The city of Jerusalem has a long history of political, religious, economic and social transformations. Over the last 3000 years, it was besieged, captured, destroyed and rebuilt several times, its population shrank and grew cyclically, and the shifting demographic called for a re-organization of the urban landscape. During the 3rd– 4thcenturies CE, the city witnessed a transition from a Roman pagan military outpost to a Christian civic settlement. This transition saw a marked rise in urban activity and an expansion of the city’s population. But how did this affect the ancient food webs that Jerusalem was intertwined in?
In this project, we will study the faunal material recently excavated under Wilson’s Arch just outside the Temple Mount area in the Old City of Jerusalem. These excavations, carried out by the Israeli Antiquities Authority, have uncovered the remains of an unfinished amphitheater. The faunal assemblage yielded a large number of teeth that hold clues to where the animals originated before they came to Jerusalem to be slaughtered for lavish Roman feasts. We will use a combination of isotopic indicators to trace where the animals were born and raised, and use this information to detect any patterns in exchange networks between the city and its hinterlands. Were the domestic animals reared in particular ‘hot spots’ in the surrounding Judean hills or the farther Mediterranean coastal zone? Did the patterns in animal trade change through time during this transformative period in Jerusalem’s history?
Fig.1 Location of the new excavations under Wilson’s Arch carried out by the Israeli Antiquities Authority
The southern Levant has been studied extensively by geologists, climatologists, botanists, and archaeologists. Thanks to this large body of research, we know a lot about the environmental backdrop in which Jerusalem developed and transformed. Israel and the Palestinian Authority don’t cover a large area, but the region has an incredibly varied topography, with altitudes reaching from below sea level in the region of the Dead Sea, to over 1,800 m (5,900 ft) on the peak of Mt Hermon in the Golan Heights. Because of this altitudinal variability, the chemical composition of rain that falls in at varying altitudes is distinct. Due to the ‘rain out’ effect, oxygen isotope values of rainfall close to the coast are higher compared to the values of rainfall in the mountains. Animals that drink this water incorporate these isotopic signatures into their tissues, which can be analyzed to reconstruct their residential mobility. Similarly, sulfur is an essential nutrient in plant growth exhibits distinct values depending on how far from the coast the plant grows, so animals grazing in different parts of the region will exhibit distinct sulfur isotopic values. Together, these signatures will allow us to trace the early lives of the animals that ended up on the dinner table in Late Roman Jerusalem. Were they reared on different farms? Did some of them travel farther to get to the Jerusalem markets? What does this tell us about the interaction of the people living in the city with those living in the countryside?
unfinished Late Roman amphitheater (photo credit: Assaf Peretz)
This project is a collaboration with Joe Uziel, Tehillah Lieberman and Lee Perry Gal from the Israeli Antiquities Authority and with Gideon Hartman from the University of Connecticut. I will be talking about the preliminary results of this study at a session called “Yerushalayim, Jerusalem, Al-Quds” at the American Schools of Oriental Research meeting in San Diego in November, 2019. So come see the talk to find out about some of the first results!
See the following press releases for more information about the excavations:
The Jerusalem Post:
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Jerusalems-lost-theater-and-8-ancient-stone-courses-discovered-under-Western-Wall-507544
Times of Israel:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/massive-section-of-western-wall-and-roman-theater-uncovered-after-1700-years/