Abstract
Here we report the unprecedented discovery of the skeleton of a ritually interred donkey with a metal horse bit in association with its teeth and saddlebag fastenings on its back. This discovery in the Middle Bronze Age III sacred precinct (1700/1650-1550 BCE) at Tel Haror, Israel, presents a unique combination of evidence for the early employment of equid harnessing equipment, both for chariot bridling (horse bit) and pack animals (saddlebags). The ritually deposited donkey with its unique accoutrements advances our understanding of the broad social and religious significance of equids in the Levantine Bronze Age, previously known mainly from textual and iconographical sources.
Highlights
Ritual burial of equids is an intriguing aspect of the ritual life of third and second millennium BCE societies in Eurasia and North Africa
Archaeological contexts in which equid remains are known during the Levantine Middle Bronze Age (MBA) include equid burials in ritual and mortuary settings, which point strongly at their symbolic and religious significance among MBA societies
Numerous examples of donkey burials are associated with warriors or, presumably, high-ranking individuals in MBA tombs from the southern Levant (Tell el-Ajjul, Lachish, Akko, Jericho [6,7]) and the eastern Nile Delta (Tell el-Dab’a, Tell el-Maskhuta, Inshas [8,9])
Summary
Well-known examples in the Levant and Egypt include donkey burials from Early Dynastic Egypt (e.g., Abydos, Tarkhan, Abusir, and Helwan; cf [1]) and in Early Bronze Age Syria and Iraq (e.g., Tell Halawa, Tell Brak, Umm el-Mara, Abu Salabikh, Kish and Ur; e.g., [2,3,4]) These interments have been variously interpreted, as reflections of the funerary ideology of the elite, ancestor cults, and temple sacrifice. We report the discovery of an articulated skeleton of a young donkey (Equus asinus) from MBA Tel Haror in the western Negev, Israel This donkey was ritually deposited inside a specially constructed installation in the city’s sacred precinct, near a diagnostic Syrian-type temple [16]. The Tel Haror interment represents the only known example of a donkey within a ritual context that was symbolically harnessed with a horse bit and bearing saddlebags, and, sheds important light on both the functional and symbolic role of equids in the Ancient Near East
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