Archaeologists Uncover Biblical-Era Latrine, Find Major Discovery That Could Make the History Books
Recent archaeological excavations in Jerusalem unearthed two latrines dating to the 7th and 6th centuries B.C.
A team of researchers then examined the remains of human feces in the two latrines and found evidence of Giardia duodenalis, a parasite that can cause dysentery.
According to an article published in the journal Parasitology, the discovery has important implications.
“This provides our first microbiological evidence for infective diarrhoeal illnesses that would have affected the populations of the ancient near east,” the researchers wrote.
Combined with existing evidence, this new knowledge presents a fuller picture of life in the ancient world.
“When we integrate descriptions from 2nd and 1st millennium BCE Mesopotamian medical texts, it seems likely that outbreaks of dysentery due to giardiasis may have caused ill health throughout early towns across the region,” the researchers added.
Giardia duodenalis remains a cause of diarrheal infections in the present day.
The people of ancient Jerusalem, of course, had no knowledge of such parasites.
They did, however, have extensive and first-hand knowledge of suffering.
According to The Jerusalem Post, an English news website and newspaper, archaeologists uncovered one of the two latrines in a building called the House of Ahiel.
Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II sacked Jerusalem in 586 B.C. The House of Ahiel did not survive the attack.
Nebuchadnezzar’s conquest of Jerusalem led to a decades-long period in Jewish history known as “the Babylonian captivity.”
In 539 B.C., Cyrus the Great, King of Persia, conquered Babylon and then repatriated the exiled Jews.
The Book of Ezra described the events of this early post-exilic period, beginning with the Decree of Cyrus in 538 B.C., the return of the Jews to their homeland, and the reconstruction of Jerusalem.
The people who used those latrines experienced some or all of these events.
Modern researchers, therefore, have done more than discover traces of a parasitic microorganism in ancient feces.
They have revealed something new about an aspect of life for the people of the Old Testament.
At the confluence of science, history, and revealed religion, one never knows what insights may abound.
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