Food in a colonial setting: the flora assemblage of a short-lived Seleucid-founded site in the Near East

Abstract

In this paper we present the analysis of archaeobotanical material retrieved by means of flotation from well-secured features during recent excavation work carried out in 2019 and 2020 by the German-Israeli Tell Iẓṭabba Excavation Project in the Seleucid-founded town of Nysa-Scythopolis. Founded under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 bce) and destroyed by the Hasmonaeans in the later years of John Hyrcanus (in 108/07 bce), the site offers a unique opportunity for observing the dietary habits of its settlers. The large sample size, namely the largest well-secured Seleucid assemblage ever analyzed in the southern Levant, together with its versatile provenance exhibit previously unknown information for the Hellenistic southern Levant vis-à-vis a unique case-study of high resolution systematic archaeobotanical analysis. The botanical assemblage from Tell Iẓṭabba gives a clearer picture of botanical dietary practices in Hellenistic Palestine. By presenting the archaeobotanical data of the published Hellenistic assemblages from the southern Levant, we offer a comprehensive overview of the agrarian resources cultivated and consumed as food at the time and period.

For everything there is a season: more than a year of destruction at Seleucid Tell Iẓṭabba (Israel)

“…seeds, fruits and pollen) has been posited for several ancient sites in the Southern Levant (Kislev 1992;Langgut et al 2016;Dunseth et al 2019). At Tell Iẓ ṭ abba, only 18 of the 63 wild plant taxa present could be identified to species level (see supplementary file 1 in Orendi et al 2021). Up to 80 per cent of the local flora in ancient Israel fruited during spring and summer (March to July; Zohary 1962: 27), as illustrated in the dataset from Tell Iẓ ṭ abba.…”

“…Chenopodium murale). It is important to note, however, that the plant remains from the site do not come from a single event, but rather, represent waste disposal, storage remnants and random finds from many years and seasons of occupation that have accumulated within certain contexts (Orendi et al 2021).…”

“…At Tell Iẓṭabba, only 18 of the 63 wild plant taxa present could be identified to species level (see supplementary file 1 in Orendi et al . 2021). Up to 80 per cent of the local flora in ancient Israel fruited during spring and summer (March to July; Zohary 1962: 27), as illustrated in the dataset from Tell Iẓṭabba.…”