With button-shaped teeth that can gnash through the shells of crabs and mussels, a fish known as the gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata) was extensively traded between Egypt and Canaan 3,500 years ago. Scientists from Germany and Israel analyzed 100 sea bream teeth from 12 archaeological sites in Israel.1 The oxygen isotopes of the teeth indicated that about 75 percent of the fish in the study came from a hypersaline body of water, while the rest came from the southeastern Mediterranean Sea. The Bardawil Lagoon on the north coast of the Sinai is the only body of water in […]
