Egyptian and Mesopotamian Death Practices

Nemet-Nemjat 1998

Arrogation was the process when an adult was adopted by a family without heirs, and he would care for them in their old age and provision their tomb when they died in return for being named an heir. Death was created by the gods to have no end, as described in the epic of Gilgamesh. If a man was buried properly, his soul could descend into the Underworld. Mesopotamians did not directly refer to death, but rather skirted around it with a series of euphemisms, for fear of summoning it. The preferred mode of death was at home, in a special funerary bed or chair that could be rented in which the soul would receive offerings. The dying person should be surrounded by their family. They would want to take with them as many goods to the afterlife as the family could afford. After death, the body would be washed and the mouth tied shut, then it would be anointed and perfumed. Then the taklimtu, the displaying of the corpse and the grave goods, would take place. The taklimtu for Dumuzi was similar to that of the king reported by Potts, Bodies could be buried differently based on the location and means of their surviving relatives. The graves of the poorest were mere pits with a few pots and pins, and for the richest, stone mausoleums and fancy sarcophagi could be buried in houses, palaces, and public cemeteries were also used. Bodies could be individual or could be in multiple burials, and servants who died in the homes of their masters could be buried with them. Mourning was to be publicly displayed, and last for up to seven days for the most important of dead. Lamentations for the dead were written, which could be read or sung. Mourning involved an inversion of normal practices, no bathing, casting off finery and wearing sackcloth, until the body is interred and purification rituals are conducted. The eldest son was responsible for perpetuating the kispu ritual offerings to their deceased in return for receiving the largest inheritance. Shrines were set up to all stillborns (one shrine I think), and royals received public offerings accompanied by war heroes. All royal ancestors received offerings, but commoners just did for those they knew personally, lumping more distant relatives into a common ancestor. Offerings included cold water, bread, soup, beer, ribs, flour, oil, wine, and honey. Liquids were poured into a pipe in the ground and the food offerings were put on an offering table in front of the marker. The names of the deceased were called out to make sure the offerings were received by the right deceased and to include the dead in the community. Ghosts could intercede on behalf of family members, but if not afforded a proper burial they would come back and annoy their descendants. Ghosts could return to earth and visit several times a year like Dumuzi, floating through the Hubur where they were then wined and dined. The population of the netherworld was always increasing, unlike the world of the living, where people left it by death, so its name was also Great Earth or Extended Earth. One version of getting to Ereshkigal's queendom involved crossing a demon-infested steppe, crossing the Hubur, and dealing with seven tricky gatekeepers at 7 gates. Another version was a bit simpler and was the one the dead would use to come back on festival occasions. This involved crossing by boat the apsu, the sweet waters under earth, or the watertable, into the underworld. Not only spirits returning, but souls to be reborn and demons would come through the apsu back into our world. The underworld was a really dreary place, referred to in the epic of Gilgamesh as "the house where the entrants are bereft of light, where dust is their sustenance and clay their food; they see no light but dwell in darkness". Nergal and Ereshkigal were the king and queen of the underworld and dwelled in a lapis lazuli palace. Shamas, the sun god, would visit the underworld daily on his travels through the sky, and if offerings were properly given, you would have more than clay and dust to eat, showing that the afterlife did not have to be entirely dreary. Three courts existed: the court of the Annunaki, where the dead would be welcomed to the underworld and taught its rules. There was also the court of gilgamesh, of an unclear purpose, and there was also the court of Shamash. As Shamash daily traveled back and forth from the world of the living to the world of the dead, his domain was in both realms, and his court was thus the site of mediation between the living and the dead. Judgments and one's place in the netherworld was not assigned on the basis of merit while alive. The worst punishment one got while dead was not being allowed entrance, which would mean your etemmu was doomed to sleepless wandering. Major causes of death were during childbirth or being stillborn. Battle casualties were the leading cause of death among men. Acts of god, plague, most lethal diseases known to man, small pox, leprosy, typhus, TB, all killed people. As Southern Mesopotamia had a higher population density and was more conducive to disease, urban density due to close contact between the living and the dead occurred.

Van Dijk

Death was seen as entry into a new mode of being, a preservation of life. Re and Osiris, the MK and NK gods typically venerated by the dead, were mortal, but also immortal because they had arisen from the dead. Renewal was created in the underworld of unfathomable depth and the darkness of the primeval waters, Nun, that surrounded the world. Dead bodies sink in primeval waters and the sun god gives life in the underworld into dwellings of the deceased. According to the Amduat, the Underworld is divided into 12 hours. The pyramid texts are the world's oldest corpus of written religious texts, from the 1st half of the 3rd millennium. They are largely celestial in focus and detail how the king can survive among gods in heaven. Food is offered to the dead to include them in the community. Burying the king in his pyramid is seen to represent his resurrection and ascension to heaven, whose doors are open for him. The texts describe how the king can get up to heaven, but they seem to be a bit of an exaggeration. The texts also show how food should be offered to the dead to inclde them in the community, and details how the ba shall not forsake the corpse and that the deceased can make use of the body. The personality is not annihilated at death, and the ba is not the soul, is more like an alter ego, and is an embodiment of the physical and psychic forces. It travels far in a cosmic circuit in the course of the sun god while the mummy remains motionless. The corporeal resurrection of the deceased occurs when the ba unites with the mummy, creating an akh, a corporeal spirit. Death is life reversed, and heart is the center of personality, providing continuity of identity, so heart was left in the body during mummification and the heart scarab was added for extra protection. The Book of the dead spell details giving the heart back to the deceased thus allowing the deceased to eat the bread at the offering table of Osiris. Spell 125 from the book of the dead details the judgment of the heart taking place. This is not a real judgment however, because it was almost a pro forma exam that people could fail. In the hall of the 2 Truths, Anubis leads the dead into the hall, where either Re and his 9 gods or Osiris and his 42 messengers waited. The heart of the deceased is weighed against the feather of maat, as it was the seat of identity and memory. The feather of Maat is the symbol of truth, justice, and order. The dead person then recites the negative confession, spell 110, saying what it is they have not done. Anubis has protected the deceased so far during the process of mummification, and he monitors the judgment. With every mistruth, the heart sinks lower and Anubis then reads the heart as a record and resets the scale. Despite the presence of Ammit the destroyer, part lion, hippo, and crocodile, the deceased's heart is never depicted as being devoured. Punishment in the afterlife was reservved for those who were the enemies of the gods, not those who built the tombs. The enemies of the gods were tortured by being beheaded, chopped into tiny pieces, boiled in a cauldron, roasted, and burned until nothing was left, thus denying them any chance at an afterlife because of the annihilation of the physical body. The justified deceased could as well be drawn inadvertently into the punishments of enemies and so were often equipped with spells to ward of afterlife dangers. The ba could be caught, bound, asked difficult questions, all in an attempt to make it to the fields of Elau. The ba had to cross a horrifying lake of fire, but if they were truly justified, the fire would turn to cool water that they could wade through and drink from. Enemies of the gods on the other hand would be burned. The Pyramid Texts were celestial in focus and feature the king joining the living gods in heaven, whereas later texts like MK coffin texts and the NK Amduat and the Book of the Dead and the Book of Earth and the Book of Gates describe a more Osirian riverine focused depicton of the afterlife. Funerary mythology is derived from the mythology and cult of the sun-god Re. the earliest funeral myths centered on the resurrected God Osiris. The dwelling of the dead is not a place the living were imagined as being able to access. It was only reached through the imagination, and our words, symbols, and pictures, can only describe it incompletely. It was called the West, as the sun travelled through under the earth from west to east. The regions where the dead lived ere called the Elau fields, and had water and vegetation, and were separated from the living world by a river. This was the river along which Re would sail his sun boat. One classic story details the fight between Apophis, the monster of chaos, and Re. Apophis lived in the river and tried to wreck Re's boat, appearing in the form of a huge serpent. Re and the other gods in his boat conjure Apophis with words, and attack, bind, and subdue the monster of chaos to nothing. All the occupants of the boat engage in violence. sia is the personification of wisdom, Hu, the Creative word, Hekh, the creative energy of magic, Hathor, Isis, Maat, Horus, Toth and Seth. Seth is represented in the prow of the suboat with his spear repelling the serpent of chaos. The underworld was divided into the 12 hours of night, and Re spent 1 hour in each department. 1 hour in the underworld, however, is the equivalent of 1 lifetime in our world. The resurrected live in that one hour an entire life, cultivating the fields allotted to them and enjoying the light of the sun. When the sun god arrives in each department, he speaks a creative word, relying on Hu, and the mummies arise from their sleep of death. The sarcophagi and the shrines open, the mummy bandages are removed, and food and clothing are reused. The parts of the self are recollected to wake up. These mummy bindings were protective, but were also the bonds of death, also called the bonds of Seth, because Seth brought death into the World by murdering Osiris. The resurrection process is depicted in the Valley of Kings on tombs: some deceased are still wrapped in their bandages, where others stand as naked figures. Linen clothing, food and drink are given to the newly revived from the sun god. During the lifetime of one hour, the dead see the sun god face to face, and rejoice. They cultivate fields, play games, spend time with families, and enjoy an idyllic repetition of life on earth without any of its potential flaws. The enemies of god are punished, but there is no clear-cut division between heaven and hell. Punishment does occur in the 1st three registers of the amduat, and is it not possible to say whether this took place in a specific spatial region of the Amduat because the Underworld is differently oriented than the terrestrial world. enemies are burned when Re's boat comes through, whereas the justified get life and light. However, some deceased do not get through the hereafter. Other deceased experience a completion not achieved during their lives, for example, women can bear children if they died to young or were infertile, and the starved get to feel full. The use of mummification styles us into a divine image, as on earth we are already in the sun god's shape. Mummification preface the afterlife ideal body but there was no certainty it was needed for corporeal resurrection. This was not limited to the wealthy who could afford elaborate burials. Literature mentions human remains floating unmummified in the Nun, until Re's rescue party pulls them out and sets them on the banks and wakes them up. The sun-god created and recreates the endless life of the hereafter, and when he leaves the deceased go back to sleep until he passes through again.

Grajetzki 2010 Class and Society Positions and Possessions

Grajetzki goes into the use of the term class to describe groups, saying that it is based on Marx with little actual basis, and it is used wit hspecific nuances and identity, self-interest, and inter-level tension, but the mobilized and politicized concept of a group does not appear in ancient Egypt. He suggests instead of the use of the term class, a rank. The elite is a term often used when referring to social classes, meaning a small leading group supported by the lower classes, having disproportionate access to resource, but it is often used to mean the best in the field and Grajetzki believes that most Egyptologists fail to make this distinction. Projecting our modern concept of a middle class does not apply to ancient Egyptian society, and the distinction of popular and official art is reminiscent of Bourdieu, whose work shows that taste is used for maintaining boundaries, so high culture and low cultue might not be a helpful distinction. Egyptian state formation occurred arround the same time that distinct classes developed, and Grajetzki believes that cemeteries help us better understand state formation in general. Inthe Middle Kingdom, Egyptologists argue for some kind of middle class not part of teh formal state administration ruling class, and the Abydos stelae show people without formal titles. The identification between the rise of the middle class and free citizenship and Egyptian literature, as there is a more critical vision of the world clear from Middle Kingdom literature. Fewer broader investigations have been made into New Kingdom society in general, as the ruler from the tomb chapels is normally a source. Sources from Deir el-Medina and Amarna are helpful at giving a peek into the lives of non-yoals, and house size comparison can provide a basis for society as a whole. Literary sources used by Egyptologists have a heavy elite bias, and archaeology is useful in determining class because houses material can be found, but Grajetzki reiterates that cemeteries are the best ways to receive information on social stratificaiton, as tomb size, structure, and the number of vessels included are a common method for determining ranl. the value of burial goods is calculated from the production time. Unfortunately, we are left with an inaccurate picture of societal distribution. there is a sex imbalance, and the tombs of young children are largely absent. The 1st intermediate period is well represented but OK cemeteries other than Giza and Saqqara are not located or poorly excavated. Few NK burial sites are around, as the social stratum beneath the elite administration is poorly excavated since we have mostly focused on temples, royal monuments, and decorated tomb chapels of the highest Theban officials. Archaeologists are under pressure to produce interesting finds, so lower class cemeteries are largely ignored because they lack the potential to produce pretty things. Cemeteries from the NK that include a whole population are not very well published at all except for Gurob and cemeteries of Lower Nubia. Fadrus, an 18th NK cemetery excavated by the Scandinavian Joint Expedition, included 690 tombs from all social levels, those without grave goods up to decorated tomb chapels, arranged into 5 categories based on the size and value of equipment. Coffins were typical for all social levels, but only 10 percent of burials had luxury goods like masks, razors, metal bowls and axes, and 23% had goods in total. The middle of the 18th dynasty sees more grave goods, and could be interpreted to mean a change in burial customs or a general increase of wealth in Fadrus. It was a rural community far from Thebes and belowe the traditional border south of the 1st Cataract. The idea that farmers leave no ideoogyical trace behind is refuted, as Siedlmayer arguest that cemeteries at Elephantine and Matmar served the farming and working classes as well, because if all the tombs were elite tombs then the population would have a very high proportion of elites, and it seems unlikely that most Egyptians wouldn't have had at least some form of burial. Amarna and other places with poorly equipped tombs could've been intending their use for workers. Deir el-Medina is an other important NK community where info about its inhabitants can be gleaned. Janssen divides Egyptians into 3 economic classes, chiefs and scribes in the upper, workmen in the middle, then a sort of proletariat who fed everyone else living outside the village. Meskell divided Deir el Medina according to wealth visible in tomb equipments, pricing the value of burial goods from economic informaton recovered at Deir el Medina. Stark discrepancies in the 18th dynasty grew less harsh in the Rameside period, but new burial customs occurred where fewer luxury goods showed up and poor people were no longer buried in pits but in the same chamber with multiple barriers, which seems to hint at a diminish in the rich and poor contrast. Size of tombs can also be used to classify the importance of an individual, as well as houses. Egyptian status terms are not exactly translatable. Put seems to mean elite and rekhyt seems to mean common people. Society is divided by professions with priests earning more than others. Tomb placement shows hierarchy, and size. The tombs of the upper class are typically found at 1 end of the cemetery, and the burials of the less well to do are in other parts. The houses of the rich and poor had similar decorations, but the king's tomb was different. In the NK it was decorated with underworld books, but private burial chambers were largely undecorated and only the superstructures, not the burial chambers underneath, were equipped with reliefs. The king's mother and wives had special tombs apart from all other women, and in the OK and MK got buried under a pyramid. Under the king were high state officials, ministers like the vizier, the high steward and the treasure, and in the NK, new titles, including royal scribe and fan bearer on the right of the ing are introduced instead of: member of the elite. titles show hierarchy, but give no actual claim to power, as officialdoms were heredable. the main textual sources for info on officials are biographical inscriptions placed in tomb chapels or on statues, declaring their status as emanating from the king. the king was the centerpoint of society, and biographical phrases of elite tombs include titles like the eyes and moth of the king, as officials owe him everything. The common trope is saying that officials come from a humble background and that success is merit rewarded by the King. An example of this can be seen in comparing Ramose vs Senenmut, his son. Senenmut was an NK steward under Hatshepsut. Ramose's tomb was found in front of Senenmut's chapel. Ramose was buried in a shared multi-burial chamber with his wife and other unnameds, and on his coffin, a simple title, San, meaning judge, is inscribed, and nothing else. This is most likely to denote status rather than a legal profession. Senenmut on the other hand has a decorated funeral chapel and a partly decorated underground chamber with meta objects. Ramose could've been moved to be buried in his tomb, and sab is a title that during the Ramesside period was often given to fathers of the elite. So although Senenmut refers to himself as coming from a farming background, it would seem that he is potentially from an elite upper class background. Akhenaten's officials' inscriptions tried to make it seem like they had worked their ways up, but some officials were of well-known families of the highest state officials. Less important officials had in the NK smaller tombs or stelae without decorated tomb chapels. These could be labeled as scribes, but the term scribe is not individualized and just shows a certain degree of status. Lower officials in their stelae gained their legitimation not directly from the king but rather from higher officials. Stelae show them standing behind superiors or in a different register, showing a hierarchy of officialdom, and speaking to a patron-client relation that existed in society. High officials had many dependents, as seen by tomb arrangement. OK mastaba tombs of stewards were placed next to the grander mastaba tombs of their masters, and MK stelae have officials appearing in front of the master. At Thebes: Amenemope, the high steward of Amun, has a full rock cut tomb and a separate burial chamber for 4 people with whom he had a work relationship, his dependents. Workmen of Deir el Medina from the New Kingdom had different social groups, but those known for their decorated tomb chapels are on quite a high level. Most chapels from this site are from the Ramesside period, and not a sign of increasing wealth but rather of changing burial pattens. At Saqqara, small chapels found belonging to officials who were heads of specific workshops were found containing grave goods. Coffins, shabtis and pottery of a gold merchant and washer are found from Senedjem. In the Fadrus cemetery, higher and lower officials would've made up only 10% of the population at Fadrus. There are three times as many elite houses at Amarna as there are decorated tombs, which means that the owners would've been buried elsewhere, and maybe in small tombs that have not yet been found that could still be well-equipped. Tomb statistics can also speak to the potential for a farmers' cances as wealth acquisition. Some farmers could own small plots or fields, but ownership could've just been limited to ploughing and limited income rights. The working population an largely be simplified into 2 groups: people attached to an office or employed by an institution, or attached to a person. Without a patron, one would not be fairly treated.

Pollock 1999

In Ubaid (5th millennium) burials, children are underrepresented. They should make up 48.5% of burials, but they only make up 33% in Eridu. Abandoned houses were used for infants. Grave goods do not appear to distinguish between genders, but rather between age. Different types of pottery were found in the graves of adults and children, as well as different colors of beads. Animal skulls were found in the graves of children, whereas weapons were found in adults' graves. Despite having a similar social trajectory to Ur and Eridu, other important Ubaid cemeteries, Susa had metal discs and axes in their graves which did not occur esewhere. Cemetery burial in the later Ubaid period was an expression of community bonds. Despite probable stratification or difference in role, people were buried with the same goods, stressing similarity within and difference without. These mostly simple burials stress community membership. The underrepresentation of difference, status and gender, shows that community had an emphasis in death and that burial was not a mirror of socioeconomic relations. In the Uruk period of the 4th millennium, we have found few burials, as opposed to Ubaid cemeteries. This lack of cemetery burials is unlikely to be just a flaw of archaeology and is most likely due to practices. Again, Susa is the exception of the Uruk period, as many infant burials are found, often surrounded by bowls. A wide variation in grave goods exists, some with pottery copper objects, stone vessels, tools, and spindles. Dead children were treated differently than dead adults, most likely not viewed as full members of the community. The Uruk period was a time of increasing sedentism and urbanisation and population density, so perhaps the social shifts resulted in a shift of burial practices. Burial resumes at the end of the 4th millennium in the ED period. Cities had a variety of mortuary practices, and intracommunity distinctions were now visible in the kind of grave goods provided, the number of people interred in one grave, the location of the grave, and its facilities. Some bodies were tossed in rubbish pits, some were buried within houses, and some were still placed in cemeteries. Now these graves were made while the houses were still occupied. The total number of burials is not equal to the population of this period, and children too are absent from cemeteries, yet make up 22-30% of house burials. The oikos economy was one in which temples and estates had dependents, after the erosion of a kinship based economy. Pollock proposes that the difference between house burials and cemetery burials is an attempt at resisting the transition to an oikoi economy. The oikoi could've used burials as a method of forcing people into being their dependents, because of promising burial incentives, or refusing to bury them otherwise. Increasingly elaborate home burials could be an increasing power of wealthy families in opposition to the oikoi. Different placement of corpses in the house now speaks to status in the ED period; women and children were typically buried in peripheral rooms, with men buried in more central rooms. Tomb construction occurs more commonly now, but pit burials are still common. Khafaje has multiple successively interred burials around the Temple Oval. The royal emetery at ur was located in a rubbish dump. Royal tombs rfrom the ED III period and 2000 other graves marked this cemetery that was in use for about 500 years. The royal tombs include a burial of a principal person with their retainers, and up to 75 other people. children could be buried with adults, and the successive interments suggest that pis had some kind of markers, but no such markers had been found. The large number of identical vessels is suggested to indicate a large burial feast. Jemdet Nasr and ED I graves are limited to stone beads, copper vessels, pins and stone slabs were characteristic of Khafaje. By the ED II and III periods, grave goods get a lot fancier, with jewelry, carts, and instruments being buried. Aspects of identities were expressed that have little to do with day to day identities. Differentiation in social groups by grave provisioning comes in ER III burials and Ur in its greatest form. In contrast to Ubaid period burials, differences within communities were now emphasized. These burials were gendered, with jewelry and personal adornments for women, and weapons for men. Richness in provisioning was not influenced by age or gender. Production roles were not overly stressed in grave good provisioning. The position of bodies, flexed and on the side, was possibly to to gender, according to Forest, and this was consistent across Mesopotamia. The practice of reusing graves drops off after the ED II period, but they are still looted. Burying objects with the dead removes them from circulation and shows ownership, whether lifelong or specifically acquired for the funeral. The removal of goods was quite common by the late ED period, and by the Akkadian period burials were less rich. Grave robbing need not necessarily be seen as stealing, but rather as removing ones inheritance after a suitable period of time. The reappearance of burials at the end of the 4th millennium are a move by communities to reclaim the dead. Local temple decentralization forces of the temple versus the palace centralizing supralocal forces conflict in the 3rd dynasty. Cemeteries imply community identification through certain burial practices and also are part of a pan-MEsopotamian burial culture. Excessiveness of EDIII burial practices (tons of grave goods and human sacrifices) show heightening tensions between the oikoi and kinship-based households. In contrast to the Ubaid period, 3rd millennium burial practices were stressing intercommunity difference. Burying objects like seals or weapons associates the dead with a particular individual, possibly a patron or an official rather than the necessary signifying a profession. Funeral provisions could've been part of trying to coerce people into a position of dependence.

Egypt Lecture

In ancient Egypt, it is important to distinguish between burial practice, how the body is treated and the tomb provisioned, and the cult of the dead, which includes the tomb chapel and cult provision. There was an elite focus on preparing for death, and a change over time in the precise nature of the afterlife. The ka is the life force, the ba is a spirit, a human headed bird, and the corpse itself. Individual aspects are difficult to translate. Solar focus in the afterlife makes the rebirth of the sun a useful analogy for rebirth after death, and from the end of the Old Kingdom an Osirian image of the afterlife where the deceased was associated with Osiris, who was murdered by his brother Seth and reanimated by his sister/wife, Isis. In the New Kingdom, the idea of the judgment of the dead is prominent. Mortuary literature throughout Egypt's history evolved, maintaining some traditions and allowing for innovations in others. The Pyramid Texts were developed in the Old Kingdom royal tombs, and the coffin texts from the middle kingdom used in private tombs and the Book of the Dead, from the New Kngdom were also private. Corpse preservation was needed for the afterlife, so an emphasis on mummification and canopic equipment was stressed, as the ba had to be able to return to the body. The resulted in te necessitation of the name and the appearance needing to be preserved. Names were used to decorate tomb, statues, and in the 4th D, reserve heads featured the image of the deceased, as well as anthropoid coffins from the MK onward. Mummification however seems to have been just for the upper class, as most remains from Ancient Egypt, in fact 90%, are skeletal. The tomb was a setting for the cult of the dead as well as a home for the deceased. The idea of the tomb as a dwelling resulted in house features incorporated into the coffin and tomb design. The focus of the cult of the deceased would be a point of communication between the dead and the living, focusing on a statue of the deceased or a false door, and the offerings were intended to be made at this point to sustain the deceased in perpetuity. Burial goods put in place at the time of death were intended to equip the dead in their afterlife, and the variability of these goods changed over time in accordance with the status and wealth of the deceased. A typical tomb formation had an underground burial chamber and an above ground chapel serving as the home of the offering cult for the dead, also as a memorial. In the Late ld Kingdom, cliffs were used for rock carvings. Tombs of the king and tombs of the elite were different. In the ED period both were buried in house-like mastaba tombs, and in the OK the elite continued to be buried in mastaba tombs while kings started constructing pyramids in the Memphite region. Typically, two temples and a causeway were constructed with each pyramid to serve as a mortuary cult, a tradition of royal pyramid building established that diminished in the first intermediate period but was revived in the middle kingdom. In the NK the kings were buried at Thebes, and the actual tomb was separated from the offering cult. Valley of the Kings tombs were increasingly elaborate, while the offering place became a massive cult temple dedicated to the god Amun-Re with only a few side chambers for the king. Private tombs also became more chapel-like and have pylons, taking up the pyramid form by using small pyramids over the sanctuary. We have lots of funerary material due to the preservation of tombs, as they were in very dry places and until recently there had been little construction. We can use these cemeteries as proxies for understanding the living, as "the dead do not bury themselves". Through the use of formalized language, group social structure can be reinforced and an identity can be imposed on the dead. Egyptian elites, however, planned their own burials, and wrote their tomb autobiographies. The ideas are difficult to translate in texts concerned with aspects of an individual and are concerned with the nature of identity. Various parts of the self that must be reunited in death are the ha, meaning the physical body, the khat, the corpse, which through burial is transformed into an akh, meaning a transfigured spirit, and an akh-ikhet is an excellent transfigured spirit whose existence is beyond death. The living person has split into a whole series of components that made them up when they were alive, and transfiguration will reunite these components of being alive. The ib, means the heart or the interior, the ba means the 'soul' or the personality, and is often represented as a human headed bird. The ba can go in and out of the body and in and out of the tomb. The ka is an inheritable life force lacking a direct english equivalent, and the king's ka is the divine office of kingship that is passed from generation to generation. The ren is an individual's name, which is an intrinsic individual aspect. If you know someone's name, then you can get them to do something for you, and the dead were thus often buried with a bead with their name on it to help the ba identify the corpse. The last part is a shewt, meaning the shadow. The way of writing ka in hieroglyphs is upraised arms. The difficult question when it comes to ascertaining the nature of the afterlife is how applicable the elite sources we have are to teh rest of the population. A Nagada II (3500-3200 BC) mummy found at Gebelein in a pit burial is in a crouched position, with burial goods. The inclusion of these goods from the earliest periods of recovered Egyptian history does not necessarily entail belief in an afterlife, but since food was included, it prbably means these goods were intended to be used by the deceased in some conception of an afterlife. Mortuary literature from different periods in Egyptian history shows different conceptions of what the afterlife, each building on the older one. The earliest mortuary literature includes the Pyramid texts, which were exclusively royal in the Old Kingdom at least. These were spells for the transfiguration of the king and were largely concerned with a celestial vision of how the king could get up to the stars. A variety of different means, including in a boat, on the backs of birds, locusts, wind, or lightning, offered contradictory ways of getting up to the sky. Private texts were largely magical texts focusing on how the dead corpse can be transfigured into a reanimated aspect of the individual. MK mortuary literature included notably the coffin texts, which were written on the inside of a rectangular coffin and these were private texts, but some drew directly from the pyramid texts. The Coffin Texts had a different focus, including Osiris, families reuniting in the afterlife, and a focus on what the afterlife might be like. the focus is now not celestial but underground and riverine instead of the sky like the Pyramid texts. the New Kingdom is known for the Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Going Forth By Day. This is a book of spells to help one carry on after death, with the sunrise, and it was often found on papyrus in private tombs, with some sections in royal tombs. These spells combine solar and Osirian visions of the afterlife in the underworld. In the Ramesside 19th and 20th dynasties, the Amduat, meaning what's in the Underworld, shows up, giving riverine maps of the underworld, as well as the Litany of Re, which is just a list of names of the Sun God. Texts and mortuary literature became increasingly esoteric with the passing of time. Unas's burial chamber constructed in the 5th dynasty is a classic example of an OK tomb, with the burial chamber covered in pyramid texts divided into individual texts and the outside offering a niched palace facade. The MK rectangular coffins have very plain outsides and are richly decorated on the insides, with eye panels that let the deceased look out into the world. The texts on the inside of the coffin show it is there for the dead to read, and not for the living to read to the body. The Book of the Dead includes a variety of mortuary practice themes and one could choose the chapters they wished to be featured for their tomb. the Book typically begins with a prayer for the daylight, and a common story is that the heart is weighed against a feather of maat in a judgment. A heart scarab typically placed with the deceased has a spell on the back to stop the heart from telling tales on you. Prayers in the book of the dead show the belief that if you know the right thing to say, the soul should be alright. The Negative Confession list is a Common theme, chapter 125 of the book of the dead, offering a list of negative things you shouldn't have done, and all that is required is when the heart is being weighed you recite this list and Anubis brings the deceased to the underworld. The ib is weighed, and Thoth records the results. You are then brought to Osiris who allows you into the underworld or not. Book 110 of the Book of the Dead shows the deceased working in fields, an odd depiction because the elites for whom the book of the dead was written would not have worked in the fields, but the depiction of physical labor goes to the idea that in death, the bodies were still functional, as the body would be useful for the gods, and work would need to be performed in the afterlife. The 12th hour of the Amduat is depicted in Thuthmosis III's tomb (1481-1425 BC), which is decorated like an unrolled papyrus, showing the earth serpents pulling the sun god's barque till the beetle pushes the sun disc over the horizon, an analogy for the rebirth of the deceased in the afterlife. Funerals were not really represented in tombs until the New Kingdom, where in Ani's book of the dead, Ani shows a cortege pulling his mummy, trailed by wailing women, then his mummy in his tomb with calves to be sacrificed. In the Book of Hunefer, Chapter 23 details the opening of the mouth ceremony, which transforms the inanimate dead body into a breathing, eating, transfigured being, reanimating it. Preserving the body is not done in the stereotypical mummified fashion at all times, and this required lots of expertise and was expensive, so only a small number of elites were ever mummified. OK mummification efforts were very poorly done and only in the NK was preservation any good. Why don't actually know why mummification arose in the first place. Theories hold that because bodies are naturally dried by sang, and then began rotting in early reed coffins, Egyptians began mummifying the corpses to protect them from the vagaries of time. ED saucer and reed coffin mummifcation bodies ended up rotting. High status equipment coffin burials began in the 0 or 1 dynasty, using at first short coffins for contracted burials that resembled houses. Elongated coffins show up from the 1st dynast, and show mummification began probably around this time. ED (from around 3100 BC or unification including Dynasties 1 and 2 and going until the start of the OK in about 2686 BC) mummies have hands and jaw wrapped in linen, because otherwise they would fall off, and in some places, Hierakonpolis included, there are examples of ED scalped mummies that were dismembered and put back together again. The origin of mummification is most likely due to the ideology that there needed to be something for the immaterial aspects of the personality in which to unite and to come back, as there had to be an active body to eat and function in the afterlife. The process of mummification began with the brain being taken out through the nose or left to dry out. The heart was left inside to dry as it is muscle. An incision would typically be cut on the left side, wehre soft organs, including the lungs, kidney, liver, stomach and intestines, would typically be removed. The body cavity would then be washed and filled with linen, frankincense, myrrh, resin, and natron, the last two of which acted as disinfectants and bacterial control. Resin was also used in the cranial cavity to make the corpse smell nice and as plugs. From D19, the body was packed with linen to make it more whole and recognizable. The mummy would then be dressed, which went through various changes in use. Linen bandages would be put on and then sometimes clothes, as well as paint, or plaster-soaked bandages making a kind of papier mache shape, but the body rotted on the inside. The Mummy of Wah is like a giant cocoon, 375 m of linen, and including floral garlands, with necklaces and amulets added and resin everywhere. the amount of work that had gone into the production of all that linen shows the conspicuous consumption of the afterlife. The organs are put in canopic jars, who occasionally have the head of the individual in question. These features are important in the preservation of identity. Preserving identity is also seen in statuary and the habit of labeling anything and everything. Reserve heads are only from the 4th dynasty court cemetery, and show individual depictions of the deceased's face. These attempts at portraiture offer little in the way of hair or ears, and are placed at the top of the tomb shaft to help the ba find the body. Statues were placed in sealed chambers within the tomb and with which the deceased or the ba can become immanent and take in offerings, the sealed chambers are known as serdabs. short coffins became the anthropoid MK coffin, all part of trying to maintain the form of the deceased in the afterlife, and all have the deceased's name on them The MK wooden coffins have eye panels on the left side, and the corpse would be placed sideways within the coffin, looking out the eye panels towards the east to let the eceased be in communication with the false door, or where the offerings are made. Anthropoid coffins from the MK begin to replace all others Nested mummies, showing up from the MK, have a mask representing the person placed inside three coffins; King Tut's inner coffin was solid god, and the outer 2 were wooden. Tut's resin needed scraping back, as it had set like glue. Some coffins were fairly tasteless, as Sety I had 3 stone coffins. The tomb itself went from a pit to the most elaborate. Earliest tombs were constructed out of stone or mudbrick, and in the Predynastic and ED and even OK periods, many tombs were mastaba tombs, with low rectangular superstructures, originating from lower Egypt, where a shaft goes down through the roof to where the burial is inside. From the 4th dynasty in the OK there were niches incorporated into these tombs, as well as chapels, as specific sites for offerings to be given. The 5th and 6th Dynasties have an increasing focus on the inside of the tombs, and are decorated as if they were excavating rock cut sculptures. From the 6th dynasty, there were finally buildings. 6th dynasty tombs all have underground shafts, each relating to the false door where the offerings can be placed. The OK tombs put the focus on the false door, but in the MK, the focus is on the offering niche, which would have either a painted image or a free-standing statue of the deceased. Thebes tombs from the NK are temple tombs, and have lost the focus on making the tomb into a home for the deceased. There is an excavated chapel with a base for stelae, and from the 19th dynasty, small pyramids were used as tomb markers, and pyramidions would be placed on the top, depicting the solar disc of Re Horakhte. False doors remained an important feature, but not as important after the OK but are still offering sites. Ancestor cults existed in homes, but little is known. From Deir el-Medina, 60 to 70 ancestor busts, not named and of indeterminate identity, have been found in houses. Stele show the worshipping of the dead, and some decorations from tombs seem to show an associations between the deceased and home gardens. Soul houses were used, found above the shafts on nonelite tombs, constructed as a form of offering tray for those who could not afford elaborate superstructures. these pottery houses had molds of bread, vegetables, and more, showing an expectation of an afterlife for more than just the elite in later periods. Burial goods focused largely on the provision of food. Early dynastic meals included ribs, vegetables, bread, and beer. Clay models of food could also suffice. Shabtis were included from the 1st intermediate and MK period, and are figures magically associated with the deceased. Initially, only 1 shabti would be used, a simple stick with a face on it, or a well-crafted clay one, with its own sarcophagus or coffin, like a magical double or a replacement body if anything happened to the deceased's actual corpse. By the Ramesside period, the idea was that the shabtis would do the work for the deceased and the gods in the afterlife, as the deceased were expected to farm in the afterlife. By the Late Period (26th Saite Dynasty to Persian conquering from 664 until 332 BC), the number of shabtis included one for each day of the year plus an overseer for each group of ten days, so 401 shabtis. The identification of the shabti with the deceased was no longer the focus, as they were often just misshapen little jelly babies. A list of furniture would be included in the tomb of the deceased, including chairs, a carrying chair, a tent, boxes, jewelry, and funerary food set out. In the MK, servant models, little workshops or houses were included. Other strange objects, including paddle dolls associated with fertility, animals from the MK at Lisht, lots of jewelry, ritual equipment for opening the mouth, and magic wands for drawing circles were all included.

Crawford 2004

In late EDI, family members of all ages and genders were buried beneath the floors, representing that the family is the center of teh social life, and that specific family members must have been singled out for special tratment since not all could fit under the floor and the rest would've had to have been buried elsewhere. In the 3rd and 4th millennia, the dead were buried with grave goods seemingly designed to make the afterlife more comfortable for the deceased, including food, clothes, games, musical instruments, chariots, and weapons. And yet the afterlife described in myths, specifically Inanna/Ishtar's descent into the underworld, paints a picture of the underworld as a dreary place where the dead float around clothed in feathers eating clay and dust. Enkidu refers to the underworld to Gilgamesh as the "House of Dust". And yet in the myths of Ur-Nammu and the Death of Gilgamesh show that if the deceased provides a grand banquet for the gods or otherwise bribes them, it might be possible to secure a more comfortable existence in the afterlife, providing another possible explanation for the inclusion of grave goods in the tombs. To make generalizations about the whole population from a cemetery, the cemetery must be representative of that population in age, sex, and career. Grave goods, however, could have no direct correlation to status or profession in real life, as they could be provided merely showing what an ideal would look like, be provided in accordance with custom, or society coul make taboo the provisioning of certain items used in daily life or any grave gods at all, and care could be taken in ways that left no archaeological trace, like feasting, or in tomb construction. The range of 3rd millennium Mesopotamian burial goods shows that a reasonably accurate reflection of real life rather than an ideal is indicated by grave goods, but almost no cemeteries provide a full picture of all cross sections of society, apart from the royal cemetery at ur with its 16 royal tombs all the way down to simple inhumations, as recorded by Woolley. Life in the 2nd half of the 3rd millennium is often deduced from the Royal cemetery at Ur. Tepe Gawra is a cemetery in use from the early 3rd millennium with over 400 graves. We are not able to discern the precise date of these and debate exists. Noticeable of Tepe Gawra is its round house containing what Forest has discerned to be 27 burials, 18 for children and 9 for adults. The significance of burying children and adults together suggests that it is not accomplishment or merit that got one buried in the round house, but rather blood. Also, adults and children had nearly identical grave goods including bowls and beads. Giving these children the same burial treatment as the adults suggests a high degree of social stratification, and the assumption is that these children and adults lived within the Round House. The amount of graves discovered, however, is far fewer than would have resided in the Round House. Kheit Qasim is another cemetery that had a round house and similar evidence of social stratification. When the settlement at Tepe Gawra was destroyed, the grave goods begin increasing in quantity and in more graves. A stunning electrum wolf head was found in tomb 114, which demonstrates the wide range of luxury grave goods now included at Tepe Gawra, including lapis, carnelian beads, rosettes, maceheads, gold, which now appeared in significant quantities for the first time, a whetstone, and six jasper pebbles. The meaning of the pebbles could've been used for magic rituals or as counting pieces in the hexagesimal accounting system practiced at that time. Based on the wide range of function of goods in Tomb 114, it is tempting to say that it speaks to the tomb owner's status as some kind of chief, as the goods speak to ritual economic and military functions. Who the Tepe Gawra people chose to bury ultimately eludes us, as it seems that it was mostly based on status, but some spots could probably have been earned. Children and adults received different burial treatments, with only adults being buried in side walls, and children being buried in loose sand Kheit Qasim was an early 3rd millennium cemetery in the Hamrin valley, near the border betwen modern Iran and Sumeria. It also had particular people buried in a large brick structure, most likely for social reason of hierarchy, but two notable differences separate traditions of Kheit Qasim and Tepe Gawra. The early phase of burials at Kheit Qasim shows small graves clustered around larger brick ones, with the smaller ones lacking grave goods. The larger graves had weapons, daggers, and metal objects. It is hypothesized that these were for males, or soldiers, and women were thought to be in the smaller graves, and almost no children were found in Kheit Qasim at all. These are however just guesses, and should not be taken as a guarantee of reality. Also different about Kheit Qasim is the metal knives left on offering tables outside the larger brick graves. This is a practice not seen elsewhere in contemporary Sumerian cemeteries, but rather in Iranian funerary practices, marking Hamrin as a barrier ground influenced by outside traditions. The Jemdet Nasr cemetery actually goes back until EDI, and contains all inhumation burials in traditional southern mesopotamian fashion. Bodies here can be divided into two groups based on possession of afterlife materials. Those with grave goods largely appear to be from the same time. Forest hypothesized differentiation in sex based on the goods associated with the bodies. Bodies lying on their right side had more weapons in the pit, and bodies lying on their left sides had jewelry in the pit with them, so Forest proposed that lying on right side was for males, and the left side for females. By early 3000 BC, social stratification was evident in burial practices, but as no cemeteries contain a representative cross section of the entire society, any generalizations we make are only assumptions. Also, there are no written texts from this time period detailing their funeral ideology, despite what seems to be a fully developed afterlife tradition. Khafeje was a cemetery in Diyala in Northern Mesopotamia near modern-day Baghdad. It was in use during the ED II period, which was from 2750-2600 BC. This included 168 examples of house burials across the ED period, in sites ranging from single rooms to mansions, so potentially spanning all social classes. Remarkable about Khafeje was that it showed the first use of marked graves rather than just simple inhumations, cist graves with a plano-convex roof. Individual burials existed, as did 2 or 3 in one grave, and in one case, 5 people were buried in the same tomb, suggesting family vaults. Obviously there were more people who had lived in Khafeje than were buried in these tombs, so most people must still have been buried extramurally. What is odd about the grave goods provided is that they don't seem to be distinguished by the social rank of the person, as they were mostly pottery, with some copper and more exciting items like pins or axes, and inhumations continued alongside these tomb burials. There was not a widespread disparity in kinds of material provided, which is odd because typically different dwelling sizes are associated with different hierarchical ranks in society, but dwelling sizes could simply have been due to family size, with one individual in a single room and extended families in a larger dwelling. The grave goods included here suggest ritual practice was involved, and Postgate suggests that the burial of identical goblets and plates was because they had been used in a funeral meal. Cemetery Y at Kish has examples of house burials also from the ED II and ED III periods. Interesting about these burials is that 4 confirmed and up to 7 cart burials were found, containing multiple people and equid skeletons. One cart with four wheels was raised on a platform, and had multiple people inside of it. Reign rings, lapis lazuli, carnelian, and beads were all inside of it. Initially, the archaeologist who found these wanted to say that they were princes buried in chariots, but there were cylinder seals, typically meaning an association with government and bureaucracy found in simpler tombs but not their own at Cemetery Y at Kish, so Crawford proposes they were more likely just family vaults. Woolley excavated what is our most reliable so far source for determining funerary practices in 3rd millennium mesopotamia to this date, the Royal Cemetery of UR. He uncovered 1850 graves. The cemetery was in use from the EDIII period until the Akkad period. 400 graves were from the ED period, 400 were identified as Akkadian, and 750 are undateable. Notable graves at the royal cemetery include the 16 "royal graves" which are multichambered graves including up to 75 or 80 subsidiary burials that appear to be human sacrifice, and lots of sparkly grave goods from this period as well. Also interesting are what Woolley refers to as the burnt graves, bodies that were partially cremated on their head and upper bodies, but otherwise normally buried with reed matting or a reed or clay coffin. No specific grave goods marked them as special, as some had cylinder seals, some didn't and some had metal items, and some didn't, but some particular set of beliefs must have separated these people. It is likely these burnt graves came from the ED period, but at least two appear to be from the Akkad period. Up to 25 total burnt graves were discovered by Woolley. Other than the 16 royal graves and the 25 burnt graves, the rest of the graves at the Royal Cemetery of Ur wer e simple inhumations with the body wrapped made in reed matting from across all social strata, but excluding children, who were most likely buried under the floor of houses in single burials. Sometimes the bodies of those buried are well-enough preserved for us to reconstruct what they looked like, such as for the Lady Puabi and Meskalamdug. Puabi was under 5 feet, and Meskalamdug was 5'5". Their teeth indicated a varied and healthy diet with well-processed flour. Meskalamdug's statues emphasized his prominent nose, and their skull size measured cranial capacity. We don't know whether those interred at Ur were Semitic or Sumerian. Clothing evidence has discerned fabric of three kinds: a fine weave, a coarse weave, and a weave with strings hanging off of it, which could have been like the fleece that was depicted in art. Women wore long-sleeved open front jackets with beading around the wrists, and no evidence of pants or shirts have been recovered. They sometimes also wore elaborate headdresses with metal ribbons, and metal garters. Men wore open jacket or a shirt, trousers with buttons and a belt supporting a dagger and a kaffiyeh, and both sexes could wear pinned cloaks. This archaeological evidence contrasts with the depictions in art, which showed men in long fleecy skirts, shirtless, and with shaved heads, and women were clothed in a sort of toga. This could be due to that fact that in pictures, the men and women were carrying out specific ritual functions that required these outfits, whereas they were buried in their court dress. Little evidence for furniture survives. We have pictures of people in chairs and thrones before offering tables, nd Puabi has a large chest inlaid with shells that probably served as her wardrobe, as well as a sledge, and a litter on which her body lay, but little archaeological evidence for furniture survived because it was probably made of organic materials. Muscles on Puabi's legs indicated that she would have spent much of her time squatting, so we do not know how likely it is that she would have even sat in these chairs. To a certain extent, professions can be deduced from grave goods. An instrument would represent a musician, jewelry a lady of the court, weapons a soldier, saws for a carpenter, a bead maker seems to be buried there, some people seem to be fishermen, but agricultural workers are not well-represented. If the afterlife was as grim as depicted, why so many people were willing to be buried alongside the royals makes no sense. Woolley believes them not to have been murdered but to have gone willingly to their deaths and drank poison. The importance of their master/mistress would have been believed to be enough to make them enter the afterlife. The issue with assuming that these are royal graves comes from the fact that neither of their names appear on the king list. However, Moorey has proposed that they were potentially priests or priestesses of Sin/Nannar. The royal cemetery of Ur was unique in its size and wealth for ancient mesopotamia. Other mid 3rd millennium sites show similar trends of grave goods but no other subsidiary burial evidence has been found. The potential variety in burial style comes from the variety of city-state traditions. The style of artifacts gradually changes but burials are still single inhumations, wrapped in matting, in a crouched position with hands still in front of the face. They were the kewelry that they wore in life, and take with them food for the afterlife. Sargonic jewelry and seals are different. Ur III tombs of the ruling family were located above the older cemetery, just outside the sacred enclsure. Ur III burials come from below private houses. They are not randomly placed, but rather in chapels behind the living rooms, and infants, adults, and children are all buried at these chapels. These are the first example s of family mortuary chapels and the first good evidence we have of funerary offerings. The extramural cemetery was in use by less prosperous members of the community. Ur III marked a radical difference in burying royalty. After Ur-Nammu, all kings were deified while alive, so the superstructure is now more important than the burial chamber below. The offering cult to the dead king thus required being carried out and were sites of worship. The ritual complex at the southeast corner of Nebbuchadnezzar's tenemos has 3 important chambers, the middle chamber the most well-preserved. The bricks are stamped with Shulgi's name, and he either built this for himself, or his father Ur-Nammu. Amar-Sin's chamber to the south has bricks stamped with his name, and the northern structure was built with leftover bricks from the other two and is in the worst shape. The skeletons recovered there are mostly female, and it is assumed this is where the queen consorts were buried. The tombs have been looted, but evidence of fabulous decoration including gold leafed designs and precious gems seems to have been in place. Lots of skeletons found in the structures do not provide certain evidence of human sacrifice as it could just have been family members buried during construction of these buildings as neither were finished. Shulgi was interred in one of the two vaults he had in his temple, and there were rooms to the side for priestly administration and a kitchen where ritual meals were prepared. The Death of Ur-Nammu is a classic legend describing Ur-Nammu's descent into the uderworld, where he gives a great feast for all the gods, and this bribery is another interpretation for the lavish offerings, and is the best evidence for everyday life in Sumer that could be obtained from the dead. It is not possible to detect any major changes in the burial customs of individual people, and rites and goods buried don't change. Only in late ED did human sacrifice happen, and it wasn't until Ur III that kings were deified. Virtuousness did not get you anywhere in the udnerworld, it was rather one's social status on the earth that did, because the comfort of the deceased depended on what goods they brought with them to bribe the gods or for personal use.

Kemp 1989

Kemp details many examples of Egyptian funerary culture. Hierakonpolis, in the southern region of Upper Egypt, has unusually rich and well-constructed tombs. Tomb 100 is the first painted tomb, from predynastic kings. The art style is alien, but 2 themes in it survived throughout Egyptian history: the victor smiting enemies with an upraised mace and the ruler standing beneath an awning, reminiscent of the sed festival. These themes were reiterated on the Narmer Palette, announcing the foundational elements of Pharaonic culture present since the beginning of the dynastic sequence. The Step Pyramid of Djoser constructed around 2700 Bc in the 3rd dynasty is important. the royal tomb was a public statement in the nature of kingship, and changes in its architecture are the best guide to perceptions of monarchy. ED Nagada and Hierakonpolis have tomsbs which by their size, brick linings and paintings imply royal ownership. By the 1st dynasty, dramatic changes show the greatly increased wealth and organization of the ED state, and teh first steps towards monumental scale architecture are taken. The Abydos cemetery at Thinis is the resting ground of 1st dyasty kings and the last 2 of the 2nd dynasty buried in an isolated part of the cemetery, Umm el Qa'ab, meaning mother of pots. Brick chambers in large pits, simple superstructures in the form of a plain square enclosure filled to the top with sand and gravel, only denoted as royal by a free standing stone stele bearing the Horus name of the king, mark these mastaba tombs. These tombs however also had a 2nd element, a separate building located closer to the edge of the floodplain, just behind the site of Abydos. The Shunet es-Zebib, belonging to Khasekhemwy the last king of the 2nd dynasty, is one of these structures, whose purpose we don't know. Thick walls give it a paneled effect, and a double wall of mudbrick increases effect. The building itself was empty except for a small stone structure with some rooms and jars in them. Other tombs from the ED period also have this paneled facade, which show elaborately painted bottom parts, having decorations of brightly colored matting lashed to horizontal poles. Panels, recesses, and mattings have a fixed decoraton scheme used in later sarcophagi and offering places in tomb chapels, and the paneled facade is also the basis for the heraldic device in which the Horus name of the ED kings was written. Palace facade architecture is hypothesized by Kemp as used because the palace was the setting of rulership. Elites, while not allowed to expressly use this architecture, could use a scaled down version, setting up a barrier between the king and his people. Te step Pyramid at Saqqara, Djoser's tomb, the 1st or 2nd 3rd D king, represents the 1st building of truly monumental scale, a codification of forms present since the 1st dynasty. This was an original construction because it was the first large permanent stone building. Temple T in the Step Pyramid complex was one of the few real buildings around all the dummy buildings, and is similar to Abydos funerary palaces. It was made in a style reminiscent of wood and matting, and the interior was carved as if closely set wooden logs, the type of roof which demands solid walls of brick or stone. Temple T combined Temple architecture to a more substantial one, externally a simple ideal type of the temple. Pyramid Texts help us interpret the meaning of tomb architecture. By the time of the Pyramid texts, written in Unas's 5th dynasty, the meaning of the steps of Djoser's pyramid have been lost. We can however say that monarchy needed a formal setting for the display of the leader in person. Shenet es-Zebib and the plaza at the Step Pyramid are sites for reenacting rituals of leadership, where Djoser could act out ruling Egypt for eternity, in his sed festival stone buildings. The dummy buildings around the step pyramid, a series of small rectangular structures, exterior detailing which is a sold replica of the temporary shrines of timber and matting that would have been used at a sed estival, a renewal of kingship ceremony due to take place every 30 years. Early royal tombs are an arena for the pageantry of kingship to be played out eternally, depicting the king as a territorial claimant protected within divine architecture. By the 4th dynasty pyramids have become the true pyramids of which we think when we imagine Egypt, and are no longer at the center of a complex of other buildings but at the end of linear architecture at the edge of the alluvial plain. Sed festival architecture has vanished, replaced with a temple for the king's offering cult via the offering place on the east side of the pyramid, featuring a group of statues. Sed images are just one theme among many others on temple walls. The true pyramid is the symbol of the un, and the king is now called son of Ra. These pyramids show a new conception of kingship, from merely a territorial ruler to a manifestation of the sun god, showing up in architecture. The king unifies the triumph of order over the chaos by holding territorial power. The pyramid of Meidum, built by Huni at the end of the 3rd dynasty around 2757 BC was the first of a new generation of pyramid tombs. Pyramids were no longer focused on kings as territorial rulers but rather as a symbol of the son. The mortuary temple began as tiny and the pyramid dwarfed it, but the contrast was later softened. Egypt's great culture had a limited scope at the beginning; codification began at around the start of the 1st dynasty, and art historians select the best pieces from elite cemeteries, which biases records to suggest a geographic homogeneity and cultural traditions. The Narmer Palette is the culminating object of Predynastic times, from the 1st dynasty 2100 BC, showing a religious iconographic homogenization occurring. Abydos came into existence close to the beginning of the 1st dynasty late in the OK, temple site which lay adjacent to the mound was rebuilt. An art history approach to early cultural Egypt tends to oversimplify and discard evidence that does not fit. Pharaonic formal disciplined art was slow to come to every corner of Egypt. The ideal type is important to elite Egyptian art. Hieroglyphs develop according to the ideal type. Hieroglyphs from the 1st dynasty, and at least by the 4th hieratic exists. To,n art wanted to make an external environment for the dead. Banquets, hunting parties, and estate management all featured. Standardized God images, were included. Abydos was the cult center of Osiris from the OK but the first written reference comes from the 11th dynasty, as the local cemetery jackal god takes on Osirian aspects.

Wendrich 2010

Members of ancient societies more explicitly thought of themselves as members of a group instead of as individuals, but in Egypt there is evidence for being considered an individual, as after death, the deceased were considered distinct human beings with a known name. It still remains difficult to construct an identity from what we have found as regional differences complicate things. Personhood for the Egyptians included a supernatural aspect linked to religious concepts and associated with afterlife notions. The symbolic construction and the result of social interaction with the living and dead as ongoing. Thus identity before or after death is actively constituted. Most sources of identity texts are from the funerary realm. Only a small layer of Egyptians are represented in the text. The NK is referred to as the "golden period of Egyptian history" by Wendrich, from 1549-1075 BC. Shifts in the regional emphasis relating to the places of origin of the 18th-20th dynasty rulers. The 18th dynasty claims legitimacy over the Hyksos, foreign enemies. NK propaganda brands the Hyksos rule a time of decline as the 2nd intermediate period. The Hyksos Egyptian conflict wsa mostly between local Theban and Memphite rulers of the Delta, and in the MK, the capital had moved to Itj-Tawy from Thebes, and Thebes was trapped between KErma in the south and the northern Hyksos rulers. The 18th dynasty Theban pharaohs conquered the Delta and expanded their influence into the Levant. Thuthmoses I, III, Amenhotep II, Hatshepsut wife of Thuthmoses II her brother, explored into Punt, showing the expanded power of these rulers. Akhenaten/Amenhotep IV is considered the world's 1st monotheist, but this is not necessarily a justified classification as his actios were to destroy the power base of the god Amun, while other pantheon gods were actively venerted. Theological changes did occur, though, revering the sun god Re. 18th dynasty pharaohs maintained contact with Mitannis, Kassites, and Hittites through gift exchange and royal marriage. Tut's tomb shows foreign garments, showing precious gift exchange impotance, but also depicts bound foreigners, showing a complex relationship. Dynastic struggles following the rule of Sety's widow Twosre left the country in civil strife, and the 20th dynasty was not related to the Ramessides, even though the king named himself Ramesses III. Egypt stressed not so much direct familial hereditary ties for a pharaoh, but rather coming from the same region. Amarna was built in the 5th year of Akhenaten's rule, and abandoned after about 30 years, 3 years into Tutankhamen's reign. It was a traditional town uilt around a ceremonial route. Deir el-Medina was used before and after Amarna, on the west bank of the Thebes. NAmes found on these places position the Egyptians in time and spac.e A family name in modern times places us in a lineage. Egyptian children would get a name at birth, their ren a'a, a great name, and a ren nefer, a good name. Death was a highly individualized process concerning the deceased and the familyt but not the state. The ren was an identifying element of a person before and after their death. Funerary art representation did not usually attempt to actually show the person, but names would be inscribed of the deceased and others. Large tombs of officials in Saqqara from the OK make it possible to identify the person because they are depicted larger than surrounding characters and near the false door and offering table. Statues and coffins could be reused just by writing a new name, which was done quite a lot in the 21st dynasty. Rela likenesses from the Old Kingdom wee found at Giza and Saqqara, and reverse heads with specific features and textual references to an image according to life. Written names become incredibly important after death, more so than in life, to let the right person benefit from the goods and offerings. The self was linked to the ka, ba, shewt, akh, and ib, but the meanings of these aspects changed over time. The Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, Book of the Dead, and Underworld Books, show a constitution of teh self. The ka is a double, and in royal iconomgraphy is depicted as being created at the same time as the living body. The divine birth of the king shows the king being followed by a figure with the same appearance with the ka hieroglyph on its head. The meaning of ka though is closer represented to life force and vital energy. Commoners are not represented being born with a second figure. After death, the ka is an active self, part of a network of ongoing interactions, and this network that spans including ancestors continues into the NK. Deir el Medina has stelae found addressed to specific ancestors and nameless and featureless busts can represent ancestors in general. In funerary literature, death is a transitionary process. Bodily fluids were though to transform post mortem into the semen of Osiris, a life-bringing force, so death thus results in life. The ib is another important part of the self, the seat of intelligence and courage, and is the organ weighed against the goddess of truth Ma'at. whe it is too heavy, the heart is eaten by Ammut, a hippo-lion crocodile. The heart is treated separately from the rest of the organs and put back in the body, not just jars. The ba, which is often translated as soul, but this imposes a Christian body-soul opposition, is a manifestation of the power of the gods and a divine king. Bas are a part of the living king from the Middle Kingdom, while ancestors also are part of the ba. For non-royals, the ba is the free-ranging aspect of the body after death which has bodily functions and after the NK is depicted as a bird with a head. The ba usually appears with a shewt, a shadow, in coffin texts, and it plays a fundamental part in akh development. The 11th hour of the Ambuat, "That which is in the Underworld" we can see the ba and shewt moving about and uniting during the day. the shewt, depending on the position of the sun, is the visible aspect of the person. Not only the king had a ba during life, but most texts refer to bas of commoners in the afterlife. The MK and NK saw the expansion of religious rites in the afterlife. The akh is the deceased freed from the body, the self after reconstitution and rebirth, enabled by embalmment and mummification, and akhs can follow Ra. Becoming an akh is a goal of the deceased, and the deceased want to become an akh, meaning well-equipped and venerable. Most of these rituals follow the form for male sexuality and this would be mediated for females. The dead were well provisioned partly to protect the living from the revenge of recently deceased family members. Letters to the deceased describe good care that the living carried out for the dead. Tombs could however be redistributed, when the caretakers dies, when the deceased's name was not known and the living no longer had a personal relation to the deceased the deceased joined the general pool of ancestors. These were active entities who could intervene on behalf of or against an individual. Although a few ancestors received special deified status most joined the general pool of ancestors. Identity is in practice self-representation and definition by others, and the tacitly adhered to identity classifiers are best defined through a study of material culture. The body is important as the living body bears social markers, and so doe the corpse. Higher classes thus gain more important material classifiers as burial equipment. the body needs a name to be identifiable as a person. Material cultures of grave objects hae names inscribed, especially sculptures, and tomb reliefs. religious identities closely connected with the name identifier ka, ba, ib, iru (appearance), shewt, and akh, represented by imagery, texts, and statuary. Food is another important part as offering tables have idealized meals presented for gods and inhabitants. material items are signifiers of identity, and part of a self0definition of a group trying to create a common representation. We rely on a funerary context because death requires a definite establishment of identity and few settlements survive. Self-definition is not for commoners, and is limited to luxuries. Biographies inscribed in high officials' tombs are inscribed identities, as only certain people could write one, and social circumscription limited what could be said. The 4th dynasty marks the beginning of tomb autobiogrpahies, beginning with a single list of rank and title to the important functions held during a lifetime. These were standardized in composition, to convince the reader family and the priest that the deceased was worthy of offerings. Biographies highlight the personal relation with the pharaoh as the main sign of worthiness. Visual representations depicting the dead and the living together show depictions of offer bearers, people carrying furniture and burial equipment into tobs are indispensable in OK tombs and these depictions continued into the NK period. Scenes shown near the transportation of the deceased on coffin on a sledge or carried by bearers on a bier. Images could be not actually carried out and could just be honored traditions, but the processions depicted did actually take place, and carrying furniture into the tomb was a way of showing status and wealth before these items were shut up forever. Those who carry the bier are often mentioned by name in texts. The changes in stye reflect the changes in agency or the relation to producer or patron who ordered the work.

Scurlock 1999

Text and archaeological sources allow us insight into Mesopotamian practices. Beliefs about the nature of one's soul shaped belief about nature of death and attitude towards the deceased. To participate in the afterlife, one had to be buried properly and have offerings maintained. The ideal way to die was in a special funerary chair which could be rented, surrounded by family and friends. The chair served as a place for the etemmu to sit after the liberation of the soul. Preparing or burial meant washing the body and tying the mouth shut, anointing it with oil, and then partaking in the taklimtu, the displaying of goods, with royal families spending lavishly, as seen in the spectacular grave goods of the Neo-Assyrian queens at Nimrud. The dead were given provisions including food for the arduous journey to the afterlife, and these included sandals and for royals even a chariot. Some grave goods were gifts for the gods, like gifts for a host on arriving to their house. The poor were wrapped in matting or cloth and given pottery vessels and the wealthier were buried in a sarcophagi. Asshurnasirpal's was made of dolerite, and over 12.5 ft long with a half-foot-thick roof. People could be buried at home or in public cemeteries. An odd tradition was the substitute king. If a divine warning of the potential of the sudden death of the king, the king would hide and someone would be chosen to dress as him while he carried on governing in secret. Occasionally, this went wrong, as once, a king died and his gardener, who was his substitute, refused to give up power and took the throne. This only occurred in extreme circumstances, and usually an animal sacrifice would do. The text describing the burial of a substitute king details how he should be afforded all the pomp of the actual king, and his scepter, throne, and table and weapons were to be burned. The texts also say that his consort and retainers were to accompany him as well, but this is the only textual evidence for human sacrifice. No other actual reference to human sacrifice occurs other than in the funeral procedures of a substitute king. Ur and Kish (?) provide the only evidence for human sacrifice that has been proven archaeologically. Mourning rites were important as a public display of grief. Lamentations were composed, as seen in Gilgamesh's flowery exaltation of Enkidu. The family members inverted their normal practices, discarding finery and not bathing. When Enkidu visited the netherworld disguised as a dead person in a new robe and sandals and anointing, they would not then let him live. To get to the underworld, the deceased could do so through two main ways. They could cross the river with Khumut-tabal, whose name means Quck, take me there. The other road by boat was down the apsu, the sweeat water under earth, the ground water, which was the second of three nether regions of Mesopotamian cosmology. The underworld was viewed as quite close. A trench would be enough to reach it, so burying people together in family tombs literally reunited them. The netherworld was at first sight gloomy, but not invariably so, as Shamash would come, bringing the light of the sun while the earth was indarkness. Clay too was not their sustenance, as the deceased would be provided with clear water and bread, living a shadowy imitation of life on earth. Ereshkigal is queen of the underworld, and Nergal was seduced by her, not by her cooking, but by her body, as she stripped off her robes. After a week-long marathon sex session, Nergal longs to escape, but it was too late. Ereshkigal was not satisfied, and she demanded that he be sent back to her. Ereshkigal presided over the Annunaki, who directed the deceased in the underworld, ad a female scribe would check their name against a list to make sure that they were legitimately supposed to be there. Shamash had a court mediating between the living and the dead. Shamash would mediate between the living and the dead in his courts, and would punish the ghosts who annoyed the living to too great an extent, as well as make sure that the neglected dead would receive offerings. Gilgamesh's court is perhaps were demons would go to resolve underworld disputes, but this is just Scurlock guessing. Judgments made by the courts of the Annunaki were not moral. When the Annunaki assigned the deceased to a role in the afterlife there is no indication that they took into account one's behavior or sins during life on earth. Kings were to receive a deluxe treatment in the afterlife, getting to wait on Ereshkigal and serve meat and baked goods, and would thus get special offerings. Also indicatory of the unfair nature of distribution of comfort in the underworld was that the epic of gilgamesh suggests that the more sons one has the better treatment one receives in the afterlife. The offerings could be localized with a statue of the deceased, and calling out their name while making offerings. The dead could come back to the earth during Dumuzi's festivities at Duzu, coming up to smell the incense, as mentioned in Ishtar's descent to the underworld. another festival during Abu, at which time the dead could be consulted, and the living would do so through ointments or other ritual objects and ask the deceased to stop bothering the living. The ghosts would turn to demons (utukku) if mistreated, especially those who were murdered before their time. Suicide however was not dying an improper death. Those who died unmarried and with no children became a particular kind of demon, lilu/lilitu for male and female, who at night would sneak into people's rooms and try to seduce them to make the next generation of lilitu in the underworld. The ghost, etemmu , was not the same thing as a dead person, a mitu. The etemmu in the underworld is described as not appearing fully human, having an ox's head with human feet. Traveling a lone could make you a target for ghosts, and sorcerers could use ghosts to annoy people, and gods could punish people with a ghost haunting, especially murderers. A spirit could be pacified with a variety of methods, including tying a knot, ointments, burials of a surrogate statue, offering food and pouring libations, and strange ghosts, wandering unattached spirits with no one at all to care for them, were also made offerings if they were believed to be causing problems, but of less expensive goods. Ghosts could be reborn by sailing across the apsu, through the water table, to a womb. The etemmu was associated with a corpse, a pagru, and a living being also has other parts. The body has a life force or breath, known as the napistu, and the ziqiqu, a sexless bird that could slip through small apertures and was associated with dreaming because it left the body when one was asleep. In comparing the etemmu versus the ziqiqu, a useful analogy is the free soul versus the body spirit. The ziqiqu and the etemmu both go to the netherworld when one dies, but considerably more was written about the etemmu, which could cause harm, but the ziqiqu was harmless. By mixing together the remains of their enemies in mass graves, Assyrian kings went to a lot of effort to reduce their enemies to harmless ziqiqu. When the body ceased to exist, so did the potentially harmful etemmu, and the ziqiqu would flit around as it lack the power to interfere in human affairs. Dying was conceived of as a gradual shedding of human connections. One went from a corpse, to an ancestor, to a collective ancestor, to a ready-to-be-recycled soul. Death was still not welcome, as the namtaru, one's personal fate demon, was spoken of with fear as if it were evil, and references to death were euphemistically avoided for fear of summoning it. Ancient Mesopotamians were realists who understood death would come for everyone, even heroes like Gilgamesh. "From the days of old, there has never been anything eternal. The sleeping and the dead, how alike they are, and yet even they don't draw a full picture of death."

Potts 1997

The Epic of Gilgamesh exemplifies how immortality was reserved solely for the gods, and how mortality was all that mortals could hope for. Utnapishtim, the sole mortal to escape death, tells Gilgamesh that he did so by divine decree. Death is becoming a mitu, meaning a dead one, and an etemmu, or a death spirit, which is not evil, the udug/utukku (Sumerian/Akkadian) is the evil spirit. The etummu is a shadow-like being recognized as a living sign of the deceased. The period leading up to death in Mesopotamia is not incredibly well known. The body would be wrapped in some sort of covering, typically a shroud or reed matting. The burial represents the passage of the dead to the afterlife, suggested as being underground, and the location of the bodies buried acted as a site of contact between the living and the dead, and the gravesite is a sort of home for the deceased. The taklimtu, kind of like the MEsopotamian version of a wake, is a showing of the deceased and his belongings. The only extant descriptions of it are royal procedures. In one, a daughter-in-law walks around the bed of the deceased three times carrying a lit torch, kisses his feet, burns cedar, extinguishes the torch in wine, and then does the same procedure for his grave goods. A Neo-Assyrian description shows a body being laid out in his stone sarcophagus after his anointing with his goods that he "loved" with him, including gold and silver. The sarcophagus was then closed, but the goods were left out for Shamash, the sun god, to see. Some argue that because the sarcophagus was closed before the goods were shown, the taklimtu was only a display of wealth and not the body. The dead were sent off to the afterlife with things that they "loved" as well as gifts for the gods. Ur-Nammu brought with him livestock and weapons to give to the gods. Lugalanda, the governor of Lagash, sent his son after the death of his son's wife many luxury goods including a sledge, furniture, makeups and oils, and a slave girl. Steinkeller believes this slave girl was sacrificed, but the only evidence for human sacrifice exists in the royal cemetery at Ur. Human sacrifice saw the dead individuals not as people, but as grave goods, because they were buried without the usual ceremony. Grave goods are not an adequate reflection of an individual's status in life, as they can be purchased to be buried, as seen in goods received for the payment of a field, and there is no way to know if they were intended for use of the deceased or as gifts to the gods. Food offerings were also a major part of the grave goods. From the prehistoric period (5th millennium onwards), there were animal skeletons found around graves, and throughout history, these were included in tomb offerings. Humerus of sheep, fish in jars, parts of animals, sheep, goats, joints of meet, equid skeletons, basically all sorts of animals, just their parts, or their bodies. Again, however, we don't know if this was for the consumption of the deceased or for the gods. The vision of the afterlife saw it as a kind of city. The deceased had to cross the mythical Hubur river, and then pass through 7 gates, to get to this city where Ereshkigal ruled with her husband Nergal in a royal court surrounded by the other underworld gods, the Annunuku, who would provide instructions to the deceased of their role in the underworld. Judgment was carried out in the afterlife, but not the traditional Christian conception of judgment. Qualifications for a more comfortable afterlife seemed to be related to earthly productivity and wealth, and in the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu relates what seems to be a direct proportional relationship between number of children fathered and one's comfort. Death was final and inferior to life, and mortals had to stay there forever. Even gods, in order to leave, had to find someone else to take their place, as seen in the myth of Ishtar/Enanna. The only ones who could leave freely were the demons, the utukku, who had no concept of right and wrong. The dead were occasionally given offerings, but it is not entirely clear if this was obligatory. It seems to have been the responsibility of the kin to make offerings to their deceased, but only as far back as those whose names would have been known, the grandparents. People could be adopted by those with no heirs to give offerings in the afterlife in return for being made inheritors. Lugalanda, who was deposed by Urukagina, was given offerings by Urukagina into the 5th year of Urukagina's reign. Urukagina also maintained Lugalanda's daughters from years 3-6 of his reign, but this should not be projected across all of Mesopotamian history as common practice. Offering lists from different periods detail what, how much, to whom and when and why offerings needed to be made to he deceased, including food, clothes, jewelry or animals. These offering lists include statues that would be paraded or receive offerings inside the temples. It is commonly thought that rich Mesopotamians would set these statues up while still alive, showing that the Mesopotamians did give some thought to the afterlife. These statues would receive regular deliveries of clothes, jewelry, livestock, and barley and emmer, and the offerings would continue after the deceased had passed away. Perhaps many of the statues found thought to be of unknown gods were actually temple statues of dedicants. Sometimes, but very rarely, people were revered centuries after their death, as seen with Dudu, a priest under Entemena who ruled in 2400 BC, were revered until the Ur III period, or Ur-Nanshe the establisher of the first Lagash dynasty from 2500 BC who was given offerings until the OB period era almost 1000 years after his reign. The kispu, or the regular tending of these graves, was of incredible importance to the Mesopotamians. Assubranirpal boast about removing the bones of the slaughtered Susans and taking them back to Assyria to prevent the ritual pouring of drink and offering of food that would be performed bi-monthly in the kispu. The importance Mesopotamians placed on making these offerings is seen with a Chaldean king removing with him the bones of his ancestors and their statues when he was afraid Sennacherib would conquer his city and defile their graves. The importance given to tending ancestors' graves comes from the fact that if the deceased is neglected they will come back as a spirit to irritate the living. Priests known as maqlu priests were hired to pacify these restless spirits through giving them offerings. Burial initially extended even to enemies slain in battle, as kings would pile their bodies up and cover them in mounds, known as berutum. Rimush's annals detail killing 16000 men and heaping their bodies into a pile and heaping a berutum over them. By the OB period, the Code of Hammurabi details a change in attitude towards the corpses of enemies, however. It says they should be left in the battlefield and destroyed. Destroying a corpse by fire or water was a punishment reserved for solely the worst of crimes, as then the ghost would be doomed to float around unattached forever, annoying his families and neighbors alike. Proper burial was of paramount importance for the rich and poor alike to enter into the underworld, but what constituted a proper burial came in many different forms. Pit burials were common in all periods, and the body was likely wrapped in some kind of shroud or reed matting that has often rotted by now. Sherd burials, where the body was placed on a bed of sherds or covered by sherds, was also popular in all periods. Jar burials became quite common and most likely began out of convenience, as infants were first found buried in common household bowls, and later adults were found sealed in ceramics with wood tops. By the Ur III period, specially made burial jars were being produced. Children were buried inside two bowls, one placed on top of each other, and adults were buried inside two bowls, one with a smaller rim that fit inside the other, and this would be lain horizontally. Wooden or reed sarcophagi were common from the late Jemdet Nasr period, from 3100-2900 BC. Ceramic sarcophagi did not appear until ED II, and these were bath-tub shaped with an oval outline and the deceased were buried in flexed positions with their knees bent, and a lid of reed or wood or pottery was used, and sometimes the sarcophagus was actually placed over the deceased. Stone sarcophagi were attested from the Neo-Assyrian period for some queens, and anthropoid coffins in the Seleucid era show the Egyptian influence. Slipper coffins existed that were closed at one end into which the deceased would be inserted lying down. When the Parthians invaded from Iran in the 3rd c BC, bodies begin being buried in extended form in both coffins as well as pit burials, which was not physically possible in bathtub tombs. Cist burials, with a simple brick superstructure, were present from the 5th millennium Ubaid period, and by the ED period, from 2900-2350 BC, they had vaulted brick roofs. All variations were considered proper and from the Ubaid period onwards there was no use of ossuaries as these were all primary burials, and were also individual. Burials of multiple retainers with a primary individual were not mass burials, but the retainers were seen rather as human grave goods. House burials occurred both in Northern and Southern Mesopotamia, but not at Nippur. Postgate hypothesizes house burials occur because of increased urbanization and residents simply not having access to land outside of the urban space to put their dead; thus Nippur must have an as of yet undiscovered cemetery. Six to eight people interred in one tomb was the average in the Neo to Late Babylonian period at Uruk, and Ur during the Isin Lars aperiod had a higher concentration of infant burials under house chapels, including 32 under 1 house. There was no rule governing the placement of cemeteries. They could be inside the settlement, like at Ur, or outside, like at Tepe Gawra. A recurring theme was swamp burial from the 3rd millennium. Building tombs close to or in lakes and marshes means they are near the domain of Enki/Ea, god of creation and also of seawater, which could potentially explain the lack of proper numbers of burials.

Snape 2011

The body is the vehicle for reanimation in ancient Egypt, and the tomb was an opportunity to display wealth, a place of communion with the dead, as well as a site of disposing bodies. The dead could hold property, and goods were given to them because they wre property holders. Eternity could be provided for by simply having the right toolkit. Preservation of the body meant that in areas where damp soil and the annual Nile flooding occurred, bodies would rot, but desert soil preserved very well the human body and its accompanying delicate textiles and flora. Desert edges were chosen as the sites of cemeteries. Local cemeteries overlook the town and the river, so the living and dead make up part of the same landscape, as well as not wasting agricultural land. Preservation of the dead gave impetus to preservation as a tradition, as when Egyptians saw dead bodies they gave special attention to the fact that the desert had preserved them. The emphasis on the preservation of a tomb, body and goods meant that archaeologists would look for tombs instead of settlement sites, and museums funding expeditions wanted objects to display and expand the collection, as a good yield led to a cemetery focus. Royal cemeteries of the ED period and the OK, starting from the mini-kingdoms at Nagada, Abydos, and Hierakonpolis, emerged before 3100 BC. Mudbrick architecture was seen, part of an emerging display of kinship. The Narmer palette shows the iconography of unification that would be recognizable to anyone 2000 years later. Mastaba tombs were the earliest form of royal tombs, undifferentiated physically from those of the elite. these were low rectangular superstructures with underground burial chambers seen for the elite Dynasty 1 tombs at Saqqara. Nagada tombs have debated ownership, but the provisioning with elite grave goods points to high status. By the end of teh predynastic period, a fundamental bifurcation between the king and the people was in place. The king could interact with the gods, whereas others could not, and the difference between royal and non-royal afterlife is suggested. After unification, the development of royal tombs mainly focused on maintaining a royal site appropriate for the king's developing power, and it became a setting for ritual action. most upper class was buried near the new capital at Memphis, but the royals of some D1 and D2 were buried at the southern site of Abydos at the Umm el Qa'ab, meaning mother of pots, cemetery. D1 kings' tombs were badly plundered in antiquity, but show using valuable and exotic raw materials for architectural elements, granite from Aswan, cedar from Lebanon, and grave goods included gold and semiprecious desert stones and Palestinian wine. Den's tomb had a stairway and tons of subsidiary bburials. Although it was looted, it is dentifiable as royal as it has a granite floor. An annex present was probably used for a ka statue, like the later serdab at Saqqara of Djoser. The royal tombs at the Umm el Qa'ab cemetery are comparatively small with regard to the elite tombs at Saqqara. Emery has proposed that the superstructures at Umm el Qa'ab were dummy tombs, and that the Saqqara tombs were the real Dynasty 1 tombs. The northern cemetery at Abydos has monuments belonging to D1 kings, such as the Shunet es-Zebib of King Khasekhemwy in dynasty 2. It is a large mudbrick structure whose purpose has not been ascertained, but proposed related to where the king would exist for eternity, as the large structures would be there place. The d3 step-pyramid of Djoser supports this theory. The boat burials around Shunet es-Zebib are also of unknown purpose. It is proposed that they are a royal fleet available for the king should he wish to leave the palace, or a funerary flotilla. By the OK the idea of a royal afterlife was in place that was different than other people's. The sacrifices and retainer burials around predynastic tombs and the main royal tombs at Umm el-Qa'ab are interpreted as sacrificial burials of low-status servants, women, and dogs to accompany the king, but retainer sacrifice was not practiced in dynasti Egypt. Snefru and KHufu embarked on afterlife journey alone. Dynasty 2 leaves a confused mortuary record. Some kings were buried at Saqqara underground with no surviving superstructures, but by the end of the 2nd dynasty Peribsen and Khasekhemwy are back to being buried at Abydos. The tradition of having a priest serve a mortuary cult is seen in the statue of the kneeling Hetepdief, inscribed with the names of three 2nd D kings, and shows the start of trdition of having a priest serve a mortuary cult. By the 3rd Dynasty, the royals used the Memphite necropolis at Saqqara as the location for royal burial. Djoser's step pyramid is a combination of innovation and tradition, a niched palace facade enclosure wall showing the influence of the style of mudbrick enclosures like the Shunet es-Zebib at Abydos. The heb-sed is the court

Mesopotamia Death and Funerary Practices Lecture

There is an overlap between religion and funerary practices, as giving gifts and praying to the god is similar to the treatment of the underworld. It is important to keep in mind that many practoces regarding funerals show that death is an inversion of life. The Gilgamesh epic, which would've been well-known in the ancient world, depicts death is sudden, with the death spirit, the etemmu, drifting in abstract infinite nothingness. The epic describes how Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, tries to avoid this bleak ending, but when he finds the one man who escaped death, the moral becomes that death is inescapable for everyone, and that the only way to kind of defeat death is through the construction of monumental architecture, having children, and doing good deeds. The Story of Ishtar's decent to the underworld describes a dark and dusty place where the dead float around eating clay and dust, and this limbo is inescapable, regardless of behavior or status, and there is neither heaven nor hell. Although some gods get to have a decent time in the underworld and IShtar can come back, humans are stuck there as etummu. In transitioning to the underworld, we go through semi-porous stages. Two main ways of crossing to the unerworld appear in mesopotamian literature. Gilgamesh merely crossed the Hubur river, but in the Descent of Ishtar to the underworld, she has to descend below the watertable, or absu, and go through seven gates and talk to seven gatekeepers. The boundaries between this world and the next are semi-porous, and if the burial goes wrong, or the family isn't giving offerings, the death will come back as an etemmu ghost, which is not scary, merely irritating, and can bring sickness or steal babies. Ereshkigal is the queen of the underworld, and is Ishtar's sister, mirroring Ishtar's position as queen of the divine pantheon. The underworld's mirroring of the divine pantheon is an inversion of life, so the queen Ereshkigal is in charge instead of her husband Nurgal. Ereshkigal is depicted having bird feet and is associated with owls. The depiction of death is split through archaeological and textual evidence into phases. Pre-burial consists of the washing, anointing, and clothing of the deceased. the family does not bathe or wear jewelry or nice clothes, inverting normal social practices, as it is not only the dead transitioning to death but the living transitioning to life without the dead. Death is an inversion of life, and by inverting normal practices, we symbolize the transition. Occasionally, a semi-public viewing of the body and the grave goods occurs, known as taklimtu in Akkadian, for which the body may be lightly roasted or baked to display. Bodies could be buried in houses, which was usually for the commoners and young, or in public cemeteries, for wealthier individuals. Pit burials were the most common in prehistory and could be used in a house or a cemetery. They were cheap and stable Mesopotamian soil meant that unlike in Egypt due to the sandy soil, digging a meter or a meter and a half deep hole was possible. The body was usually crouched, possibly symbolizing an association with sleep, but it is also just less work to bury a crouched body. Pretty much always there were a few pots that accompanied even the most meager of burials. Coffin burials showed up in the 2nd and 1st millennia BC, the idea originating from international trade, especially seen in the anthropomorphoid coffins taking inspiration from Egypt. These coffins however don't really resemble Egyptian ones. The Kassite jar coffins have been found dating to 1450 BC at Uruk and Nippur, and U shaped Bathtub coffins appeared around 500 BC in New Babylonian society, but lying down elongated coffins were not used until a time contemporary with the Romans in the Parthian periods, and despite variations, pit burials were always more common. Built tombs established a wide variety of structures. As a general rule, northern built tombs used stone, while southern built tombs relied on brick. Built tombs could exist in homes, such as the 2nd millennium OB tent tombs built beneath the floor, lined with mudbrick, where five or six people would be shoved, and communal tombs were occasionally common. Non-typical burials occur, giving us clues as to what is normal. Mass graves, such as those at Tell Brak at Syria, typically show evidence of conflict. Bodies buried at Tell Brak were not interred for some weeks of months after death, and were dismembered and buried jumbled together in the nude. This goes against normal practices of giving the dead clothing, and the idea that the body needs to be intact in the afterlife. Textual and artistic evidence provides displays of how MEsopotamia treated the dead, through ritual corpse abuse practiced on enemies. A separate Akkadian word for a large pile of bodies in a mass grave, berutum, as opposed to an normal grave, a qubrurun. The stele of the vultures, from ED III, 2600-2350 BC shows a pile of dismembered slaughtered bodies being picked at by vultures, lying in a battle field. The slightly diminished pile is probably due to the practice of delaying burial for these people, and in the bottom, there are people going up and down ladders appearing to be burying people in a mass grave. 1st millennium BC neo-Assyrian art depicts collecting the heads of enemies, and the annals of Assyrian kings details further corpse abuse. Ashurnasirpal describes going into Nairi, slaughtering their dead, piling their bodies like rubbish, and putting their heads in a pile. Body parts were used as trophies, humiliating the enemy in death, as seen in the depictions of Ashurbanipal's enemy, the king of Elam, head dangling from a tree in 630 BC. It is still odd, however, to practice corpse abuse as a ritual severing of relations between the body and the afterlife, because the textual evidence of the afterlife shows that in theory everyone was supposed to be a disembodied soul floating around regardless of status, nationality, or actions. Grave goods are also of questionable purposes because if the literature is right and you are a disembodied spirit it is difficult to conceive of their purpose. They could be for the dead to use themselves, like Egyptian shabtis, or they could be a display of the living family's wealth, or they could be gifts for the gods of the underworld. An example of burial goods include those of Meskalamdug from the Royal Cemetery of Ur in EDIII period, 2600 BC. He was buried with a gold helmet, gold daggers, and axes. We guess he was a king, because the useless gold helmet could be both a display of his status and his family's wealth. The weapons associate him with military ventures and mean he was probably a soldier in day to day existence. A Kassite jar burial from 1450 BC includes a small animal sacrifice, some silver, some cloth, and much less grave goods. The burial of 4 or 5 generations of Neo-Assyrian queens at Nimrud from around 750 BC contains an incredible wealth of grave goods, and tons of gold and crowns. Just boxes and boxes of gold, repetitive even, designs including the same earrings, were recovered. The women were also buried with the similar type of bowls and vessels as the lower classes, showing they had undergone the same preburial rituals, just on a much grander scale demonstrating the power of the neo-Assyrian empire and the individual wealth of the women. The inclusion of grave goods in general shows death was not just about the dead, and that the living used these burials as a chance to reinforce their own social structures. Post-burial rituals, known in Akkadian as kispu, were necessary to keep the dead from floating back across into the world of the living to irritate them. The oldest son, as the largest inheritor, was responsible for making these offerings. In cases where there was no heir, legal documents have been recovered detailing adoptions of someone, sometimes an adult, known as arrogation, to inherit the property in return for carrying out the kispu ritual obligations. Evidence of these offerings is found in a neighborhood at Ur. In houses, low stone benches appear to be offering tables, and holes in the ground where liquids could be poured to the deceased below show up as well. Making these offerings is paradoxical because the texts held that the deceased at only clay and dust in the afterlife, but apparently they could also be sustained by the offerings made by their families. When the families made these offerings they would call out the deceased's name, making sure the dead was the one who received them and also reinforcing their connection to the community. Death was inevitable and eternal, and the highlight seemed to be pretty much coming back as a ghost to annoy random relatives. Pessimism about the afterlife is seen in the divergence between bleak texts and practice, which appears to be a bit more hopeful and can have an insight from archaeology itself. All rich and poor alike were washed and anointed before death, and the inversion of normal practices through the burials of dismembered enemies gives insight into the need for an intact body in the afterlife. Grave goods could also be used by the dead. Why these practices were put in place if there was no hope for the afterlife is paradoxical. Yet the dismemberment and decapitation could be more just about ritualistic humiliation of enemies, and the grave goods could also be more about the living displaying wealth than provisioning the dead. As a caveat to the last point, specific grave goods did seem to be just for the dead, to indicate identity, like the crows for the queens at Nimrud in 750 BC, or stelae indicating profession.