On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of oven baked sweet potato cubes 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.