Almost five,000 years ago, the “sacrificing butt,” with heads being amputated and legs tied together, was discovered under Israeli Bronze Age home. The donkey and the other three buried nearby may have been part of a ritual that involved sacrificing young women’s work animals from far away land.
The reason why these donkeys were “slayed in the prime minister of their lives” during the early Bronze Age of Canaan (2900-2550 BC), is unknown, but researchers believe that the animal’s unexpected Egyptian origins suggest that its owner.
“Sacrificing such important animals is an exaggerated, rich display of wealth, or an exaggerated display of status in society,” Elizabeth Arnold, an anthropologist and environmental archaeologist at Grand Valley State University in Michigan, told Live Science in an email. “Choosing donkeys only from Egypt may have highlighted this connection with our key trading partners.”
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Egypt was so strong at this point in the Old Kingdom period (2649-2150 BC) that “emphasis on this link would transfer more Prestige,” she added.
“Find more donkeys”
Archaeologists have found ancient donkey ruins over the years in ancient Gas (modern Ter Effy), a city of about 59 acres (24 hectares) in central Israel. Researchers were surprised to find a donkey that had been beheaded in 2010. Its head was “fully cut off and carefully placed on the abdomen facing in the opposite direction,” the team wrote in a new study published Wednesday (July 9th).
Many of the same researchers have tested isotopes or versions of different elements of the enamel in donkey teeth. This chemical analysis can shed light on where individuals grew up, based on the local food and water they consumed. The results published in PLOS One in 2016 found that donkeys grew up in Nile Valley.
Related: No one is expected to find out what we did: 4,000 years ago Canaanite arches in Israel could have been used by cults
But this was just one donkey. So Arnold urged the excavator to “find more donkeys” with ancient gas, and then we did! ” she said. The team finds three more casual donkeys buried beneath the Bronze Age home. Isotope analysis revealed that they were also from Egypt.
The front and rear legs of these newly discovered donkeys were either trussed or tied together. And although these donkeys were not beheaded, “the skulls of all four donkeys are heading east,” perhaps heading towards the rising sun, the author wrote in a new study.
“All the donkeys in Prime Age were sacrificed in this special way,” Arnold said. The female donkeys were particularly valuable “to make sacrifices to provide more donkeys,” she added.
To compare these four victims to Gas’ other ancient animals, the team conducted isotopic analysis of the bodies of donkeys, sheep and goats that were also found on the site but not sacrificed. These animals, except for one goat, were found local from ancient gases, the researchers reported. This goat had Egyptian origins, they discovered.
“I recommend that this animal come as a “hoofed meal” when the journey was made (without refrigeration to keep the meat fresh), but it was killed at Tell Efi and not eaten,” Arnold said. “This single goat had no special burial treatment.”
Other equal amounts were used in the ancient world, such as farm labor such as cultivation, threshing, and heavy load pulls, and the movement of goods and valuable trade items. The discovery of four victims shows that these animals “played an important role not only in economics and trade, but also in the status and ritual practices of the ancient Near East.”
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