In tracing ancient practice over the centuries, four issues may be used as guides to questioning the published archaeological record:
1. Burial demography: How sociable are the dead expected to be? The living may place in one and the same underground space a single individual, or two or more persons. Burials before 1500 bc tend to be, on these terms, more individual than later burials (Grajetzki 2007). With individual burial spaces, organizers may group burials according to priority in social relations. For example, members of one family or extended kinship group might be placed together, as often assumed, or as around regional governor tombs (2000-1850 Bc), officials who worked together may all be buried next to the tomb of their lifetime master (O'Connor 1974; Seidlmayer 2007). At ground level, a large superstructure or enclosure around individual burials may gather together the members of a group, whether kin or colleagues. In the construction of shared space for an afterlife, specific space and timing are crucial. Therefore, as well as documenting the presence of single/pair/mul-tiple burials, a second key consideration is whether the burials observed took place at a single moment or sequentially over a shorter or longer period of time. Three sets of practices might be kept in mind: (1) burying together people who died at one time (single time of burial, single space), (2) burying people in one tomb but in separate chambers (different times of burial, shared entrance or shaft, but still individual burial spaces). and (3) burying people together in an undivided space over a period of time (sequential burials in single space, opening the burial space for each new burial).
2. Body position: How do the living lay the dead in the ground? Body position offers the best evidence for the geographical spread of embalming techniques. The embalming techniques developed at the royal court in the third millennium BC are reflected in the position of bodies stretched out, lying on their sides, rather than contracted in fetal position, as in fourth-millennium BC burials even of higher status. In the second millennium BC, embalming continues to improve, with less emphasis on padding the body with linen to absorb moisture; perhaps as a result, the body position changes again, as the deceased is lain out flat, face up (Bourriau 2001).
3. Links between the worlds of the dead and of the living: At each burial place, has evidence been found for the uses of the space above ground? This history also requires any well-documented negative evidence, where the surface has been carefully recorded, and found not to yield any evidence of use. Examples of such reporting may be rare in the published record.
4. Material placed with the dead: Why did the living place material with the deceased? Burial equipment varies according to time period and social level, and anthropology warns against assuming the motivation behind each practice (Ucko 1969). Where we might assume that items were the personal property of the deceased, anthropologists can cite examples where mourners gave an item of their own for the burial, making the burial equipment a celebratory posthumous gift. Items might be given not to adorn, celebrate, or protect the deceased, but instead to protect the living from the dead. Modern readers have to approach the evidence on its own terms, asking how we can identify among a range of options: not only gift or property but - more broadly in intent - adornment, healing, protection, regeneration, sustenance, and tradition.
World History
