Panis Quadratus: Ancient Bread of Pompeii (2024)

In 79 AD Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in ash and preserving them for centuries. Amid the ruins of these cities, archaeologists uncovered ovens containing carbonisedloaves of bread called panis quadratus. These were large round sourdough breads, segmented into eight pieces, with a hole in the center of the loaf. They often had an identifying stamp imprinted on the crust and before baking, each bread had a cord tied around its “waist.”

Experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco is an expert on panis quadratus, and her research was recently featured inPopular Science. In Monaco’s award-winning blog, Tavola Mediterranea, she has written on this bread in depth and also explored fascinating ancient sourdough leavens; e.g. starter made from beans and dried blocks of starter that seem as predictable as instant yeast is today.

Mount Vesuvius was originally believed to have erupted on August 24th but a recent discovery has pushed the date to October 24th. Either way, with the fall season about to start, it seemed like a good time to try this hearty whole wheat bread. Panis quadratus indeed proved to be delicious with soup made from end-of-summer garden vegetables and chickpeas.

In her research, Farrell Monaco notes that panis quadratus dough likely weighed 1.3 kilograms or 4 Roman libre and it was probably made with “common wheat” or triticum aestivum. The bread might have also included parsley and seeds like nigella, poppy, sesame, fennel, and anise.

The bread was segmented before baking possibly so it could be easily torn for sharing. Monaco discovered that pressing a thin rod down through the dough made the final bread look more like the ancient images of the bread and the carbonized loaves themselves than scoring did.

She also also postulates that the cord helped people carry the bread or may have kept the loaf size more uniform when baking. Personally, I’ve found dough quite difficult to restrain, so I lean toward the carrying hypothesis, more than the uniformity one. I also wonder if perhaps the string was another cutting tool. I was able to use my cooking string to partially cut the bread on the horizontal, so I had the option of 8 big pieces, 16 smaller pieces, or 8 top pieces and one large flatbread base.

With Monaco’s analysis of the carbonized loaves, the images of the bread in frescos, and the writings of Pliny the Elder, we can bake an approximation of this ancient bread.

Pliny the Elder was a prolific writer and military commander who died attempting to rescue people in the aftermath of the volcanic eruption. Here are a couple of his statements on bread and fermentation that still resonate 2000 years later:

“The excellence of the finest kinds of bread depends principally on the goodness of the wheat,” and “Those persons who are dieted upon fermented bread are stronger in body.” The Natural History

I certainly was excited to try this bread using good wheat and fermentation. I looked at several recipes online and formulated a very seeded version that still has a final dough weight of about 1.3 kg. I used fresh, home-milled red fife wheat flour and ripe sourdough starter. Compared with Monaco’s recipe in the Popular Science article, I used more seeds, more salt, some honey, and I baked the bread mostly covered and at a higher temperature.

If you don’t have a large baking vessel like the Spun Iron Cloche, the Breadtopia Combo Baker that I used, or a Dutch oven with about 10″ diameter on the inside, you can bake the dough on a baking stone with a steam pan. You could also use a standard baking sheet, in which case, I suggest you follow the baking instructions on the Tavola Mediterranea blog (lower temp). And a final option would be to scale the dough down and bake it in a regular round cloche. For example, you can multiply each ingredient by 0.75 to get the dough to add up to approximately 1000g instead of 1338g.

Panis quadratus is a delicious whole wheat seeded pull-apart sourdough bread from about 2000 years ago. Its characteristics have been reconstructed by food historians and archaeologists, using ancient texts, depictions in art, and the truly unique opportunity to analyze intact bread loaves found in the ruins of Pompeii and Herculaneum, preserved in the volcanic ash of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. The recipe below is inspired by the work of experimental archaeologist Farrell Monaco and her blog Tavola Mediterranea. Any historical inaccuracies are ours alone. Servings 8-16 Serving Size 1 wedge Prep Time 40 minutes Baking Time 40 minutes Total Time 1 hour, 20 minutes Ingredients Dry Ingredients 650 grams home-milled red fife wheat berries or whole grain red fife wheat flour (5 cups flour) 10 grams salt (1 3/4 tsp) 14 grams toasted sesame seeds (1 1/2 Tbsp) 3 grams toasted nigella seeds (1 tsp) 3 grams anise seeds (1 tsp) 3 grams poppy seeds (1 tsp) Wet Ingredients 480 grams water (2 cups) 140 grams ripe sourdough starter (2/3 cup) 35 grams honey (~2 Tbsp) Instructions Briefly toast the nigella and sesame seeds on a dry frying pan until the latter are a light gold color. Combine the dry ingredients (flour, salt, seeds) in a bowl and whisk together. Combine the wet ingredients (water, sourdough starter, honey) in another bowl and whisk until frothy and dissolved. Mix together the wet and dry ingredients, lightly kneading or running a stand mixer for about 5 minutes. Different wheat varieties will have different absorbency, so check out the photo gallery below for a sense of the target dough consistency, and add more flour or water if needed. Cover and let the dough rest for about 30 minutes. Then perform a round of stretching and folding on the dough. After another 30-minute rest, do a second round of stretching and folding. Let the dough rise until it has expanded by about 75%. This took 4.5 hours from when I mixed the dough (warm kitchen). Prep and set aside a square sheet of parchment paper that is about 15"x15". Your dough should only spread to about 9-10 inches in diameter by the time you've segmented it, but the extra parchment edges will give you something to grab when you transfer the dough to your baking vessel or stone. Scrape the dough out onto a well-floured countertop and shape it into a ball, scooting it with a bench knife or the palms of your hands to develop tension on the dough's surface. Place the dough ball on the center of your parchment paper, lightly dust it with flour, and cover it with a damp cloth for the final proof. My dough proofed for 2 hours in a warm kitchen. Preheat your oven and baking vessel or stone to 450F during the last thirty minutes of the final proof. If you're using a regular baking sheet, preheat to only 400F and plan to bake the bread for about 45 minutes. Uncover your dough and tie cooking string around its "waist." Don't make the string droopy loose, but don't tighten it either. Now flour the top of your dough and make 8 depressions like you're creating pie wedges with a chopstick or similar tool. Make sure to press down almost to the countertop. If the chopstick pulls the dough back up when you remove it, flour it and the dough again. Finally make a hole in the center of the dough that is at least 1" wide. Transfer the parchment and dough to your hot baking vessel, cover, and put it in the oven. Bake at 450F for 25 minutes covered and about 15 minutes uncovered. After the bread has cooled, you can store it in your baking vessel to keep it soft and chewy.