Masonry oven India, tandoors are traditional clay ovens, although these days modern electrically fired tandoors are available. The open-topped tandoor is a transitional design between the earth oven and the Roman-plan masonry oven. In the precolumbian Americas, similar ovens were often made of clay or adobe and are now referred to by the Spanish term "horno" (meaning "oven"). Horns are also traditional in the American Southwest. The traditional direct-fired masonry design is often called a "Roman" or "black" oven and dates in Western culture to at least the Roman Republic. It is known as a black oven because the fire generates soot
Masonry oven pizza. In the same way that masonry oven cooking techniques haven’t changed much over the millennia, neither have construction practices. Whether built with mud, brick, or modern refractories, any oven is basically a masonry shell, a smaller version of structures such as the Roman Pantheon, Brunelleschi’s dome in Florence, or Houston’s Astrodome. Early ovens were simply clay soil (usually tempered with sand to reduce cracking, as in brick-making) built up over a form of sticks or sand. When the clay was stiff enough to cut open a doorway, you dug out the sand, or burned out the wood. Smoke is