Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East: Recent Contributions from Bioarchaeology and Mortuary Archaeology. ed. by Benjamin W. Porter and Alexis T. Boutin (review)

In this edited volume, Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East: Recent Contributions from Bioarchaeology and Mortuary Archaeology, Porter and Boutin (eds.) and their contributors seek to interpret ancient burials through a multi-disciplinary approach that combines “at least two different, yet complementary, analytical techniques together to investigate” the way(s) in which societies in the ancient Near East “remembered and commemorated the dead” (p. 2). Their premise is that until recently the scope of most interpretive analyses of ancient mortuary practices have been limited by focusing on one or several selected elements of the mortuary assemblage, rather than attempting to integrate all, or as many as possible, of the numerous components that they comprise. From this, they helpfully conclude that engaging the traditional interpretive tools (culture, history, texts, ceramics, tools, weapons, tomb construction, location and orientation) with the biological data, including osteological, dental, and faunal analysis, paints a much “richer and more robust” (p. 2) picture of the mortuary context while also offering fresh insight into the living.

In their introductory chapter, Porter and Boutin establish the scope of this volume and discuss a range of disciplines and methods, including mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology, skeletal and dental evidence, textual sources and artwork, noting the various ways in which they signify both remembrance and commemoration of the deceased (pp. 2–8). They also acknowledge the “segmented roles” (p. 2) that each discipline plays relative to the evidence on which they focus, the data they produce, and the contributions they make to the interpretation of mortuary practices, all of which underscores their fundamental premise that when combined, these data sets offer a more rounded picture of mortuary practice and remembrance.

Ironically, in highlighting each discipline’s particular contribution, it becomes equally clear that the specific “skill set” (p. 2) required for each discipline entails years of education, training and experience, allowing little time for cross-disciplinary preparation. Becoming adept in multiple disciplines such as biology, chemistry, physical anthropology, zoology, linguistics and archaeology requires more years of study and funding than most possess or are willing to sacrifice. This explains, in part, the fragmented and frequently compartmentalized nature of mortuary study and underscores why collaboration and cooperation across the disciplines and between scholars is vital to the interpretation of the entire archaeological record, yet alone mortuary analysis. No single discipline or individual can embrace every facet and these papers demonstrate how teamwork can illuminate various dimensions of mortuary interpretation. In the remaining chapters the authors investigate “acts of memory work” by adopting “a host of interdisciplinary techniques” drawn from the fields of mortuary archaeology, bioarchaeology, and culture history (p. 12).

Each chapter is effectively a ‘case-study’ focusing on the specific ways in which the dead are remembered at selected cemetery sites, illustrated by an amalgam of interdisciplinary data. In chapter 2, Campbell, Kansa, Bichener and Lau, citing the sixth millennium cal. BCE Death Pit at Domuztepe in southeast Turkey, consider the action of burial, not limited to physical remains but also objects, both within the funerary context and beyond that of the grave, and comparison is made between commemoration, remembering and forgetting, and the disposal of refuse. The complex, mixed-use of the Death Pit and subsequent transformation of the space suggests that “burial can be a matter of degree” (p. 33). Burial marks a changed relationship and facilitates the process of forgetting or moving forward, creating “a boundary between the buried object and the living world, [by] placing the buried object in a different context hidden from everyday life” (p. 53). This paper highlights the transitional nature of relationships associated with death and its accompanying burial practices.

Ethnicity and the interrelationship between the Sumerian and Akkadian peoples are discussed in chapter 3 by Pestle, Torres-Rouff, and Daverman. Based on excavated grave...