Pig skeleton in a Jerusalem home during First Temple
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. Obviously, not everybody obeys the scriptures, like today. The 2,700-year-old porcine remains were found crushed by large pottery vessels and a collapsed wall during excavations in the 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 may only came to be observed centuries later, in the Second Temple period or were ignored. 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