Did someone collect prehistoric shark teeth in Jerusalems City of David?
A significant number of shark teeth dating back to tens of millions of years ago have been uncovered in an 8th century BCE structure in the archaeological site of the City of David in Jerusalem, and their presence is clouded in mystery. As explained in a study published in the academic journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, over 20 shark teeth were found in the so-called Rock Cut Pool, a structure hewn in the limestone near the Gihon spring that probably was originally part of the water system of the area, located south of the walls of the city. Later, the pool was filled with soil and stones in order to allow the construction of a house, whose floor sealed it. Excavating the structure, archaeologists found several tons of pottery and other artifacts, as well over 10,000 fish bones, including the shark teeth, which they proceeded to analyze. We found that the bones belonged to some 14 species of fish, some of them very interesting, offering proof that not only ancient inhabitants of Jerusalem ate a lot of fish, but that fish was brought in from as far away as Egypt said Haifa Universitys Prof. Omri Lernau, a top expert about ancient fish bones in Israel and one of the authors of the paper. cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });  if(window.location.pathname.indexOf("656089") != -1){console.log("hedva connatix");document.getElementsByClassName("divConnatix")[0].style.display ="none";}  We assumed that also the shark teeth were food residues like the rest of the fish bones, he added. It turned out they were not.  Sharks were known to be part of the diet of ancient inhabitants of Israel, including of ancient Judeans themselves, as it recently emerged. However, when the team of Israeli and international researchers, including some scholars from the University of Mainz Germany, conducted their analysis on the teeth, they were surprised to find out that there was no way that the sharks were fished and served on a table just 2,800 years ago, century more or century less: they belonged to species which lived in the Late Cretaceous between 100 and 67 million years ago. In other words, they lived on the planet at the same time of dinosaurs. Most likely, someone collected them, Lernau said. Shark teeth at the time were sometimes used as ornaments. However, why these teeth were found together with fish remains for consumption and other garbage is not clear. It is strange and we do not have an explanation, Lernau noted. Their origin also remains a mystery. Lernau explained that this kind of fossils are often trapped in ancient rocks that form around them, but such rocks are not found in Jerusalem, or at least not in the area of the City of David. Fossil shark teeth from the Late Cretaceous are abundant in the marine sediments of the Mount Scopus group in Israel and in the Menuha Formation of the Southern Negev, the researchers wrote in the paper. Likely, these questions will remain without an answer, but the shark teeth will continue to offer a tantalizing glimpse of daily life in ancient Jerusalem.