The Talmud requires that Torah scrolls be written on parchment made from the hide of a kosher animal, and notes that the hides of gazelles were particularly prized for this purpose. Armed with this information, archaeologists made sense of a recent finding in the Galilean village of Shikhin (modern-day Shukha), as Philippe Bohstrom writes. (Free registration may be required.)
Archaeologists . . . encountered a mystery: a strangely large proportion of the animal bones [uncovered while excavating Shikhin] were from wild gazelles—far greater than the proportion of gazelle remains found at any other archaeological site in Israel, from [the era of the site]—about 1,900 years ago—or earlier. Or later. What was the strange predilection the ancient Jews of Shikhin had for gazelles?
Some were surely eating gazelle, which is perfectly kosher when slaughtered by [the prescribed] ritual. But the people of Shikhin also had plenty of domestic flocks: sheep, goats, and cows. It seems, the archaeologists concluded, that the Jews of Shikhin had developed a robust industry of curing gazelle hide for parchment, including for Torah scrolls. . . .
Even when compared with sites from the earlier Bronze Age and Iron Age, when people had been cultivating flocks for thousands of years but still hunted for some of their meat, the proportion of gazelle bones at Shikhin is big; [furthermore], gazelle run very fast, [and are therefore very difficult] to chase down. So appetite alone could hardly explain the spike in gazelle hunting.
The gazelle is indigenous to the region and was appreciated in ancient times not only for its speed but for its gracile beauty. The ancient Hebrews alluded to it frequently in Scripture.
Read more on Haaretz: https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/.premium.MAGAZINE-ancient-judeans-wrote-torah-scrolls-on-gazelle-hide-archaeologists-fi-1.6390048