Knowledge of the diet of people living in the prehistoric settlement of Çatalhöyük almost 8000 years ago has been completed in astonishing scope and detail by analyzing proteins from their ceramic bowls and jars. Using this new approach, an international team of researchers has determined that vessels from this early farming site in central Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, contained cereals, legumes, dairy products and meat, in some cases narrowing food items down to specific species
The site reveals a very sophisticated way of life. The trapezoid doorways are fascinating. The trapezoid shape appears to have been an important symbol among the peoples of this region. The pillars at Göbekli Tepe have a trapezoidal shape. Many of the pits at Blagotin in Serbia have a trapezoid shape also. In many houses at Catalhöyük the main room was decorated with plastered bull skulls (bucrania) set into the east or west walls. These reflect the religious sun symbolism of these archaic people and the same symbolism is found among the later Hittites of Anatolia also. The bull with the sun resting on its horns represented the overshadowing presence of the Creator, whose emblem was the Sun. Copper beads found in 8,500-year-old graves at Catalhöyük were made by hammering native metal found in nature.
@Alice_Linsley The evidence of both milk and meat in the same vessel shows they were not following any Kosher guidelines at this time period at this place. When and where did Kosher laws become prevalent?
Jewish dietary law (Kashrut) dates to the Neo-Babylonian Period (c.730-500 BC). The dietary restrictions outlined in Deuteronomy and Leviticus are the work of the Deuteronomist Historian, a Neo-Babylonian source. In the Book of Daniel we find three Jewish men insisting on eating differently than the Babylonians as a way to express their ethnic and religious identity. This is one of many ways Jews have to distinguish themselves from their non-Jewish neighbors. Archaeological excavations of Iron Age I sites in Israel have shown that pigs were entirely absent from the herd-based economy of the Israelites though they were a food source for all the other peoples of the region. According to Ronald Hendel, such culinary distinctions soon became codified markers of cultural identity, whereby “the Philistine treat became an Israelite taboo.”
When i do some comparative research, i find the origins of kosher rules to be more closely related to Zoroastrian taboos and fetishes… rather than the Neo-Babylonian period.
So rather than finding a kosher system already mature in 500 BCE with the Babylonians… I see a more recent and longer progression… from 550 BCE (the rise of Persia) all the way to 100 BCE (with the stagnating influence of Roman hegemony) … due to the diaspora of the religious Magi caste/guild attempting to make a living and to “make a difference” ever since losing their Persia-based monopoly on power!
The books of the Old Testament that contain the dietary laws - Leviticus and Deuteronomy - are largely the work of the Deuteronomist Historian, a Neo-Babylonian source dating to between 700-500 BC.
George, as I mentioned earlier in this thread, the Jews living in Babylon did not eat as the Babylonians did. This is evident in the book of Daniel which dates to the Neo-Babylonian Period. The Deuteronomist Historian was also Jewish, and the dietary laws which he details are those of the ancient Hebrew ancestors. The dietary laws found in Leviticus and Deuteronomy do not represent the beginning of a tradition, but had already undergone a long development.