Tabun

A traditional oven made of clay and shaped like a short cone rising out of the ground. Its external surface is covered in clay made from dry manure, while the inside is lined with small stones. The tabun’s opening is covered with an iron lid. Before use, wood is set alight inside the oven and left to burn for hours. This design maximizes heat and spreads it evenly. For centuries, the tabun has been a technology fundamental to Palestinian culinary heritage, used to bake large discs of flat yeasted bread. The bread is thrown onto the inside wall of the oven until it is done on both sides. While similar ovens are found elsewhere in the Levant and beyond, the tabun is seen as a symbol of Palestinian identity because the communal ovens were used to meet an essential daily need among what was a mostly rural agricultural population before the 1948 Nakba. Today, tabun bread is sometimes made at home in metal ovens filled with heated stones that create a similar effect.