The Neolithic Cemetery at Tell el-Kerkh is the second volume of the final reports on the excavations at Tell el-Kerkh, northwest Syria. The 12-year field campaigns at Tell el-Kerkh yielded several ...unexpected archaeological findings. The existence of the oldest cultural deposits from the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (c. 8700-8300 BC) in northwestern Syria was revealed. The investigations also revealed that several large and complex societies had existed from the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to the middle Pottery Neolithic periods (c. 7600–6000 BC). One of the most conspicuous findings of the excavations at Tell el-Kerkh was the discovery of a Pottery Neolithic cemetery dating between c. 6400 and 6100 BC, which makes it one of the oldest outdoor communal cemeteries in West Asia. This book focuses specifically on this cemetery. It reports the discovery of over 240 burials and discusses the process of the formation and development of the cemetery. Initially used for traditional house burials in a corner of the settlement, the cemetery eventually became a graveyard that was physically separated from the residential buildings and consisted only of graves. In other words, burials that were deeply related to each house developed into an outdoor communal cemetery of the settlement. The Kerkh Neolithic cemetery was a precursor to the wider development of communal cemeteries in West Asia, and its investigation provides us with a deeper understanding of Neolithic society in West Asia.
This open access book focuses on migrant and minority cemetery needs through the conceptual lens of the mobilities of the living and the dead. In doing so, the book brings migration and mobility ...studies into much-needed dialogue with death studies to explore the symbolically and politically important issue of culturally inclusive spaces of cemeteries and crematoria for migrants and established minorities. The book addresses majority and minority cemetery and crematoria provisions and practices in a range of North West European contexts. It describes how the planning, management and use of cemeteries and crematoria in multicultural societies can tell us about the everyday lived experiences of migration and migrant heritage, urban diversity, social inclusion and exclusion in Europe, and how these relate to migrant and minority experience of lived citizenship, practices of territoriality and bordering, colonial/postcolonial narratives. The book will be of interest to readers in the fields of migration/mobilities studies and death studies, as well as policy makers and practitioners, such as local government officers, cemetery managers and city planners.
Funerary rituals and mortuary cults are classics of religious studies research in ancient Egypt. Still, we know little about how the living interacted with ancestors and gods in daily life. The case ...study of the city of Memphis and its Saqqara necropolis in the late 2nd mil. BCE focusses on lived ancient religion, and demonstrates the spectrum of religious practices and options to configure religion and sociality through commemorative practices.
Cet article, qui s’appuie sur un travail de terrain effectué à Londres en 2017, analyse les choix funéraires proposés par les maisons de pompes funèbres musulmanes aux populations britanniques ...musulmanes dans la région du Grand Londres. L’immigré, désormais citoyen, trouve sa place non seulement dans la vie de la cité, mais également dans ses cimetières. L’espace ouvert par la gestion multiculturelle des particularismes, conjuguée à la reconnaissance des autorités publiques de la légitimité des porte-paroles religieux, ont permis un développement particularisé des pratiques funéraires des diverses communautés musulmanes présentes sur le sol britannique, auquel sera consacré la première partie de cet article. Nous établirons que la pluralité des acteurs et des solutions offertes aux musulmans explique, en grande partie, l’inversion des taux entre rapatriement et inhumation sur place constatée en Grande-Bretagne au cours des quinze dernières années. Néanmoins, si les musulmans londoniens choisissent Londres comme dernière demeure, cette transformation du paysage funéraire ne va pas dans le sens d’un « mourir ensemble ». La discussion de ce point fera l’objet de la deuxième partie de cet article. En effet, ces transformations récentes du paysage funéraire portent les marques d’une rigidification autour de certaines préconisations funéraires musulmanes approfondissant ainsi les frontières entre musulmans et non-musulmans, mais également entre les musulmans eux-mêmes.
This volume is the third in a series of reports documenting excavations at the large protohistoric site of ‘En Esur and its extensive burial grounds, located in the northern Sharon plain along a ...major ancient trade route. The four relatively intact and undisturbed Early Bronze Age burial caves presented in the current volume, excavated in the framework of the Cross Israel Highway Project, revealed over 2000 complete ceramic vessels representing an uninterrupted sequence over several hundred years. These four burial caves comprise an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of the society, trade relations and burial customs in the region during the Early Bronze Age.
This article returns to the question of whether Christianity in Europe in the High Middle Ages necessarily precluded the cremation of corpses. The question is addressed focusing on the Livs, a West ...Finno-Ugric society, who lived in the east Baltic region, before they adopted Christianity and during the early period of Christianisation. The authors combine archaeological expertise with interpretations of historical sources to explore the late cremations of the Livs and, in particular, to analyse two female cremations from the cemetery at Ogresgala Čabas, located near the mouth of the River Daugava. Cremations dominated in the initial phase of Daugava Liv culture in the lower reaches of the Daugava in the second half of the tenth century before they were replaced by inhumations by the middle of the 11th century, especially in female graves. The article deals with the late cremations of the Livs from the late 11th to the 13th century, when they became very rare and took on a different form. Taking into account references to the practice of cremation in exceptional cases of deaths in foreign lands in written sources about the Livs, the article agrees with researchers who believe that not all cremated corpses should be immediately and unconditionally associated with paganism.
The Life of the Afterlife in the Big Sky State is a
groundbreaking history of death in Montana. It offers a unique,
reflective, and sensitive perspective on the evolution of customs
and burial ...grounds. Beginning with Montana's first known burial
site, Ellen Baumler considers the archaeological records of early
interments in rock ledges, under cairns, in trees, and on open-air
scaffolds. Contact with Europeans at trading posts and missions
brought new burial practices. Later, crude "boot hills" and pioneer
graveyards evolved into orderly cemeteries. Planned cemeteries
became the hallmark of civilization and the measure of an educated
community. Baumler explores this history, yet untold about Montana.
She traces the pathway from primitive beginnings to park-like,
architecturally planned burial grounds where people could recreate,
educate their children, and honor the dead. The Life of the
Afterlife in the Big Sky State is not a comprehensive listing
of the many hundreds of cemeteries across Montana. Rather it
discusses cultural identity evidenced through burial practices,
changing methods of interments and why those came about, and the
evolution of cemeteries as the "last great necessity" in organized
communities. Through examples and anecdotes, the book examines how
we remember those who have passed on.
In various parts of the Islamic world over the past decades virulent attacks have targeted Islamic funeral and sacral architecture. Rather than being random acts of vandalism, these are associated ...with the idea of performing one's religious duty as attested to in the Salafi/Wahhabi tradition and texts. Graves, shrines and tombs are regarded by some Muslims as having the potential to tempt a believer to polytheism. Hence the duty to level the graves to the ground (taswiyat al-qub?r).
In illuminating the ideology behind these acts, this book explains the current destruction of graves in the Islamic world and traces the ideological sources of iconoclasm in their historical perspective, from medieval theological and legal debates to contemporary Islamist movements including ISIS.
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