4,000-year-old Tablet Describes Ancient ‘Lunchables’ of Cheese and Meat Carried in a Box

[Michie]

At the ruined site of a 4,000-year-old civilization in Anatolia, clay tablets have been found documenting a mundane but nonetheless fascinating aspect of culture: packed lunches.

The tablet speaks specifically of a Kültepe Cheese that was part of daily life for the people in the region, who, according to the tablet, used to carry it around with them on journeys.

Located in central Turkey today, in a province (Kayseri) that bears an astonishingly similar name to the German word for cheese dairy (Käserei) the ruins of Kültepe are considered the birthplace of Anatolian civilization.

Continued below.

4,000-year-old Tablet Describes Ancient ‘Lunchables’ of Cheese and Meat Carried in a Box

Today, “pastırma” a spiced dry meat, is still a traditional foodstuff to carry on one's person in the region,

www.goodnewsnetwork.org

 

[Occams Barber]

Located in central Turkey today, in a province (Kayseri) that bears an astonishingly similar name to the German word for cheese dairy (Käserei) the ruins of Kültepe are considered the birthplace of Anatolian civilization.

The similarity between the German word for cheese (Käserei) and the Turkish province of Kayseri may not be that 'astonishing'. Kayseri is in Anatolia (eastern Turkey) which was home to the Hittite empire between mid 1600 BC and 1200 BC. (NOTE: these 'Hittites' may not be the Hittites of the Bible - there is some confusion between Hethites, Hatti and Hittite)

The Hittites spoke a very early version of Proto Indo-European (PIE). PIE is the common mother language for almost all European languages along with Persian and the languages of northern India. Germanic languages, including English, are a PIE sub-family. Since the PIE language group spread westward through Europe from the Black Sea it's possible that the word for 'cheese' survived a 5,000-year journey relatively unchanged. There are suggestions that Kayseri may be related to a PIE root word for fermenting.

'Water' has a similar history. The PIE/Hittite word for water is watar.

OB

 

[prodromos]

Kasseri is also the Greek word for yellow cheese made from fermented curds of sheep and goats milk.

Kasseri - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Occams Barber]

Kasseri is also the Greek word for yellow cheese made from fermented curds of sheep and goats milk.

Kasseri - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Early Greek was one of the first languages to evolve from PIE.

The Dutch use kaas for cheese. Kaas is also the origin of the English 'cheese'. Latin had caseus and Scots, Welsh and Irish Gaelic all use a similar word. Gaelic is based on Celtic which was originally spoken throughout Europe and may be a cousin to Latin. In Spanish cheese is queso while Basque uses gazta as its version of 'cheese'.

With the exception of Basque, all these languages are in the PIE family which originated some 5,000 years ago on the steppes just north of the Black Sea.

OB