up to buy it.
Round and flat like a pancake, 12 centimeters (five inches) in diameter, the bread was discovered during excavations at Kulluoba, a site near the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir.
“This is the oldest baked bread to have come to light during an excavation, and it has largely been able to preserve its shape,” said Murat Turkteki, archaeologist and director of the excavation.
“Bread is a rare find during an excavation. Usually, you only find crumbs,” he told AFP.
“But here, it was preserved because it had been burnt and buried,” he said.
The bread was charred and buried under the entrance of a dwelling built around 3,300 BC.
A piece had been torn off, before the bread was burnt, then buried when the house was built.
“It makes us think of a ritual of abundance,” Turkteki said.


Unearthed in September 2024, the charred bread has been on display at the Eskisehir Archaeological Museum since Wednesday.
“We were very moved by this discovery. Talking to our excavation director, I wondered if we could reproduce this bread,” said the city’s mayor, Ayse Unluce.
Analyzes showed that the bread was made with coarsely ground emmer flour, an ancient variety of wheat, and lentil seeds, with the leaf of an as yet undetermined plant used as yeast.
Ancient emmer seeds no longer exist in Turkiye.
To get as close as possible to the original recipe, the municipality, after analizing the ancient bread, decided to use Kavilca wheat, a variety that is close to ancient emmer, as well as bulgur and lentils.
At the Halk Ekmek bakery (meaning “People’s Bread” in Turkish), promoted by the municipality to offer low-cost bread, employees have been shaping 300 loaves of Kulluoba by hand every day.
“The combination of ancestral wheat flour, lentils and bulgur results in a rich, satiating, low-gluten, preservative-free bread,” said Serap Guler, the bakery’s manager.
The first Kulluoba loaves, marketed as 300-gram (11-ounce) cakes that cost 50 Turkish lira (around $1.28), sold out within hours.
“I rushed because I was afraid there wouldn’t be any left. I’m curious about the taste of this ancient bread,” said customer Suzan Kuru.


In the absence of written traces, the civilization of Kulluoba remains largely mysterious.
In the Bronze Age, the Hattians, an Anatolian people who preceded the Hittites, lived in the Eskisehir region.
“Kulluoba was a medium-sized urban agglomeration engaged in commercial activities, crafts, agriculture and mining. There was clearly a certain family and social order,” said archaeologist Deniz Sari.
The rediscovery of the bread has sparked interest in the cultivation of ancient wheats better adapted to drought.
Once rich in water sources, the province of Eskisehir is today suffering from drought.
“We’re facing a climate crisis, but we’re still growing corn and sunflowers, which require a lot of water,” said Unluce, the local mayor.
“Our ancestors are teaching us a lesson. Like them, we should be moving toward less thirsty crops,” she added.
The mayor wants to revive the cultivation of Kavilca wheat in the region, which is resistant to drought and disease.
“We need strong policies on this subject. Cultivating ancient wheat will be a symbolic step in this direction,” she said.
“These lands have preserved this bread for 5,000 years and given us this gift. We have a duty to protect this heritage and pass it on.”

SAN SALVADOR: US lawmaker Glenn Ivey said Monday that authorities in El Salvador had prevented him from visiting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man deported from the United States by the Trump administration due to an administrative error.
US President Donald Trump has delivered on campaign promises by launching a sweeping crackdown on migrants to the United States since coming to power in January.
Rights groups have alleged that Trump’s government is committing rights abuses and denying undocumented migrants due process, claims that courts have, in part, upheld in cases that are ongoing.
Abrego Garcia’s case is one of the most prominent to have come to light. US authorities admit that he was deported to a notorious El Salvadoran prison for violent criminals due to an error, but have refused to comply with court orders to return him to the United States.
Ivey is the sixth US Democratic lawmaker to visit El Salvador in an effort to secure the return of Abrego Garcia, 29, who is being held in a penal facility in Santa Ana, 70 kilometers  from the Salvadoran capital, after being deported in March.
“We were not able to meet with Kilmar, for sure,” Ivey told a press conference in San Salvador. “We went out to the Santa Ana prison today and got there, and we spoke to the people at the gate. They wouldn’t open the gate and let us in.”
Ivey said he was told to obtain a permit for a visit, but he had already spoken to senior officials in order to arrange the meeting.
He said he had spoken to Salvadoran Ambassador to the United States Milena Mayorga and that he intended to speak to Abrego Garcia “to make sure that he’s okay, to discuss his legal rights and the like.”
The US lawmaker said he had met leaders of human rights groups, but was unable to meet officials from the government of President Nayib Bukele, a key Trump ally who has also refused to facilitate returning Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Chris Newman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia’s family, said this was his third visit to El Salvador to try and secure the release of his client.
“We want access to Mr. Abrego Garcia so he can receive legal services,” he said.
El Salvador has received 288 migrants deported from the United States, including 252 Venezuelans, who are being held in a maximum security prison.
The Trump administration says — without proof — that Abrego Garcia is a violent criminal who is a member of the MS-13 gang, which has been declared a “terrorist” organization by Washington.
Trump’s government has used an obscure wartime law to summarily deport alleged gang members, a process some US courts have halted and that one, in Texas, has deemed “unlawful.”