The Archaeology of Death in the Ancient Near East / edited by Stuart Campbell and Anthony Green.

Conference papers.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 253-297)

1. The Visibility of Prehistoric Burials in the Southern Levant. How Rare are the Upper Palaeolithic/Early Epipalaeolithic Graves? / Dani Nadel -- 2. Rethinking Social Stratification in the Natufian Culture : The Evidence from Burials / Anna Belfer-Cohen -- 3. Houses and Hearts, Pits and Burials : Natufian Mortuary Practices at Mallaha (Eynan), Upper Jordan Valley / Brian Boyd -- 4. New Data on Burials from the Pottery Neolithic Period (Sixth-Fifth Millenium BC) in Israel / Avi Gopher and EstelleOrelle -- 5. Death for the living in the late Neolithic in North Mesopotamia / Stuart Campbell -- 6. The use of model objects as Predynastic Egyptian grave goods an ancient origin for a Dynastic tradition / Sally Swain -- 7. Attitudes to Death with Reference to Cats in Ancient Egypt / Joyce M. Filer -- Change in Oral Pathology through Time of Nile Valley Populations Predynastic to Roman / Francis Thornton -- 9. Deformed Skulls at Tell Arpachiyah ; the Social Context / Theya Molleson and Stuart Campbell -- 10. Lemba-Lakkous and Kissonerga-Mosphilia : Evidence from the Dentition in Chalcolithic / Dorothy A. Lunt -- 11. Approaches to the Archaeological Study of Death with Particular Reference to Ancient Cyprus / Lynn Bright -- 12. The Dead Sea Dolmens : Death and the Landscape / Kay Prag -- 13. The Complex Nomads : Death and Social Stratification in EB IV Southhern Levant / Evi Baxevani -- 14. Pots, People and the Archaeology of Death in Northern Syria and Southern Anatolia in the latter Half on the Third Millennium BC / Elizabeth Carter and Andrea Parker -- 15. Mortuary Practices at Tel Dan in the Middle Bronze Age : a Reflection of Canaanite Society and Ideology / David Ilan -- 16. Warrior Burials in the Ancient Near-Eastern Bronze Age : the Evidence from Mesopotamia, Western Iran and Syria-Palestine / Graham Philip -- 17. Aegean Influence in Late Bronze Age Funerary Practices in the Southern Levant / Garth Gimour -- 18. Rituel Mortuaire et Rituel Social a Ras Shamra-Ougarit / Jean-François Salles -- 19. A Case of Symmer's Fibrosis of the Liver during the 18th Dynasty? / Walter Y. Loebl -- 20. Death in West Semitic Texts : Ugarit and Nabataea / John F. Healey -- 21. Some Concept of Afterlife in Mesopotamia and Greece / Charles Penglase -- 22. A Typology of Dilmun Burial Mounds / Abdülaziz Soweileh -- Differential Burial Practices in Cyprus at the Beginning of the Iron Age / Louise Steel -- 24. Urartian Funerary Customs / Charles Burney -- 25. Neo-Babylonian Burials Revisited / Heather Baker -- 26. The Tombs of Lycia Evidence for Social Stratification? / Antony G. Keen -- 27. Gold Face-Masks in the Ancient Near East / John Curtis -- 28. Cannabis Sativa (Hashish) as an Effective medication in Antiquity : the Anthropological Evidence / Joe Zias -- 29. Deathly Links between China and Islam? Relief-Moulded Lead-Glazed Pottery / Madeleine Sarley -- 30. Death and Burial in the Late Islamic Near East : Some Insights from Archaeology and Ethnography / St. John Simpson.

The conference in Manchester in 1992 which this book came out of was organised to raise the profile of the study of mortuary remains in the Ancient Near East. Thirty papers from the conference are published here, covering a wide variety of regions and periods, from Epipalaeolithic to modern. Many different aspects are examined: physical anthropology, burial goods, social structure, ethoarchaeology, etc. This volume has a wide relevance not only to the areas specifically addressed, but also in the interpretation of burial remains and the evolution of society.

Includes one chapter in French.