What came first: ta...
 

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What came first: tables or plates?

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For eating purposes.

This is my morning thought...


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 9:59 am
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Now the caffeine's kicked in I'm guessing it's plates, cavemen making pots etc.

But why don't we eat our dinner straight from the table, platelets? It would save on washing up, just a quick wipe down of the table. Sorted.

Could have a table with concave sections within the top to keep the slop all in situ.


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 10:07 am
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Tables. Well, as soon as you had to put down the meat, berries, whatever, then you'd maybe choose a handy rock rather than the ground, just to keep it cleaner.


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 10:12 am
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As scotroutes says, table. You always need somewhere to put stuff down. If you're chopping stuff up you'd look for a higher rock or stack something up.

That said an actual plate (or slate/bit of flat wood) may have come before and actual table with legs n shiz...


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 10:31 am
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On a which-came-first basis it interesting that tables and tableware get mentions in the bible but chairs don't. So buffets very much the order of the day back then. The Last Supper would have been a lot less formal than we imagine.

Also forks are a bit of a late arrival on tables and were pretty controversial in their day - the devil being depicted in western culture holding a fork dates back to the arrival of forks on royal tables in Venice caused an uproar, Heretical byzantian nonsense.


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 12:01 pm
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Table first I reckon, some south South Asian cultures still use banana leaves and trenchers (stale bread) was the medieval version of a plate


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 1:09 pm
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Could have a table with concave sections within the top to keep the slop all in situ.

Yes I did worry about the gravy.

I suppose this approach would satisfy those who will only wash up under running water. A quick blast with a pressure washer then leave to dry.


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 1:30 pm
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Follow up question, which came first bowls or plates?

I can see a bowl being more useful to prevent food rolling away when eating from your lap/hands and for holding sloppy stuff like stews. But a bowl would have been carved, while a 'plate' would simply need to be a sliced flat bit of wood...


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 2:45 pm
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"The Last Supper would have been a lot less formal than we imagine."

Surely they needed chairs to take a breather from swilling all the wine...


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 2:51 pm
 TedC
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Follow up question, which came first bowls or plates?

Similarly, do flat earthers deny the existence of bowls, and only follow the one true way of the rimless plate?


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 3:50 pm
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But a bowl would have been carved, while a ‘plate’ would simply need to be a sliced flat bit of wood…

Sliced with what? And why carved? People have been making ceramics for 28,000 years

Anyway - bowls and cups are available as readymades - most notably in Somerset


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 4:56 pm
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People have been making ceramics for 28,000 years

But eating for much longer.


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 7:46 pm
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Tables. Dental plate - for eating as per the OP - came in the 1740's

[i]The first pair of porcelain dentures were produced in 1744 by a British physician. However, they looked unnaturally white and they were very fragile. In 1820 porcelain teeth were mounted onto gold plates with springs and swivels which allowed the teeth to work more efficiently.[/i]


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 8:23 pm
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Bowls came before tables. If we consider plates to not just be shallow bowls, they came after tables. Now… what about beakers…?


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 8:29 pm
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Sliced with what? And why carved? People have been making ceramics for 28,000 years

All good points, my mind went straight to rudimentary wood working, using sharpened flint, old animal bones to carve or an Antelope's jaw bones as a saw or something.

But yeah a couple of fistfuls of clay, shaped by hand and dried in the sun and you've got some crockery...

So which came first?


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 8:55 pm
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> deleted due to being a minefield of contradictions and lost history <


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 8:57 pm
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Now… what about beakers…?

Was that where you were going?


 
Posted : 06/01/2024 9:36 pm

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