In a Siberian cave, a 60,000-year-old Neanderthal ‘Swiss Army Knife’ was discovered
Experiment shows multi-purpose tool can still be used for butchering: it highlights the skills of these extinct early humans. This week has seen the revelation from an international study that Neanderthals twice invaded cold Siberia, around 120,000 and 60,000 years ago.
‘This thing for Neanderthals was like a Swiss Army knife for us now.’
Scientists have also unearthed the tools used by the early humans when they settled in the Altai Mountains.
Professor Kseniya Kolobova, of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk, suggested that the tool called by scientists ‘asymmetrical backed biface’ was the ancient equivalent of the famous modern Swiss Army knife.
It was a ‘multi-functional tool, which can cut whatever you like, (butcher) and process skin, or make other tools. Pictures: The Siberian Times
They were discovered among 90,000 stone artefacts at Chagyrskaya Cave.
‘This thing for Neanderthals was like a Swiss Army knife for us now,’ she said, holding the stone tool, which is made of chalcedonite
‘We have a blunt end, so it is convenient to hold.’
Retouchers were made of bones, which were used to sharpen stone tools. Picture: Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of SBRAS
Remarkably, scientists show that it is still usable after 60,000 years.
‘You can butcher for about an hour with this tool, as our experiment showed until it blunts…
‘Then they sharpened it again and again and again.’
Kseniya Kolobova shows how the bifacew could be used to make another tool.
It was a ‘multi-functional tool, which can cut whatever you like, (butcher) and process skin, or make other tools.
Intriguing, too, is how small the world was in those times.
Excavations site
Analysis of stone tools from Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai Mountains shows striking similarities to those found at Sesselfelsgrotte in Germany, some 5,000 kilometres away.
‘If we put our bifaces next to Europeans we do not see any differences, except the raw materials,’ she said.
‘European tools were made of flint, ours of chalcedony and jasper.
‘That is, they brought the tradition of making their tools through several thousand kilometres almost unchanged.’
The Neanderthals in their conquests of Siberia killed and ate bison to survive say, archaeologists. Finds linked to these archaic humans show ‘the cognitive abilities of the Neanderthals were wider than previously thought, said the professor.
Perfectly preserved lion cubs that died 44,000 years ago ‘after being abandoned by mum’ found in Siberia
‘Male siblings born 44,000 years ago’ found ten metres apart in Yakutia but the truth is rather different – amid hopes to bring species back to life. The pair of cubs were believed to be siblings both born 44,000 years ago.
Some 26000 years ago Sparta’s mother either left her in the cave and went hunting, or was killed herself, leaving the tiny cub without food.
In fact, one of the famous extinct cave lions named Spartak has been found to be female, not male, and will need to be rechristened as Sparta. And she was born 18,000 years after the cub found next to her named Boris, it now emerges.
Complete restoration works on the baby cave lions, preserved superbly in the Siberian permafrost, reveals a sensational level of pelt and hair preservation. Some 26,000 years ago Sparta’s mother either left her in the cave and went hunting, or was killed herself, leaving the tiny cub without food.
‘She starved to death. We wondered why she looked so skinny when she was found, and then tomography of her internal organs showed there was no fat,’ said scientist Dr Albert Protopopov, an expert in frozen remains from the woolly mammoth era.
‘It was the most extreme stage of starvation.’
‘She starved to death. We wondered why she looked so skinny when she was found, and then tomography of her internal organs showed there was no fat.’
Sparta was found in the Yakutia region in 2018 by the same mammoth bone hunter who discovered a bigger cave lion cub called Boris a year earlier.
They were just ten metres apart.
The first theory was that the cubs must have been from the same family – but now scientists know that the cubs are separated by 26,000 years. Boris lived some 44,000 years ago and was aged between two to three weeks when he died. Most likely his death came when his mother left him inside a cave, went hunting and the cave rock collapsed, burying the cub.
‘We found visible traces of internal injuries which we believe could have been caused by a rock falling on him’, Protopopov said. The most important task of this complex research on the cave lion cubs is to restore their appearance.
‘It is still an enigma, in that on hundreds of published drawings of cave lions they are depicted without manes. Yet we notice spots and stripes of pigmentation in that area… which are not seen in modern-day lions. So we are moving towards re-creating the way the cave lions looked.
‘Their living conditions were very different to modern lions in that cave lions lives in a much colder climate and we believe therefore had to look different.
‘There was less prey in cold climate.
‘If we understand this question about mane we might get an idea of their social hierarchy – for example, we don’t know if they created prides with alpha males and several females alike to modern lions.’
Boris, the older cub, has a severed tail.
Tests are underway on the lions to extract as much information as possible. The cave lions were the largest predators after bears in ancient, and in the area where we find skulls of cave lions, there is only a handful of bear skulls. Lions reigned in ancient Siberia because at the time it was savanna, bears needed more woods.
‘Cave lion cubs are superbly preserved, you can even see their whiskers, and we are hoping to fetch a lot more information from them.’
The scientist predicted: ‘There is a very realistic chance to recreate cave lions and it would be a lot easier than to clone a woolly mammoth.
‘Cave and modern lions separated only 300,000 years ago, in other words, they are different species of the same genus.
‘It means that we can take the DNA of the modern African lion and use it to recreate cave lions.
’It would be a lot easier than the mammoths.
‘But if we find methods to bring back woolly mammoths it would be a revolution and a payback by humans who helped extinguishing of so many species.’
Boris, the older cub, has a severed tail.
This led to speculation he was an ancient lynx, not a cave lion.
‘We were all worried by the lack of a tail on Boris,’ said Dr Protopopov.
‘But the man who found him explained that it got cut off when the cub was taken out of the permafrost.
‘I know it raised suspicion that the lion cub was in fact a lynx, but we know from the very first tests that this was clearly a cave lion cub.’
Mystery as fully-sealed bottle of liquid discovered between skeleton’s legs
Experts at Hull’s largest-ever archaeological excavation believe they’ve made significant progress in unraveling the mystery of a bottle discovered between a skeleton’s legs. The unique blue-colored glass bottle marked ‘Hull Infirmary’ appears to have been placed in a grave at the former Trinity burial cemetery on purpose.
The glass bottle discovered at the Hull burial has the words “Hull infirmary” on it and contains a mysterious brown liquid.
The fully intact sealed bottle also contained an unknown brown liquid. It was discovered earlier this year as part of the major excavation at the site where burials took place between 1783 and 1861.
A 70-strong team of specialist archaeologists have been working there since last year as part of the nearby £355m A63 upgrade scheme on Castle Street in the city centre. They are examining around 1,500 exhumed skeletons.
The site is one of the largest post-medieval cemeteries to have ever been excavated in the north of England and the discovery of the bottle initially raised a few eyebrows.
Osteology supervisor Katie Dalmon explained: “It’s quite normal to find artefacts such as rings, coins, items of clothing and even tableware such as plates in a burial plot but this bottle was quite unusual.
“Not only was it apparently specifically placed between the person’s legs but it was also sealed and was nearly full of liquid.”
The ‘Hull Infirmary’ inscription on the side of the bottle was the first clue in what has become an ongoing piece of archaeological detective work.
The hospital was first established in temporary premises in 1782 – a year before the burial ground opened – and then moved to a purpose-built home in Prospect Street in 1784.
Katie added: “We now know a little bit more about the identity of the body – it’s a woman who was in her 60s at the time of death. We also know she was suffering from residual Ricketts and osteoporosis.
“She was also buried in the middle of a burial stack with the bottle. It was deliberately placed with the individual and was not part of any backfill.”
Tests have also been carried on the mysterious liquid in an effort to establish what it actually is with samples being sent to experts from Nottingham Trent University to carry out a high-tech analysis.
Katie said: “The tests have confirmed the presence of sodium, potassium and phosphorus and have also discounted any pharmaceutical materials being present.
“The results leave us with the likelihood that the liquid is probably urine but they also raise a whole series of other questions.
“What could this mean? Why was it placed there and, if it’s not the urine, what could it be?”
She said another theory being examined was that the liquid might have been a type of phosphate-based tonic drink.
pic 1: The bottle is just one of a plethora of archaeological remains discovered at the Hull burial ground. pic2: Huge tents have been set up as protection over the Hull burial ground excavation site. pic3: Archaeologists at work at the Hull burial ground, the location where the mystery bottle was found.pic4: An ornamental brooch found by archaeologists at the Castle Street excavation in Hull
“These were popular in the 19th century when they were advertised as a cure for various medical ailments, including tuberculosis.
“We can’t be exactly sure at the moment so we are carrying out more tests to try to get a definitive answer.”
The team from Oxford Archaeology is expected to spend several years studying all the finding findings from the burial ground. Work on the actual site is due to end next month when the remaining giant tents covering the excavation area will be removed.
The mummified ‘giant finger’ of Egypt: Did giants once really roam on Earth?
A 15-inch long human finger has been found in Egypt and pictures of it are being released for the very first time. BILD.de broke this story, and it is spreading like fire all over the Internet.
According to BILD.de, the pictures of this finger were taken by a researcher named Gregor Spörri in Egypt in 1988. The mummified finger would be considered to be human except for the fact that it is way, way too large to have come from a human hand.
As mentioned earlier, the giant finger is 15 inches long. It is projected that the person that this finger came from would have been more than 16 feet tall! You can see more pictures of this amazing find on BILD.de.
Could this be evidence that points towards the existence of giant beings that walked on Earth in the distant past?
As you can tell from the picture above, the fingernail is clearly visible. This truly is a remarkable specimen. So is this really a finger of a giant that once lived in Egypt?
Unfortunately, this finger is not housed in a museum in Egypt. The researcher that took the pictures reportedly had to pay “an old man from a grave robber dynasty” 300 dollars to see it and take pictures of it.
So unfortunately this discovery cannot be independently verified at this time. Hopefully, all of this publicity will flush this finger back out into the public so that authorities can examine it.
Certificate of authenticity and X-Ray images of the giant finger
This is potentially an incredibly important part of our history and it would be a shame if these photos are the only evidence we ever get to see of it.
But when it comes to giants, we already know that there is so much other evidence out there. Recently I wrote about the Nephilim mummy that was found in Peru and about the giant footprints and giant skeletons that have been found all over the world.
But a mummified human finger from a giant in Egypt would be absolutely mind-blowing. It would be a direct challenge to everything that is commonly accepted about the ancient history of Egypt.
Hopefully, all of this will spur more digs and more research. The era when the Great Pyramid was constructed in an era that is shrouded in great mystery.
Humanity is only now developing technology that would allow us to construct a similar structure today. Nobody really knows for sure who built the Great Pyramid or how it was constructed.
There is just so much about ancient Egypt that we simply do not know. Hopefully, the floodgates will open and much more evidence will emerge soon.
Bulgarian archaeologists discovered giant skeleton remains located at the Black Sea Bay city known as Varna. In the first reports, they suggested that a man lived in the 4th to the 5th centuries and were quite impressed by the size of the bone found in the area.
Due to the size, they only concluded their report that they belonged to a very tall man. Chief Archeologists Valeri Yotov who is part of their team that carries out excavations has been reporting the local media.
On the discovery from the begging but lately has stopped to give any more details which might tell us they are on to something bigger as they skeleton was discovered in the area of the ancient city called Odesos.
Yotov in the past has suggested that the man has died during work and that they were he was buried with his hand laid on his waist and his body pointing to the east was a clear indication he had a ceremonial burial rite and was buried this way.
Reconstructions of the area are being carried out in Varna, which is Bulgarians 3rd largest city and usually called “The Black Sea capital”
The ancient tomb in which the skeletons was found was also discovered during the repair works in the centre of Varna while the repair team dug up the tomb unexpectedly.
Its approximate location has actually been known since the beginning of the 20 th century as told by the Bulgarian National Television report.
However back then it was just briefly explored but sealed away due to constructions, so exploration of this area now is a very interesting job for the local archaeological society.
Archaeologists in this excavation reported that the object, lying on Nezavisimost Square between the city theatre and the State Archive, was located beyond the walls of Odesos, the ancient city that was once situated where Varna is now.
5,000-Year-Old Rock Art Depicting “Celestial Bodies” Revealed in Siberia
Rock art images painted some 5,000 years ago during the Bronze Age were made with a sophisticated scientific understanding which has stunned experts. Images, discovered near Karakol village in the Altai Republic in Russia, show alien figures with round horns and feathers on their heads.
The depictions in red, black and white were found in 1985 in a gravesite in a remote village in Siberia have uncovered the extraordinary talent of the prehistoric artists.
They have found that the red hues in the tomb drawings were made of thermally modified ocher, a clay made from Earth.
Celestial’ rock art images by ancient painters some 5,000 years ago were made with a sophisticated scientific understanding which has stunned experts. Paintings from the Altai Mountains of Siberia show alien or heavenly figures with horns and feathers on their heads
The white shades were made by scraping which revealed light-reflecting rock crystals, while soot was used for the black in the paintings.
Scientists from the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, Russia’s leading research and development centre for nuclear energy, said that the red colours especially fascinate the experts.
It is apparent that some 5,000 years ago the tomb painters knew how to carry out a chemical reaction in order to create not just a red colour but the precise tones they desired by varying the temperature of heating.
Roman Senin, head of the synchrotron research department at Kurchatov Institute, said: ‘We determined the phased composition of pigments, that is, the structure of the crystal lattice of individual grains of the dye.
‘Some structures are not typical for natural samples but are the product of heat treatment.
‘Simply put, the primitive artist heated the mineral to a certain temperature in order to get the colour he needed.’
Alexander Pakhunov, of Russia’s Institute of Archeology, said: ‘The results of the analysis of the composition of paints used in the funeral rite of Karakol people testify to the ability of the ancient inhabitants of Altai to distinguish pigments by colour and properties.’
The weird and wonderful depictions in red, black and white dating to the Bronze Age were found in 1985 in a remote village but now Russian nuclear scientists have uncovered the extraordinary talent of the prehistoric artists.
It is apparent that some 5,000 years ago the tomb painters knew how to carry out a chemical reaction in order to create not just a red colour but the precise tones they desired by varying the temperature of heating.
Full results of the new study will be presented at the 43rd International Symposium on Archeometry in May 2020 in Lisbon.
It is also clear that ancient people broke off rocks on local mountains already decorated at an earlier time with petroglyphs.
These were then moved into the graves – and superimposed their own fantastical images on stone slabs which were used as the tomb walls.
‘The remains of people buried inside the stone graves were also painted with the same colours, with spots of red ocher found below eye sockets and traces of a black and silvery mineral called Specularite prominent in eyebrows area,’ reported The Siberian Times –
The earliest images were engravings of elks, mountains goats and running people with round horns on their heads.
White shades were made by scraping which revealed light-reflecting rock crystals, while soot was used for the black in the paintings. It is the red colours that especially fascinate the experts
Full results of the new study will be presented at the 43rd International Symposium on Archeometry in May 2020 in Lisbon. It is also clear that ancient people broke off rocks on local mountains already decorated at an earlier time with petroglyphs
On top of the petroglyphs were superimposed pictures of 11 human-like figures. The different colour tones are seen as carrying meanings to the prehistoric people.
While the funeral rites of these ancient mountain-dwellers are not yet understood, the techniques of the painters is now clear, say the scientists. The Karakol artworks date to the early and middle Bronze Age.
Magnificent 2,000-year-old ‘city hall’ unearthed near Western Wall in Jerusalem
During ongoing excavations beneath Jerusalem’s Old City, researchers discovered what may have been a 2,000-year-old city council structure – just a few hundred meters from its modern counterpart. The grand structure is a new feature on the revamped Western Wall Tunnels Tour, which allows tourists to visit the millennia-old city that exists in a time warp under today’s thriving capital.
“This is, without doubt, one of the most magnificent public buildings from the Second Temple period that has ever been uncovered outside the Temple Mount walls in Jerusalem,” said excavation director Dr. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolach in an IAA press release on Thursday.
Built circa 20 CE, the Roman-era structure stood off the main drag leading to the Temple Mount and was used as a triclinium, or dining room, for notable members of society on their way to worship, according to the IAA release. Originally constructed with an ornate water fountain and decorative Corinthian capitals, the striking edifice underwent a series of structural changes in its 50 years of use prior to the 70 CE destruction of the Second Temple, Weksler-Bdolach told The Times of Israel.
The new visitors’ route in the Western Wall Tunnels.
Remains of the 2000-year-old building are due to be opened to the public
The massive structure will soon be open to the public as part of the Western Wall Tunnels Tour, which has been rejigged to create different paths and experiences, based on several new routes that cut through thousands of years of history, through today’s modern use of part of the tunnels as prayer and event halls.
According to Weksler-Bdolach, originally archaeologists had thought the “city hall” was constructed during the earlier Hasmonean period. Located to the west of Wilson’s Arch, just off the prayer pavilion for men at the Western Wall, one of the chambers was discovered and documented in the 19th century by Charles Warren. Other archaeologists also studied the room in the 20th century.
However, after taking up some of the ancient floorings and performing carbon-14 dating on organic materials from the building’s base, as well as discovering coins and pottery sherds, archaeologists place the opulent building’s timeframe at no earlier than 20 CE. She noted that because the site is only partially excavated — to preserve other important subterranean structures from other eras — it is more challenging to precisely date and study it. “Every building is important; we cannot take all the buildings apart,” she said.
What archaeologists do know is that during its 50 years of occupation, said Weksler-Bdolach, the large public structure was separated into three different spaces, the fountain was taken out of use, and what appears to be a ritual bath or mikveh was added, just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Despite the clear Roman influence in the structure’s architecture, Jerusalem at this time was still a culturally Jewish city, said Weksler-Bdolach. The decorations discovered in the spaces — a sculpted cornice bearing pilasters (flat supporting pillars) — didn’t include graven images, banned by the Torah.
She said the hall was likely used by city, versus Temple, officials who wanted to impress their guests.
“Visitors to the site can now envisage the opulence of the place: the two side chambers served as ornate reception rooms and between them was a magnificent fountain with water gushing out from lead pipes incorporated in the midst of the Corinthian capitals protruding from the wall,” said Weksler-Bdolach in the press release.
There are still several puzzles to work out surrounding the building. For one, what was the water source for the fountain? Weksler-Bdolach laughed and said that is the “million-dollar question,” but the researchers’ working hypothesis is that since clean, fresh water would likely have been used, it was hand filled through an intricate system of lead water piping. The fountain, she said, was likely only used to make a splash with, especially important VIPs.
Two ‘living’ cities in parallel
To reach the Western Wall Tunnels Tour, visitors descend beneath noisy, living Jerusalem and go back in time, entering a well-preserved subterranean ancient city.
“In Jerusalem, there are several cities under the city,” said Weksler-Bdolach, “especially under the Old City.”
According to Shachar Puni, architect for the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Conservation Department, one of the interesting and unique features of ancient Jerusalem is that many whole sections were left completely intact under the ground.
In most cases, new construction was performed on top of older structures, he, said, with domed ceilings serving as building bases, and still intact chambers underneath used as basements or cisterns, or even hideaway living spaces.
Now, with the rerouted paths, said Puni, visitors can experience different elements, time periods, and purposes of the underground city. For example, tourists purely interested in ancient archaeology will no longer brush up against today’s prayer halls — and vice versa.
“There is a feeling of a whole underground world that it is in parallel with the ‘living world’ above ground,” said Puni. Unlike visits to other “open-air” archaeological sites in Israel such as Caesarea or Megiddo, in Jerusalem’s underground universe, “for the visitor, there is the feeling of a whole world that didn’t exactly get destroyed.”
Mordechai Soli Eliav, chairman of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, says, “It is exciting to reveal such a magnificent structure from the Second Temple period while we mourn the destruction of Jerusalem and pray for its restoration.” The new section of the Tunnels Tour should be open by the Hebrew month of Elul, just ahead of Rosh Hashana, in time for traditional selichot, or penitential prayers.
“What’s fantastic is that there’s a living city moving about aboveground, and in parallel, a whole world that was frozen, but still lives, in the archaeological realm, one under the other,” said Puni. PJC
Cryptic 2,700-year-old pig skeleton found in Jerusalem’s City of David
Israeli archaeologists have unearthed the complete skeleton of a piglet in a place and time where you wouldn’t expect to find pork remains: a Jerusalem home dating to the First Temple period.
The 2,700-year-old porcine remains were found crushed by large pottery vessels and a collapsed walls during excavations in the so-called City of David, the original nucleus of ancient Jerusalem. The team of archaeologists behind the discovery reported their find in a study published in the June edition of the journal Near Eastern Archaeology.
The find of swine adds to previous research showing that pork was occasionally on the menu for the ancient Israelites and that biblical taboos on this and other prohibited foods only came to be observed centuries later, in the Second Temple period. It also ties into broader questions about when the Bible was written and when Judaism as we know it was born.
This little piggy wasn’t bacon
The animal’s skull clearly identifies it as a domestic pig, as opposed to a wild swine, and its presence indicates that pigs were raised for food in the capital of the ancient Kingdom of Judah, says Lidar Sapir-Hen, an archaeozoologist at Tel Aviv University and at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History.
The fact that the skeleton was found intact suggests that this specific piglet, less than seven months old, was not eaten, but died accidentally when the building was destroyed at some point in the eighth-century B.C.E, Sapir-Hen and colleagues report.
First Temple period structures near the Gihon Spring in Jerusalem’s City of David, where the pig skeleton was found along with the “butchered” remains of many other types of animals.
But there can be little doubt of what the piglet’s ultimate fate would have been having its home not collapsed for as yet unclear reasons. In addition to large storage jars and smaller cooking vessels, the room where the pig was unearthed also hosted dozens of animal bones from sheep, goats, cattle, gazelles, as well as fish and birds, the archaeologists report.
Most of these remains were burnt or showed signs of butchery, meaning the animals had long been dead and eaten when the building was destroyed, Sapir-Hen says.
This suggests that this room was where meals were prepared or eaten,” she says. “So this pig was just waiting for its turn.”
We don’t know the cause of the building’s collapse, as there is no known major destruction event in Jerusalem in the eighth century B.C.E., says Joe Uziel, the Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist who led the dig. It may have been destroyed by an earthquake or a more localized event, he speculates.
In any case, the structure was rebuilt and continued to be in use until around 586 B.C.E., when the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the First Temple, Uziel says. The building had at least four rooms and was located in a fairly central area near the Gihon spring, the main source of water for the city at the time. Constructed with rough fieldstones, it was probably a private home, although the fact that bullae, or seal impressions, were unearthed in another room suggests it may have also had an additional, administrative function, Uziel says.
An archaeologist retrieves the skull of a piglet from a First Temple period building in Jerusalem’s City of David at the site where the “articulated” pig skeleton was also found.
The excavation also yielded an elegantly carved bone pendant and a human figurine. Together with the great variety of animals found alongside the pig, all of this indicates the house was occupied by an upper-class family, the archaeologist says.
The importance and central location of the house suggest that pig husbandry and pork consumption may have been a rare treat, but still very much part of “mainstream” food habits, he says. In other words, it doesn’t look like this was something done secretively by, say, a poorer household that may have been desperately in need of a quick meal.
At this point, we have to wonder how to square the idea that pigs were infrequently but openly raised in Jerusalem with the biblical injunction that: “The swine, though he divides the hoof, and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you. Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.” (Leviticus 11:7-8
It’s the Levantine economy, stupid
While domesticated pig bones are rarely found in Jerusalem and in most of the Levant, they are not entirely absent, Sapir-Hen notes. In excavations from the First Temple period in Jerusalem and in other sites from the Kingdom of Judah, swine bones constitute up to 2 per cent of the animal remains unearthed, she says.
Already back in the 1990s, archaeologists also observed that pig bones were much more frequent in the coastal strip that was inhabited by the Philistines. Scholars thus concluded that a dearth of pig bones identified a site as Israelite and that the biblical ban on partaking in pork was already known and observed in the First Temple period.
But more recent research by Sapir-Hen and others has shown that the picture is much more complex. For one thing, the near absence of pig bones is not unique to Israelite sites of the Iron Age, the period that roughly corresponds to the First Temple era. Swine is equally scarce in most of Canaan during the preceding era, the Late Bronze Age, a time before the writing of the Bible or the formation of ancient Israel.
This dearth then continues in the Iron Age, not only in Judah but in many of its neighbours, including sites linked to the Canaanites, Phoenicians and Arameans, Sapir-Hen notes. Even when it comes to the supposedly pork-loving Philistines, the situation is actually more nuanced.
While the diet of Philistine city-dwellers did include a larger proportion of pigs, which were seemingly imported from Greece, swine bones are almost absent from their rural settlements, in keeping with the dietary habits of the rest of the Levant. Equally puzzling is the fact that in the Kingdom of Israel, Judah’s northern neighbour, a pig is rare in the early Iron Age, but it increases to up to 8 per cent of the animal mix at urban sites in the eighth century B.C.E.
All of this indicates that the tendency to eschew pork in the Iron Age cannot be linked to a specific ethnic identity or to the biblical prohibition, Sapir-Hen concludes. Pigs were only a small part of the Levantine diet most probably because other animals, especially goats, sheep and cattle, were more suited to the local environment and economy.
Pigs can be raised in an urban environment, as they require less space, but they also need a nearby water source: it is perhaps not a coincidence that the Jerusalem piglet was found near the city’s spring. This may explain why, throughout the Levant, swine occurrences only tend to rise at times and in places where populations increase and are concentrated in larger urban settlements, whether in Philistia, in the Kingdom of Israel or, to a lesser extent, in the more built-up sections of Judah’s capital, Jerusalem.
Gods, figurines and shrimp
Figurine and bone pendant found in the building where the piglet’s remains were found
This also gels with a growing body of research on the Israelite religion in the First Temple period. While scholars believe that parts of the Bible were already compiled at the tail end of this era, it is generally agreed that the holy text we know today only reached its final form after the Babylonian exile, in the Second Temple period.
Whenever the Bible was actually written, archaeological finds have shown that, in practice, First Temple-period Judaism was very different from the religion it would later become. While the ancient Israelites believed in Yahweh, the God of the Bible, they also worshipped other deities, including Asherah, who was thought to be God’s wife. They liberally made figurines and other graven images, ostensibly banned by the Second Commandment.
Additionally, a study published just last month in the Tel Aviv journal of archaeology looked at the finding, at archaeological sites throughout Israel, of bones from scaleless and finless fish, which are also prohibited by the Bible’s dietary rules. The research showed that catfish, sharks and other non-kosher fish were commonly consumed in Jerusalem and Judah during the First Temple period, and only for the late Second Temple period is there clear evidence that Jews were eschewing such banned seafood.
In other words, biblical prohibitions that are considered signposts of the Jewish faith today were unknown, unheeded or non-existent back in the First Temple period. And it seems that, from time to time, the ancient Israelites were not averse to literally bringing home the bacon.
Smashed pottery vessels in the room where the pig was found
