#pot burials

[ancientstuff]

Punic tomb discovered during water works in Malta's Zabbar

The pottery from this tomb looks a bit rough, but the preservation is fantastic. Rescue archaeology saves the day again!

[archaeologicalnews]

Were Egyptian 'Pot Burials' a Symbol of Rebirth?

Ancient Egyptians who buried their deceased kin in pots may have chosen the burial vessels as symbols of the womb and rebirth, scientists argue in a new paper.

Pot burials in ancient Egypt have long been considered the domain of the very poor. In a paper published in the journal Antiquity, however, archaeologists Ronika Power of the University of Cambridge and Yann Tristant of Macquarie University in Australia assert that pots weren't just a last-ditch choice for the desperate. Instead, they wrote, pots may have symbolized eggs or the womb, and their use may have indicated beliefs that the dead would be reborn in the afterlife.

"[I]t is hard to dismiss the visual similarities between pots laden with human bodies with limbs contracted into the so-called 'foetal' or 'sleeping' position and gravid uteri or eggs," the researchers wrote. "It is clear that further study is required to untangle the symbolic meaning of this particular mode of burial, which has clear associations with gestation and (re)birth." Read more.

[ancientstuff]

Canaanite child's jar burial revealed in ancient Sidon

***

Child burials are so sad to excavate. Often, they’re buried in jars. Too small for a regular coffin? Perhaps not considered a person yet, so buried in the first thing to hand? Poverty? 

[archaeologicalnews]

Ancient Egyptian pot burials were not just for the poor

New research is stirring the pot about an ancient Egyptian burial practice.

Many ancient peoples, including Egyptians, buried some of their dead in ceramic pots or urns. Researchers have long thought these pot burials, which often recycled containers used for domestic purposes, were a common, make-do burial for poor children.

But at least in ancient Egypt, the practice was not limited to children or to impoverished families, according to a new analysis. Bioarchaeologist Ronika Power and Egyptologist Yann Tristant, both of Macquarie University in Sydney, reviewed published accounts of pot burials at 46 sites, most near the Nile River and dating from about 3300 B.C. to 1650 B.C. Their results appear in the December Antiquity. 

A little over half of the sites contained the remains of adults. For children, pot burials were less common than expected: Of 746 children, infants and fetuses interred in some type of burial container, 338 were buried in wooden coffins despite wood’s relative scarcity and cost. Read more.

[autodidact-adventures]

Egyptian Pot Burials

Some Ancient Egyptians were buried in pots or ceramic urns.  It used to be assumed that pot burials were for poor children, recycling domestic items instead of buying a coffin.  But recent research has shown this is not the case.

A review of 46 grave-sites containing pot burials (about 3300-1650 BC, and most near the Nile River) shows that just over half the pot burials were of adults.  Also, of the children buried in these grave-sites, 45% were buried in pots; 44% in wooden coffins; most of the rest in baskets; and a few in containers made from materials such as reeds or limestone.

Nor were all the pot burials of the poor.  The child of a wealthy governor was interred in a pot (placed inside the governor’s tomb); the pot contained beads covered in gold foil.  Other pots contained various goods, including good, ivory, ostrich eggshell beads, ceramics and clothing.

The bodies were either placed directly into the pots, or the pots were broken/cut to fit the bodies.

The researchers suggest that the pots may have been deliberately chosen to symbolize the womb (and/or eggs), and thus represent gestation & rebirth into the afterlife.

There are references in Egyptian scrolls & carvings to the womb as a vessel or pot.  A chapel wall carving in the Seqqara necropolis, for example, shows dancers chanting, “See the pot, remove what is in it!" (referring to birth).

Eggs were sometimes associated with the inner coffin of a burial.  Also, the pot-buried corpses are curled up into a fetal position, like babies in the womb.

With regards to the “recycling” poor theory - ancient cultures recycled everything, and even wealthy, high-status people were sometimes be buried in recycled tombs or sarcophagi.

[Source] [Source]