A treasure from the time of King Solomon was found in the biblical City of David

On the territory of one of the oldest districts of Jerusalem – the City of David – an unusual treasure from the time of King Solomon was found. It contained the fossilized teeth of sharks from the time of the dinosaurs, which were probably collected by the inhabitants of ancient Israel. Scientists spoke about this find at the Goldschmidt 2021 conference.

“We assume that these teeth were collected by ancient gatherers of curiosities, but so far we cannot confirm this unambiguously. These teeth were clearly not used as tools or jewelry, and connoisseurs of antiquities often buy fossilized shark teeth even today. Israel began collecting them back in the Iron Age, “- said one of the authors of the study, professor at the University of Mainz (Germany) Thomas Tyutken.

Archaeologists have been excavating in the City of David, the oldest inhabited area of ​​Jerusalem. In biblical times, it housed the palace of King David, as well as the capital of the kingdom he founded. Subsequently, it turned into a district of Jerusalem and was rebuilt several times, due to which the original appearance of the capital of the first unified Israeli state was irretrievably lost.

At the beginning of the XXI century, large-scale excavations began on the territory of the City of David, during which scientists found the alleged walls of the city and buildings from the time of King Solomon, the heir of David. Among them was a rectangular structure 15 meters long and 10 meters wide, which was carved into the rock next to the stream, which served as the main source of water for the city.

Archaeologists speculate that this structure, which was called the “stone basin”, originally served as a cistern in which water was stored in case of a siege. Subsequently, a large residential building was built on top of it. Excavating its foundation, scientists have found many bones and teeth of fish and other representatives of the marine and river fauna.

“At first we thought that shark teeth were just food waste thrown away by the inhabitants of the city almost three thousand years ago. When we sent our article for publication, one of the reviewers noticed that our find was similar to the teeth of ancient sharks, which became extinct more than 66 million years ago. Therefore, we re-examined the teeth and measured their age, “explained Tyutken.

Geochemists have studied in detail the chemical and isotopic composition of the find. Their age is about 80 million years, which makes the teeth “the same age” as dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period. At the same time, the shares of strontium isotopes in tooth enamel indicate that these fossils were not found in the vicinity of Jerusalem, but 80-90 kilometers south of the city, in the Negev desert, where rocks of the end of the Mesozoic era lie.

In addition, archaeologists have discovered many seals and other valuable artifacts about 2.9-3 thousand years old next to the teeth. This indicates that this entire collection was part of the same treasure from the time of King Solomon, which accidentally or deliberately ended up in the foundation of the building along with fish bones and other debris.

Over the past few years, archaeologists have found fossilized shark teeth in two other ancient Israeli settlements, Maresh and Mikna, Tyutken said. This may indicate that such artifacts were a popular collectible or played some other role, which would be extremely problematic to reveal without finding mentions of such artifacts in written sources, the researchers concluded.

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