Bread Stamp8th-9th century

On view:

Geffen Galleries, Islamic Art and Late Antiquity

Title: Bread Stamp
Place Made: Egypt
Date Made: 8th-9th century
Medium: Wood, carved
Dimensions: Height: 1 3/8 in. (3.49 cm); Diameter: 3 in. (7.62 cm)
Credit Line: The Madina Collection of Islamic Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost
Accession Number: M.2002.1.754
Classification: Wood
Collecting Area: Art of the Middle East: Islamic
Curatorial Notes: The long-standing practice of stamping bread possibly dates to the Neolithic period. Stamped words and symbols were used for a variety of ritualistic, commercial, and practical purposes, including to create votive offerings, to brand a loaf with the maker’s name, and to help to identify one’s cooked loaves in a communal oven. Despite their ephemerality, some stamped loaves of bread even survive from 79 CE, found in ovens at Herculaneum and Pompeii, where they were carbonized by the ash that erupted from Mount Vesuvius. Stamps were made from metal, clay, and wood, as in this double-sided example. It is decorated with a bird on one side and a hare and crosses on the other, the latter of which suggests it was made for a Christian, most likely in a Coptic context. Hand-stamped bread is still used today in the Coptic Orthodox Mass, where it is distributed to attendees as a blessing.

2024

On view:

Geffen Galleries, Islamic Art and Late Antiquity

Title: Bread Stamp
Place Made: Egypt
Date Made: 8th-9th century
Medium: Wood, carved
Dimensions: Height: 1 3/8 in. (3.49 cm); Diameter: 3 in. (7.62 cm)
Credit Line: The Madina Collection of Islamic Art, gift of Camilla Chandler Frost
Accession Number: M.2002.1.754
Classification: Wood
Collecting Area: Art of the Middle East: Islamic
Curatorial Notes: The long-standing practice of stamping bread possibly dates to the Neolithic period. Stamped words and symbols were used for a variety of ritualistic, commercial, and practical purposes, including to create votive offerings, to brand a loaf with the maker’s name, and to help to identify one’s cooked loaves in a communal oven. Despite their ephemerality, some stamped loaves of bread even survive from 79 CE, found in ovens at Herculaneum and Pompeii, where they were carbonized by the ash that erupted from Mount Vesuvius. Stamps were made from metal, clay, and wood, as in this double-sided example. It is decorated with a bird on one side and a hare and crosses on the other, the latter of which suggests it was made for a Christian, most likely in a Coptic context. Hand-stamped bread is still used today in the Coptic Orthodox Mass, where it is distributed to attendees as a blessing.

2024