“If the Right Astragalus is Punctured…”: Identifying Function and Symbolic Behaviors in an Astragalus Hoard at Tel Abel Beth Maacah

During the 2018 season at Tel Abel Beth Maacah, a hoard of 406 astragali were found in an Iron Age IIA
context (10th–9th centuries BCE), stashed away in a small amphora which stood upon a podium in a
public venue. This paper will present the zooarchaeological analysis of the astragali, shedding light on the
variety of species, sex, side-preference and age of the animals from which the bones were derived, and
further demonstrating the rich evidence for the use and frequent modification of the bones prior to their
final deposition in the hoard. This analysis will provide the basis for a discussion of the hoard’s formation
process and its function, shedding light on why this bone in particular bore such special status and
meaning that crossed cultural and temporal boundaries. As the appearance of worked and
unworked astragali is well attested at sites around the world throughout the millennia, this paper will
utilize ethnographic literature, archaeological data and ancient Near Eastern and classical documentary
sources in order to finetune our interpretation of the hoard’s underlying function. To this end, the findings
of this study suggest that while the individual astragali had many different functions, once deposited
together they took on a new meaning, possibly related to divinatory practices.