The Persians introduced a clay oven called a tanur (similar to the Indian tandoor), which had an opening at the bottom for the fire, and through which the bread was placed to be baked on the inner wall of the upper chamber from the heat of the oven and ashes after the flames had died down. This continued to be the way in which Yemenite Jews baked bread until modern times. The remains of clay ovens and fragments of bread trays have been found in several archaeological excavations. All these methods produced only thin loaves, and the custom was thus to break bread rather than cut it. The bread was soft and pliable and used for dipping and sopping up gravies and juices. The Romans introduced an oven called a furn (purni in Talmudic Aramaic), a large, wood-burning, stone-lined oven with a bottom on which the dough or baking sheet was placed. This provided a major advance in bread and pastry baking, and made the baking of much thicker loaves possible. A variety of breads were produced. Probably most common were unleavened flat loaves called ugah or kikkar. Another type was a thin wafer, known as a rakik. A thicker loaf, known as hallah, was made with the best-quality flour, usually for ritual purposes. Bread was sometimes enriched by the addition of flour from legumes (). The Mishna (Hallah 2:2) mentions bread dough made with fruit juice instead of water. The sugar in the juice, interacting with the flour and water, provided some leavening and sweetened the bread. The Israelites also sometimes added fennel and cumin to bread dough for flavor and dipped their bread in vinegar (), olive oil, or sesame oil for extra flavor. Legumes After grain, legumes such as lentils, broad or fava beans, chickpeas, and peas were the main element in the diet and were the main source of protein, since meat was rarely eaten. Broad beans, chickpeas, and lentils are the only legumes mentioned in the Bible but lentils, broad beans, chickpeas, fenugreek, field peas and bitter vetch have been found at Iron Age Israelite sites. By the Roman period, legumes are mentioned frequently in other texts. They are cited as one of the elements of the “wife’s food basket” in the Mishna (Ketubot 5:8), by which it is estimated that legumes supplied 17% of daily calories at that time. Lentils were the most important