The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry.
Ezekiel 37:1-2
Last time I wrote about digging up pottery. That isn’t the only thing we found during the dig. I frequently found bones, too. Why are bones useful to find? Let me give you a few examples!
Bones show what the populace ate. Cut marks on bones show how they were killed and with what. The mix of male and female sheep or goats can say if a site is more pastoral (more females for reproduction) or urban (more males taken from the flock for food). Different people groups eat different foods, so the bones of different animals can say something about who’s there and show shifts in culture.
The interesting thing specifically about Tel Dan is the bone distribution at the sacred area. The areas for the priests had a higher percentage of animal bones corresponding to the parts of the animal that were for the priest (e.g. Leviticus 7:32). This indicates that they were doing what Leviticus specified despite not being at the Temple in Jerusalem.
Dead, dry bones can really bring a site to life!
