photograph

Two women baking bread at the tonir

Vilayet of Bitlis/Paghesh

Two women baking bread at the tonir, an oven about 1 m (3 feet) into the ground and lined with stones or clay. The woman on the right is holding a patat (cushion stuffed with hay or straw) over which the dough has been stretched. She is about to reach down and press the dough against the hot wall of the sunken oven.

(Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections)

Bitlis, Turkey

circa 1880s

Houshamadyan - http://www.houshamadyan.org

photograph | Turkey | Houshamadyan | genocide | Armenia | bread | baking | food | women's history