The teeth themselves are 80 million years old. They belonged to fish that lived in the era of the dinosaurs.
Scientists noted that shark teeth were stored 80 kilometers from the nearest sea shore. Apparently, they were once brought to Jerusalem as a souvenir.
The teeth were found in the basement of an old house, along with fish bones and pottery shards. Among the waste, hundreds of bulls have been preserved: items for sealing confidential letters and parcels. They could have belonged to a person from administrative circles or the ruling class.
“At first we assumed that the shark’s teeth were the remnants of food discarded almost 3,000 years ago,” archaeologists noted.
But experts pointed out that one tooth belonged to the late Cretaceous shark Squalicorax, which became extinct at least 66 million years ago. Scientists carried out a more detailed analysis, including the measurement of strontium isotopes, and established the real age of the remains.
After the first finds, the team found other shark tooth fossils elsewhere in Israel, at the sites of Maresh and Mikneh. There are no traces of processing on them, indicating that they made souvenirs or jewelry from the teeth. According to scientists, in that era in Israel it could be customary to collect shark teeth. But it is not yet possible to prove this theory.
