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Published 2014
Unlike the European bread oven, which is made of brick, the tandoor is a piece of pottery (the Arabic al-tannûr has given Spanish its word for clay pipe, atanor). It is essentially a large clay jar with an opening toward the bottom for adding and removing fuel. Potters may sell ready-fired tandoors for installing in the home—in the wall or floor of the building, or outdoors, surrounded by more clay to make a beehive-shaped free-standing structure—or the pot may be built up in situ from soils of clay and fired from within.