Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East: Recent Contributions from Bioarchaeology and Mortuary Archaeology - Hardcover

Benjamin W. Porter

9781607323242: Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East: Recent Contributions from Bioarchaeology and Mortuary Archaeology

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1607323249 ISBN 13: 9781607323242

Publisher: University Press of Colorado, 2015

"Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East" is among the first comprehensive treatments to present the diverse ways in which ancient Near Eastern civilizations memorialized and honored their dead, using mortuary rituals, human skeletal remains, and embodied identities as a window into the memory work of past societies. In six case studies, teams of researchers with different skillsetsosteological analysis, faunal analysis, culture history and the analysis of written texts, and artifact analysisintegrate mortuary analysis with bioarchaeological techniques. Drawing upon different kinds of data, including human remains, ceramics, jewelry, spatial analysis, and faunal remains found in burial sites from across the region s societies, the authors paint a robust and complex picture of death in the ancient Near East. Demonstrating the still underexplored potential of bioarchaeological analysis in ancient societies, "Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East" serves as a model for using multiple lines of evidence to reconstruct commemoration practices. It will be of great interest to students and scholars of ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian societies, the archaeology of death and burial, bioarchaeology, and human skeletal biology."

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

This important and innovative volume presents an unusual confluence of bioarchaeological, mortuary, and historical data analyses in order to provide an integrated approach to the study of the dead in the ancient Near East. . . As a signpost toward the directions Near Eastern bioarchaeology is taking, Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East will be extremely valuable for all interested in the archaeological study of the dead. --Glenn Schwartz, The Johns Hopkins University

About the Author:

Benjamin W. Porter is assistant professor of Near Eastern archaeology in the University of California, Berkeley s Near Eastern Studies Department and a curator of Near Eastern archaeology at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology. Alexis T. Boutin is associate professor of anthropology and coordinator of the Cultural Resources Management MA program at Sonoma State University.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.