Just how old are spoons? A spoon (apart from a knife) is probably the oldest utensil known to man, being used to scoop up food to eat and for mixing and measuring. The oldest spoons were probably just scoops made from shells, later developing into purpose made scoops with handles and made from wood and bone. Some of the earliest known spoons with handles dating from around 1300 BC have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs and are carved from ebony and ivory.

Our copper alloy spoon bowl, found in a Roman building at Broadstairs in 2004, is much younger, dating to the late second century AD and is without its handle. It was found associated with an oven on the floor of the cellar in a thick sooty deposit that also contained pottery, iron nails, rings and fittings as well as a Roman military belt buckle suggesting that old timber and even clothing was being used to fuel the fire.

You can read more about the site in Moody, G. 2007. Iron Age and Roman British Settlement at Bishop’s Avenue, North Foreland, Broadstairs. Archaeologia Cantiana CXXVII