Science is always an aid in these matters.
Here is from this article, "Animal Sacrifice Powered Ancient Jerusalem's Economy", published this past week:
Pilgrims came from hundreds of miles away to sacrifice animals at an ancient temple in Jerusalem, new research suggests. An analysis of bones found in an ancient dump in the city dating back 2,000 years revealed that animals sacrificed at the temple came from far and wide.
"The study shows that there is a major interprovincial market that enables the transfer of vast numbers of animals that are used for sacrifice and feasting in Jerusalem during that time period," said study co-author Gideon Hartman, a researcher at the University of Connecticut.
The finding, published in the September issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, confirms visions of the temple depicted in historical Jewish texts and suggests the economic heart of the city was its slaughtering operation.
[Abstract
Religious and historical sources suggest that pilgrimage formed a major source of Jerusalem's economy during the Early Roman period due to the Temple's role as a religious and judicial center for the Jewish diaspora. Until now, this assertion has been supported by little material evidence. In this study, the carbon and nitrogen isotope values of local archaeological and, modern wild herbivores from known environments were used to determine the environmental origins of domesticated sheep and goat that were traded and consumed in Early Roman Jerusalem. Pinpointing the environmental origins of these herd animals can determine if they were raised in specialized farms in the vicinity of Jerusalem, brought to the city by local pilgrims, or were part of organized importation of sacrifice animals from desert regions that lie beyond the boundaries of the province of Judea. The results indicate that at minimum 37% of the goat and sheep consumed in Jerusalem during the Early Roman period were brought from desert regions. The inter-provincial importation of animals to Jerusalem to meet high demands for sacrifice by pilgrims is the first material evidence for large scale economic specialization in the city. Furthermore, the results imply that desert animals were further marketed for domestic use in contemporaneous farm sites out of Jerusalem.]
...historians wondered whether these descriptions [of sacrificial worship] were hyperbole or fact.
A few years ago, archaeologists unearthed a massive dump on the outskirts of the old walled city of Jerusalem. Dating revealed the dump was used between the start of King Herod's reign in 37 B.C. and the Great Revolt in A.D. 66. Whereas most city dumps contain animal bones, this one contained an unusually large proportion of them for an agricultural society, Hartman said...most of the animals were young, suggesting they were raised for sacrifice.
Hartman analyzed nitrogen and carbon isotopes, or atoms of the same element with a different number of neutrons, from about 160 sheep and goat bones found in the city dump. He then compared the bones from the city dump with bones from the same time period taken from animals that were raised both nearby and in distant locales...The study found that many of the animals found in the city dump came from rural desert regions hundreds of miles away, such as Arabia or Transjordan. The discovery bolsters the notion that Jerusalem was supported by a massive economy of pilgrims who brought animals for slaughter.
..."There are strong and wealthy Jewish populations during the time of the second temple that are established far away from the land of Israel," Hartman said.
Those people were still religiously required to sacrifice animals, which could only be done in Jerusalem. So representatives from distant Jewish communities would gather money from the community to buy animals for slaughter. They would then bring animals all the way to the temple in Jerusalem, Hartman said...
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