The discovery of a sacrificed puppy at Tel Miqne-Ekron, a major Philistine settlement in Israel's southern coastal plain, highlights the role of dogs in Iron I Philistia. Though dog sacrifice is described in Hittite religious texts and attested in lands bordering the Aegean during the second–first millennia BCE, evidence for this practice, or even of dog bones, is largely absent from Late Bronze and non-Philistine Iron I (ca. 1550–1000 BCE) Levantine contexts. What distinguishes the Tel Miqne-Ekron puppy interment from later Persian- and Hellenistic-period dog burials, is the placement of its severed head between its hind legs. Microscopic analyses of cut marks on several vertebrae indicate that the iron knife found nearby was likely used in its decapitation. This article examines the Tel Miqne-Ekron puppy burial within its eastern Mediterranean milieu and explores the ritual role of dogs and cynophagy (dog-eating) in second–first millennia society.
The international significance of Akko's heritage is best illustrated by the inscription of two UNESCO World Heritage sites in this town of just over 55,000 people. This article describes three projects that focus on the concept of a shared heritage at a World Heritage site in a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, diverse town situated in a region that continues to experience ongoing religious and ethnic conflict. The most recent, and still ongoing, effort to balance archaeology and community interests is the Tel Akko Total Archaeology Project. While attempting to incorporate community building through archaeology and dialog, the Total Archaeology approach described here aims for a socially just and inclusive archaeology that will benefit local community stakeholders rather than disenfranchise them. It also emphasizes the need for local perspectives and experiences to play an active role in the interpretation of the past.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.