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Pigs in a pit: An unusual find of ritual suid exploitation in an Early Islamic context at the site of Tel Yavne, Israel
Abstract
A shallow, human dug pit dated to the Early Islamic period (Area C3, 9th-10th century CE) and containing solely pig remains (Sus scrofa/S. s. domesticus) was discovered in an ongoing large scale excavation in Tel Yavne, Israel. Evidence of the intentional disposal or interment of the pig remains in the pit raises questions regarding the reasons for this peculiar occurrence at a time that the southern Levant was subject to the rule of Islamic law and dietary prohibitions. While it is known that non-Muslim communities continued to flourish in the region during the Early Islamic period (Fischer and Taxel 2007, and see the historical references therein), direct evidence of pig exploitation at this time has not been extensively documented. Our results indicate that at least seven suids, most of them domesticated and a few of feral/wild individuals, were slaughtered and rapidly deposited together inside the pit, in a one-time event. A comparison of the remains from the pit with other suid remains from the site, dated to the late Byzantine-Early Islamic period (7th-10th century CE), shows the pit to be a strikingly dense concentration of pig remains and reveals a unique techonomic pattern of the dominance of maxilla over mandibles. Pig husbandry at the site was generally based on culling of young animals (piglets), a pattern typical of dense urban sites, while many of the animals in the pit displayed abnormal molar tooth wear, suggesting consumption of abrasive food and teeth defects indicating stressful captivity conditions. We refer to archaeological and historical data in an attempt to reconstruct a scenario explaining the suid pit.
... Interestingly, a preliminary synthesis of the faunal remains from these excavations indicates an unusual concentration of pig bones in one of the excavation areas (C3), in a context dated to the ninth-tenth centuries CE. These finds were interpreted as evidence for the occupation of this specific area by non-Muslims, either Christians or converts to Islam of Christian origin, who still consumed pork (Perry-Gal et al. 2022). ...
Recent excavations at Yavne show the scale of the wine industry at the site, indicating the central place of its wineries in the viticulture, processing and trade of wines from Ashqelon and Gaza during the Byzantine period. The paper analyses the textual and archaeological evidence for the production and popularity of these wines and gives emphasis to the discovery of a huge wine estate that includes multiple winepresses, warehouses and pottery kilns. These finds are contrasted with similar sites along the southern coastal plain of Late Antique Palestine. The specific wineries and pottery kilns associated with this industry are presented, showing unifying and differentiating characteristics, and the connection between the wineries and adjacent kilns in which ubiquitous Gazan amphorae were manufactured. These traits point towards the creation of a regional terroir (wine growing region) and a branded product from the 5th to 7th centuries CE. Finally, an attempt is made to address the production capacity of this wine industry, as expressed through evaluation of the winepresses at Yavne.
... Interestingly, a preliminary synthesis of the faunal remains from these excavations indicates an unusual concentration of pig bones in one of the excavation areas (C3), in a context dated to the ninth-tenth centuries CE. These finds were interpreted as evidence for the occupation of this specific area by non-Muslims, either Christians or converts to Islam of Christian origin, who still consumed pork (Perry-Gal et al. 2022). ...
... Interestingly, a preliminary synthesis of the faunal remains from these excavations indicates an unusual concentration of pig bones in one of the excavation areas (C3), in a context dated to the ninth-tenth centuries CE. These finds were interpreted as evidence for the occupation of this specific area by non-Muslims, either Christians or converts to Islam of Christian origin, who still consumed pork (Perry-Gal et al. 2022). ...
The continuing intensive excavations of the surroundings of Tel Yavne conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority since 2019 have produced evidence of dense settlement from the Chalcolithic period until today, offering the opportunity for multi-disciplinary research on an array of topics. This book is a preliminary study, commencing with an overview of the excavations, and followed by studies concentrating on physical, historical and archaeological aspects. Central to the excavation of all periods, where the excavation of remains of the ceramic, wine and glass industries, evidence of the burial areas of Yavne and of domestic and industrial waste. Studies concentrating of these aspects appear in the chapters of the book, with special emphasis on the wine industry expressed through the magnificent winepresses excavated at the site which produced prestige wines during late-Antiquity. Beyond the large wine estate, remains of huge dedicated kilns producing wine jars were exposed, forming the backbone of the economy of Yavne from the Persian through to the early-Islamic periods.
Faunal remains recovered during excavations beneath Wilson’s Arch in Jerusalem reveal the dietary and ritual uses of animals in the Late Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina. This colony was erected on the ruins of Jerusalem following the First Jewish War and occupied by the Legio X Fretensis. We show that over the course of the third and fourth centuries CE, pigs turn into a dominant source of food at the site, an assessment supported by excavations elsewhere in Late Roman Jerusalem. Significant variations of the domestic pigs from Jerusalem indicate that the animals may have been provisioned from multiple rural sites of primary production, and possibly represent different local breeds. More surprisingly, the pig remains from Wilson’s Arch are dominated by prime-aged (12–24 months) male jaws from two stratified deposits. The focus on mature males, particularly in Stratum V, is atypical of pig husbandry systems in general, and in Roman-period contexts in particular. Due to the rapidity with which the bones were deposited and the unusual demographic, alongside the disproportionate representation of mandibles, we interpret the remains as the end-product of rituals involving pigs. We suggest that the significance of pigs as an anti-Jewish cultural element provided soldiers and colonists a means of asserting their identity within an imperial context.
Zooarchaeological research has begun to expose the long and complex history of the pig in the southern Levant. In this paper, we present the first large-scale synthesis of biometrical data from pigs and wild boar in the southern Levant from sites dating from the Paleolithic through the Islamic period. We show broad morphological change over this multi-millennium period. We find the first evidence of morphological change associated with domes-tication in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic C (c. 7000-6400 cal. BC), at the site of Motza. This date is contemporaneous with the first evidence from kill-off patterns and relative abundance data indicating management of morphologically wild boar. Taken together, we argue for a process of local pig domestication. We also present tentative evidence for increased body size correlating with the genetic replacement in the Iron Age, when European-derived mitochondrial haplogroups replaced those of local origin. Finally, the data indicate variability in tooth size in the Roman period (c. 63 BCE-330 CE), suggesting the exploitation of different populations of pigs. The data suggest sophisticated management techniques underwrote the upsurge in pig husbandry in the Levant in the Classical period.
This article presents the results of the zooarchaeological analysis of an assemblage dating to the second quarter of the 16th century that was discovered on the current university campus of Cartuja, on the outskirts of Granada (Andalusia, Spain). During the Middle Ages, this area was largely used for agricultural purposes, including as estates owned by high officials of the Nasrid dynasty, the last Islamicate polity in the Iberian Peninsula. The Castilian conquest of Granada in 1492 brought significant changes to the area, with the construction of a Carthusian monastery and the transformation of the surrounding landscape, including changes in property structures, different agrarian regimes and the demolition of pre-existing structures. Among these transformations was the filling up of a well with construction materials, and its further use as a rubbish dump. This fill yielded an interesting and unique zooarchaeological assemblage, the study of which is presented here. The results advance our understanding of changing patterns in animal consumption during the formative transition from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern period at the heart of the former Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and indicate the continuity of some Andalusi consumption patterns along with specialised production and distribution systems of meat products that have no archaeological precedent in the region, suggesting that the bones were dumped by a possible ‘Morisco’ community (autochthonous Muslims forced to convert to Christianity in 1502).
Excavations at three urban sites, Harlaa, Harar, and Ganda
Harla, in eastern Ethiopia have recovered substantial assemblages
of faunal remains. These, the ±²rst to be analysed from
Islamic contexts in the country, were studied to reconstruct
animal economies, and to assess if it was possible to identify
Islamic conversion or the presence of Muslims in archaeological
contexts through examining butchery practices and diet via
the species present. Diµferences in animal economies between
the sites in, for example, management strategies, use of animals
for traction, and presence of imported marine ±²sh, infers the development
of diµferent traditions. However, conversion to Islam
was evident, and although issues of non-observance, mixed
communities, and dietary eclecticism have to be acknowledged,
the appearance of a similar range of butchery techniques suggests
these were linked with the appearance of Muslim traders,
and subsequent spread of Islam.
The Byzantine – Islamic transition (7th–8th centuries CE) in the desert-edge Palaestina Tertia is examined using faunal remains recovered from archaeological sites in the Negev. Archaeozoological analyses suggest sharp differences between Late Byzantine and Early Islamic animal economies, especially in herding patterns and the exploitation of wildlife resources. These differences are suggested to reflect both cultural and land ownership changes following the Arab conquest, against the backdrop of climatic change. The archaeozoological record thereby provides independent evidence to the rise and fall of societal complexity in this marginal region.
Significance
Historians have long debated the role of climate in the rise and fall of empires of the 1st millennium CE. Drastic territorial contraction of the Byzantine Empire, societal decline, and beginning of the European Middle Ages have generally been linked to the Islamic conquests of the seventh century. This multidisciplinary archaeological investigation of trash mounds in the Negev Desert establishes the end date of organized trash management in the Byzantine-period city of Elusa and demonstrates urban collapse a century before the Islamic transition. Our findings, taken together with other evidence for Byzantine urban dysfunction, the Justinianic Plague, and recent research on the Late Antique Little Ice Age, flesh out the impact of the sixth century on broad historical trajectories.
This paper investigates the culture of pork consumption in Sicily by examining a number of archaeological faunal assemblages dated to chronological phases spanning from the Byzantine to the Norman/Aragonese period (7th-14th c. AD). Zooarchaeological analyses reveal substantial diachronic changes in the use of the main domesticates, particularly concerning pig frequencies. In the Islamic period (9th-11th c. AD), pig is poorly represented at urban sites; this is likely to reflect a socio-cultural acceptance of the Islamic religious precepts forbidding pork consumption. By contrast, and in continuity with the Roman and Byzantine periods, pigs are well-represented in rural settlements, thus indicating a more resilient attitude of these communities toward newly imported religious traditions. In the later Norman/Aragonese period, the frequency of pig increases at some urban sites, reflecting the fact that that pork prohibition had been lifted and that new food production and consumption practices were developed. Pig continues, however, to be almost absent at a number of urban sites and castles/fortified villages; this may suggest the persistence of Islamised communities in Sicily after the end of Islamic rule.
Recent archaeological excavations in the Negev desert in the southern Levant have yielded a variety of mollusk shells originating from the Mediterranean Sea, the Nile River, and the Red Sea, uncovered in the trash mounds and settlements of Byzantine and Early Islamic sites. These remains indicate that aquatic products were among the merchandised comestibles transported across long distances. Three shellfish taxa manifest such transportation: (1) the small clam, Donax trunculus, commonly found in the exposed sandy wash zones of the Eastern Mediterranean coast; (2) the large freshwater mussel, Chambardia rubens, whose habitat stretches from the Nile River to western Africa; and (3) the large conch, Lambis truncata, commonly found in the shallow waters of the Red Sea. The breakage and abrasion patterns of the shell fragments of these three species suggest that they were collected as live specimens and not as empty shells washed ashore. The other taxa, however, were mostly collected as empty shells to be used, for example, as ornaments.
The contents of a small trash pit discovered in the recent excavations in Hellenistic Philoteria (Tel Bet Yeraḥ/Khirbet el-Kerak) offer a unique opportunity to study the components of what appears to have been a single festive meal. Extant remains include numerous mammal bones, mollusc shells, and ceramic tableware; they suggest a rustic Mediterranean cuisine, compatible with the presence of Greek settlers in pre-Hasmonean Galilee.