| Summary: | Culinary culture has played an essential role in the configuration and interaction of human societies throughout history, shaping both individual and collective identities. Like the modern Mediterranean diet, Phoenician-Punic subsistence relied on cereals, often in the form of bread. However, literary, epigraphic and material evidence on its production and consumption among Iron Age communities in the western Mediterranean is significantly limited. This article discusses the results of an experimental project regarding the construction process, use, and maintenance of the pyrostructures (tannūr ovens) used to bake bread, establishing comparisons with a selection of previous research from other Mediterranean geographical and cultural settings. The two ovens used, a fixed adobe and a ceramic portable, have made it possible to bake bread and cook other meals using cookware replicas. Thus, technical procedures, such as the timing of baking processes and the estimation of fuel, etc., have been analysed. This experimental and ethnographic approach, combined with the archaeological record, has provided new insight into resource management and production patterns regarding this staple food. Insight into the development of “kitchens” and complex cooking throughout the Iron Age in this peripheral area of the Mediterranean world was also gained.
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