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Quote:"Made from earthenware, bronze, or iron, the clibanus, often preheated, was used to cook not only bread but also meat. Literary and archaeological evidence from places like Cosa, Pompeii, and Rome show that the clibanus was round or domed-shaped and wider at the bottom than at the top."
Ancient Food Technology - Page 368
Robert Irvin Curtis - 2001
Not a big leap of imagination from a bronze or iron box to a cuirass of some sort.
It isn't a box; It is a dome - it looks kinda like an igloo. It can cook meat but not by baking. The meat is placed on the outside surface (just like dough) and it is barbequed.
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Boxes can be round - like a pillbox, giving rise to the pillbox hat, which was also round.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
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Quote:The Greek klibanos was just a clay dome. You build the fire underneath and spread the dough over the surface. It doesn't cook loaves, it cooks flat-bread.
Surely, then, this militates against the 'oven-man' theory. The soldier would be inside his armour, not draped over its surface.
Michael King Macdona
And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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Unless my theory is correct - the Iranian "tannur" was more like a large clay pot inside which the food was cooked, rather than a dome.
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Quote:The meat is placed on the outside surface (just like dough) and it is barbequed.
For what I can work out, it seems that the food was placed under the dome and not on top of it - the dome was placed in the embers of the fire, which were often heaped over it, and the food cooked beneath it. The latin term sub testu implies something covered, and testum and clibanus seem to be synonymous.
Here (bottom left column) is Andrew Dalby's runthrough of sources on clibanus/kribanos/testum etc as a portable earthenware cooking-cover.
While here you can see a sketch of what appears to be an example of one.
Either way, if there's a connection between clibanus and clibanarii, it's presumably a colloquial reference to the inside of the 'pot' getting very hot, rather than the appearance of it or what it's made of! No need to assume anything about the type of armour being used; the weight and the heat generated by it is surely the important bit.
However, it's still possible that this is a false etymology, or that both words derive from the same root (something to do with covering or being covered?*) but are otherwise unrelated.
EDIT - * actually, doesn't the word cataphract mean something like 'covered'? If a clibanus was a dish that covered something to cook it, perhaps we're missing a more obvious connection between the words?
Nathan Ross
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Quote:Either way, if there's a connection between clibanus and clibanarii, it's presumably a colloquial reference to the inside of the 'pot' getting very hot, rather than the appearance of it or what it's made of! No need to assume anything about the type of armour being used; the weight and the heat generated by it is surely the important bit.
However, it's still possible that this is a false etymology, or that both words derive from the same root (something to do with covering or being covered?*) but are otherwise unrelated.
EDIT - * actually, doesn't the word cataphract mean something like 'covered'? If a clibanus was a dish that covered something to cook it, perhaps we're missing a more obvious connection between the words?
The first paragraph is the point that I object to. It is a modern notion that has no authority in ancient writing. That it is a false etymology, as suggested in the second has, I think, much to recommend it. However, I like the idea in the 'edit'. Catafractus and its derivatives (and, of course, its Greek origin) imply something covered up; clibanus and its derivatives could imply the same but in a different (more solid?) form.
Michael King Macdona
And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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Quote:The first paragraph is the point that I object to.
You'll notice I was keeping it conditional there
As you say, there's no evidence so all our ideas are hypotheses. It does seem plausible to make the link with the oven (or 'baking dish'), but I'd go no further than that.
Quote:Catafractus and its derivatives... imply something covered up; clibanus and its derivatives could imply the same but in a different (more solid?) form.
Yes, that was what I thought. If both words have a similar connotation, a clibanarius could no more be named after an oven than a cataphractarius was named after a decked war galley!
Nathan Ross
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The Romans were rather down-to-earth, literal and essentially prosaic in naming things and people - strabo just means "squinter", agricola "farmer" and even the sonorous ahenobarbus is merely "brass-beard".
Clibanarius has all the hallmarks of being just another Roman descriptive nickname in origin - "oveneer" or "oven-boy". We know that contemporary ovens had two salient features: they were hot, they could be constructed as metal boxes. Take your pick.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
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Quote:The Romans were rather down-to-earth, literal and essentially prosaic in naming things and people
Indeed, and (at risk of labouring the point) one of their methods of indicating a person's area of expertise was simply to add -arius to the object of his expertise to show his association with it, e.g., sagittarius, ballistarius, retiarius, etc., etc., etc. We have established (I think) that clibanus can mean 'cuirass' or 'oven'. Thus, clibanarius could mean 'associated with a cuirass' or 'associated with an oven', i.e., a cook. As you say, take your pick!
Michael King Macdona
And do as adversaries do in law, -
Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends.
(The Taming of the Shrew: Act 1, Scene 2)
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