Ancient Food Remains Discovered at Biblical Shiloh

Archaeologists have recently uncovered ancient food remains at the site believed to be biblical Shiloh. This location is where, according to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was housed for many centuries. The discovery was made at Tel Shiloh, an archaeological site in the West Bank, identified as the historic Shiloh where the Ark was held before its capture by the Philistines.

The excavation team found the remains beneath a ritual deposit from the Israelite period, adjacent to an ancient Canaanite fortification wall. Among the finds, two jars contained olives and a third held lentils, according to archaeobotanical analysis. Notably, one vessel included around 500 burned olive pits.

The olives in the jar were likely preserved in oil before they were burned thousands of years ago, said Scott Stripling, the excavation director and president of the Near East Archaeological Society. Stripling, based in Texas, mentioned that a fire, possibly accidental, preserved the olives for thousands of years. As he stated, Once it started on fire, then it caught that whole area on fire. That’s what it appears to me. But next year we’ll have to excavate a broader area to better understand exactly what it was.

Before reaching the jars, archaeologists excavated an Israelite-period ritual deposit containing roughly 10,000 animal bones, pottery vessels, and eight gold and silver objects, including pendants and earrings. Stripling explained that the deposit was not an ordinary garbage pit but a ‘favissa,’ a place where sacrificial offerings were deliberately buried instead of discarded with everyday waste.

Stripling noted, We went through about two meters [6.6 feet] of heavy sort of tumble, and then we came down on these storage jars. At the top, we could see the rims. So we were very careful not to remove any pieces of it, and to keep going down deeper and wider so that we could leave them intact. Eventually, the team made such progress that they required ladders to enter and exit the excavation trench.

The scale of the olive pits was surprising, though the types of food were staples of the Mediterranean diet, Stripling described. He indicated that the Israelites who later occupied Shiloh likely had no awareness of the much older Canaanite storage jars buried beneath the ritual deposit they established.

Stripling anticipated the olive pits would be ideal for radiocarbon dating. I will be shocked if the radiocarbon dates do not come back as Middle Bronze Age, he said. The jars are currently being restored at Tel Aviv University, where researchers hope to gather more information about the artifacts.

The excavation team plans to continue their work next year to determine whether the jars were stored in a kitchen, storage room, or another part of the ancient settlement. Stripling concluded, These jars have been buried there waiting for us to find them.