Royal Pantry Discovered in Silk Road Fortress
NARA, JAPAN
The Asahi Shimbunreports that a food pantry measuring some 37 feet long and 10 feet wide has been found at Kafir Kala, an eighth-century fortress on the path of the ancient Silk Road in what is now Uzbekistan. Researchers from Tezukayama University and Uzbekistan s Institute of Archaeology said that the contents of the pantry, which was situated next to a throne room, suggest that an eighth-century Sogdian king ate foods from eastern and western food traditions. The foodstuffs include charred grains of foxtail millet, which is eaten in East Asia, and a carbonized substance thought to be honey, widely used in Greek dishes. Takao Uno of Tezukayama University said the millet may have been served as a porridge, or made into dumplings served with honey. People in Uzbekistan today eat foxtail millet porridge with garlic and beans, which were also recovered from the pantry, Uno explained. Thirteen large pots are thought to
Grains of foxtail millet were found in a charred state in a pantry excavated at the Kafir Kala fortress in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. (Provided by Tezukayama University)
NARA An eighth-century pantry unearthed in the ancient Silk Road city of Samarkand suggests the influence of Eastern and Western dietary cultures on the dinner table of a Sogdian king, archeologists said.
The remains of the pantry were found in Kafir Kala, a fortress 30 kilometers to the southeast of central Samarkand, during an excavation by institutions including Tezukayama University in Nara and the National Museum of Ethnology in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, in September 2019.
The pantry excavated at Kafir Kala (Provided by Tezukayama University)