85 5. Examing Feasting in Late Bronze Age Syro-Palestine Through Ancient Texts and Bones Justin Lev-Tov and Kevin McGeough Abstract: Recent excavations at the ancient city of Hazor in northern Israel have uncovered an impressive palace complex and temple, linked together by a courtyard. This courtyard contained a raised structure, presumably an altar. Excavations in the courtyard produced a large faunal assemblage, found near the altar. Contemporary Near Eastern texts enable us to identify the bones as the detritus from a special event. Particularly important is a collection of re- ligious texts excavated from the Syrian site of Emar. We argue that the faunal evidence from Hazor was produced during a religious feast; the Emar texts detail the occasions for, contents of, and participants in what may have been similar feasts. Completing this circle, the faunal remains suggest the existence of ritual activities that go beyond those described in the texts. Together, the textual and the archaeological evidence paint a picture of identities enforced and manipulated through public feasting. The role of foodways in creating and maintaining identities in the an- cient Near East has generated interest mainly among scholars struggling with the archaeological correlates of Israelite, Philistine, and Egyptian identity (Bloch- Smith 2003). The subject of food and identity has largely been limited to demon- strating the extent to which the Old Testament dietary laws of Leviticus can be validated archaeologically (cf. Finkelstein 1997; Hesse and Wapnish 1997). In the historical periods of the Near East then, archaeological remains of past meals are brought into identity discussions only when they can fuel arguments of the “pots and people” type (e.g., Dothan 1998). Therefore questions of diet and identity The Archaeology of Food and Identity, edited by Katheryn C. Twiss. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper No. 34. © 2007 by the Board of Trustees, Southern Illinois University. All rights reserved. ISBN 978-0-88104-091-6.