Tombs on the Borders of the City : Funerary Use of Babylon's City Walls During the So-Called Late Periods

2014, 53, Tom 53, Nr A

Maciej Grabowski

DOI

Publication date

09.02.2015

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Humanities

Discipline

archeology

Language of publication

English

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Abstract

Religious, socio-cultural and possibly economic factors determining the location of tombs and cemeteries remain one of the less known aspects of Mesopotamian burialcustoms (PoSTGATE 1990: 234). Taking into account the very basic opposition between intramural and extramural burial sites, it is clear that throughout the history of ancient Mesopotamia the former took preponderance with a diversified funerary use of urban space, including burials in living quarters and houses themselves. A particularly interesting choice of location eluding the abovementioned opposition, is represented by the burials discovered in the ruins of city walls, i.e., on the borders of the proper urban space. Late periods in babylon provide some of the most explicit examples of this type of secondary use of city walls, and these will be investigated in the present paper.

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Bibliography

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