Sourdough Bread and Romans in Horningsea

Sherds from Roman pottery Horningsea (1) showing distinctive pattern

I noticed some pottery with an interesting lined pattern on its exterior surface, amongst the pottery sherds that Rodney Scarle was sorting for the Norris Museum. To my surprise, Rodney told me that they came from the Roman potteries not far from Milton, in Horningsea. The patterning was quite distinctive for this region.

Rodney had taken part in an excavation with some colleagues from the Archaeology RheeSearch Group just north of Horningsea, where they found what was thought to be a Roman bread oven (1). This could possibly have been to support the nearby pottery.


As a bread maker myself, this was a particular interest! Since this was a historic period before the availability of commercial baker’s yeast, the Romans most likely used sourdough starters (2, 3). This is something that I’m reviving again at home. I have an established wheat culture, named William, and I’ve just started a rye sourdough culture, Reilly.

Sourdough is a mixture of natural cultures of yeast and bacteria (4). Sourdough starters (bit of live dough retained from the last loaf) are used to seed the next loaf. Some sourdough cultures can be maintained for generations.

The interesting find with Rodney’s Roman bakers oven, was the remains of a pewter dish within the rubble. We speculated that perhaps the baker had died and some of his key goods were placed in the oven which was then ritually destroyed so it could not be used by anyone else.

All speculation, but something to think about when eating my next loaf of sourdough bread.

References:

1. Rodney Scarle, (2011) Report on excavations in the garden of The Lodge, Clayhithe Road, Horningsea in 2011 (revealing a possible Roman bread oven). Report stored at the Heritage database at Shire Hall, Cambridge.
2. The History of Bread - Roman & Greek Bread http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/about/the-history-of-bread/the-history-of-bread-roman-bread-and-greek-bread/
3. Coquinaria blog article, Roman Sourdough Bread, http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/Rombread.htm
4. History of Sourdough, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sourdough#History_of_sourdough

World Gold Reserves, Swimming Pools and Pubs

My German colleague, Ulrich Heker, has lately been lamenting the increasing cost of gold for dental technicians. Well, the solution might be closer to home. Germany has the second largest stock of gold in the world, as co-director Jane found out in a fit of lateral research.

Gold Reserves indicated by height of each square 

 America leads (of course!) with an amazing 8133 tonnes of the soft precious metal. Germany follows with 3390. We Brits have a paltry 310 tonnes of the stuff – presumably mainly in bling. What surprised me was that the influencal lender to nations, the International Monetary Fund “only” has 2814 tonnes.

Apparently the total known world gold reserves amount to 31,320 tonnes, which seems a surprisingly small amount.

Gold is indeed a precious metal.It is not only beloved of for its decorative glint. The high conductivity and chemically inert metal is also used for electrical contacts and circuit boards.

Silver and Gold circuits and contacts on PCB

Gold is also very dense, at 19.3g per cubic centimetre it is 19.3 times heavier than water. To put it in context, if a large 2 litre milk bottle on a supermarket shelf was instead filled with gold, it would weigh as much as a 12 year old (38kg) .

So taking its high density into account, what would 31,320 tonnes of gold look like if collected in one place? Well, the total volume would be 1623 cubic metres. Now that is equivalent to a solid cube of less than 12m x 12m x 12m.

Typically, this is expressed as fitting into ONE olympic sized swimming pool. But I needed something I could relate to locally. Was there a suitable building with the same volume?

Yes! The Waggon and Horses pub looked large enough. I phoned publicans David and Louise to check. David and I worked out that there was cellar space and of course, soon there would be the restaurant extension at the rear.

Waggon & Horses in Milton - Equal to World's Gold Reserves

So all the whole world's gold reserves could fit into the same space as the Waggon & Horses in Milton!

David's last comment was “When it arrives, just give me a pound of the stuff and I'll happily move out into the shed!”