Ancient Israelite cuisine aside, and the loaves were baked on the heated surface. People also began placing a convex dome, initially earthenware and later metal, over the pit-oven and cooking the flatbreads on the dome instead of on the ash-covered surface; this type of oven is probably what was meant by the biblical "machabat", often translated as “griddle”. 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
Masonry oven become increasingly popular among people interested in simpler, less environmentally destructive materials and methods. Wood-fired ovens make popular starter projects, which has generated a large number of "cob oven" projects, many of them documented on the web. However, early masonry ovens going all the way back to ancient Egypt were typically made of native clay, often tempered (to minimize cracking) with gravel, sand, and/or straw. Smaller ovens were built over forms made of sand, or a rough, basket-like shell made of sticks. After the form was covered, the sand was shoveled out, or the sticks burnt. Clome ovens were a