On this Wikipedia the language links are at the oven roasted sweet potatoes of the page across from the article title. For clay ovens, see Primitive clay oven.

Not to be confused with Industrial furnace. An oven is a tool which is used to expose materials to a hot environment. Ovens contain a hollow chamber and provide a means of heating the chamber in a controlled way. In use since antiquity, they have been used to accomplish a wide variety of tasks requiring controlled heating.

Ovens are often used for cooking, where they can be used to heat food to a desired temperature. There are many methods by which different types of ovens produce heat. The earliest ovens were found in Central Europe, and date back to 29,000 BC. They were roasting and boiling pits inside yurts used to cook mammoth. In Ukraine from 20,000 BC they used pits with hot coals covered in ashes. Tandır ovens used to bake unleavened flatbread were common in Anatolia during the Seljuk and Ottoman eras, and have been found at archaeological sites distributed across the Middle East. The word tandır comes from the Akkadian tinuru, which becomes tanur in Hebrew and Arabic, and tandır in Turkish.

Of the hundreds of bread varieties known from cuneiform sources, unleavened tinuru bread was made by adhering bread to the side walls of a heated cylindrical oven. During the Middle Ages, instead of earth and ceramic ovens, Europeans used fireplaces in conjunction with large cauldrons. These were similar to the Dutch oven. Following the Middle-Ages, ovens underwent many changes over time from wood, iron, coal, gas, and even electric. Each design had its own motivation and purpose.

In the early part of the 19th century, the coal oven was developed. It was cylindrical in shape and made of heavy cast iron. The gas oven saw its first use as early as the beginning of the 19th century as well. Gas stoves became very common household ovens once gas lines were available to most houses and neighborhoods. James Sharp patented one of the first gas stoves in 1826. More recently, ovens have become slightly more high-tech in terms of cooking strategy.

The microwave as a cooking tool was discovered by Percy Spencer in 1946, and with the help from engineers, the microwave oven was patented. The microwave oven uses microwave radiation to excite the water molecules in food causing friction, thus producing heat. Double oven: a built-in oven fixture that has either two ovens, or one oven and one microwave oven. It is usually built into the kitchen cabinet. Earth oven: An earth oven is a pit dug into the ground and then heated, usually by rocks or smoldering debris. Historically these have been used by many cultures for cooking. Cooking times are usually long, and the process is usually cooking by slow roasting the food.

Ceramic oven: The ceramic oven is an oven constructed of clay or any other ceramic material and takes different forms depending on the culture. The Indians refer to it as a tandoor, and use it for cooking. Gas oven: One of the first recorded uses of a gas stove and oven referenced a dinner party in 1802 hosted by Zachaus Winzler, where all the food was prepared either on a gas stove or in its oven compartment. In 1834, British inventor James Sharp began to commercially produce gas ovens after installing one in his own house. In 1851, the Bower’s Registered Gas Stove was displayed at the Great Exhibition.