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Dental Fragment - Obodas, Petra
Published Wednesday 17 October 2007, updated Thursday 18 October 2007, by Carine Tomé
Obodas Chapel (Jabal Numayr, Petra, Jordan). Nabataean rock-cut sancturay. French Archaeological Mission in Petra. Direction of the excavation: Christian Augé (CNRS), Laurent Tholbecq (Laval University).

Here is a tooth fragment along 22 millimeters found in the faunal material of the "Obodas chapel" in Petra. This might suggest a tooth fragment of an elephant, but that determination seems unsatisfactory.
Outside this mysterious fragment, material is mainly composed of remains from Caprinae, Equidae and Camelidae, so nothing very exotic ...
Many thanks in advance to help me to clarify this mystery.
Carine


Many thanks to Sheila (and the rest of the mailing-list Zooarch) for helping me resolved so quickly that determination. It’s a fragment of superior pharyngeal from parrotfish (Scarus sp.).
Here follows a photo of a complete superior pharyngeal from our fish collection in CEPAM, and that I will visit now more often :-)