| Animal bone archaeology commonly focuses on identifying patterns of animal exploitation, with a great deal of research devoted to determining an animal's economic importance to society. This study focused on the symbolic power associated with animals in ancient Near Eastern complex societies, and how to identify the remains of those animals utilized in sacred contexts. Over 18,000 animal bone fragments were studied from the ancient Iron Age Philistine site of Tel Migne-Ekron (Israel). Bones found within a temple are compared to other contemporaneous faunal assemblages of the site that are associated with different activities, including a storage area, an industrial zone, and an elite residence. The faunal assemblages from different activity areas demonstrate attributes that are specific to each activity area, which ultimately defines a larger pattern facilitating the recognition of sacred and secular animal use. Certain attributes of the faunal assemblage are strictly associated with temple function, thereby providing a signature by which sacrificial animal victims can be recognized in the archaeological record. The recognition of sacrifauna (a sacrificial faunal assemblage) is an important interpretive tool in understanding religion, cult, and ritual. These themes are central to the development of a newly proposed theory (component fields of the sacrificial system) that recognizes the inter-related nature of the different levels and directions of reliance practiced by each participant, while also underscoring the ritual and social dimensions of completeness and unity. That the sacred use of animals can be identified not only provides researchers with an alternative perspective from which to investigate cultic practices in the historic period of the ancient Near East, but the approach is not culturally, chronologically, or regionally specific. Given that certain conditions are met, similar studies could be applied to any number of ancient communities actively engaged in sacred rituals of animal slaughter. |
