Archaeologists have discovered the first evidence that Jews living in England in the 12th and 13th centuries observed Jewish dietary laws, The Jewish Chronicle reported last week.
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The findings revealed were from a 2016 project on the site of demolished shops that overlapped Oxford's old Jewish quarter. A team of archeologists was digging at a centuries-old outhouse and an area where waste materials were dumped when they made the discovery.
Julie Dunne, a biomolecular archaeologist at Bristol University who worked on the project, said that 171 animal bones were found at the site – 136 of which were from poultry, and that there were no bones from non-kosher animal such as pork or shellfish.
More than 2,000 fragments of ceramic cooking vessels were also discovered. Using organic residue analysis, archeologists identified the kinds of fats that were absorbed into the pottery and sealed in it through constant use. There were no traces of non-kosher fats in the pottery, and no evidence of the same vessels being used for both meat and dairy, the Chronicle reported.
According to Dunne, this is also "the first time a religious dietary signature has been identified using pottery fragments."
The opportunity to search the excavation site almost did not come to pass because commercial developers had been on the cusp of planning permission to build over the area, the newspaper said. Only after historians Pam Manix and Evie Kemp, members of the Oxford Jewish Heritage Committee, intervened was development paused for four months to allow archaeologists to excavate.
Reprinted with permission from JNS.org
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