An Egyptian egg oven or Egyptian mamal is an oven for hatching eggs by incubation using artificial heat. Manmade hatching ovens in Egypt date back to the 4th century BC. Although using old processing methods, they were considered effective at hatching chickens, especially in comparison to other techniques of the time. In 1750, French naturalist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur published a detailed report of the ovens, and declared that "Egypt ought to be prouder of them than her pyramids."