According to the Hebrew Bible, only dire conditions forced the people of Samaria to eat donkey heads (2 Kgs 6:25) in the ninth century BC. A later tradition transmitted in the Babylonian Talmud allows donkey’s meat “if one is attacked by jaundice” (b. Yoma 84a). “Dove’s dung,” which was likewise sold at an absurd prize during the siege of Samaria, does not refer to the excrements but to the giblets of the dove, probably inclusive of their contents . . . (Martin Heide and Joris Peters, Camels in the Biblical World [History, Archaeology, and Culture of the Levant 10; University Park, Pa.: Eisenbrauns, 2021], 179 n. 173)
