FRIENDS OF ASOR WEBINARS
How did the dead die in Ancient Judah? Death as a social process in Iron Age tombs
Friends of ASOR present the next webinar in the 2023-2024 season on April 4, 2024, at 6:00 pm EDT, presented by Dr. Matthew Suriano.
The descriptions of death, dying, and burial in the Hebrew Bible are brief and ambiguous. The biblical text contains instructions on how to remove the ritual impurity of the dead, but does not contain any instructions for how to bury the dead. Likewise, the description of postmortem existence is ambiguous and seemingly contradictory. The psalms often depict the place of the dead, called Sheol, in tomb-like terms. In poetic passages like Psalm 88, Sheol is described in tomb-like terms as a dark and dreary place. Yet other passages like Gen 37:35, 44:29–31, and Eccl 9:10 imply that Sheol is the common fate for all humanity. Yet the tomb also holds positive connotations in biblical literature. An ideal death involved being buried with your kin inside the family tomb (2 Sam 19:38). Idioms for death used in the Bible, such as “gathered to one’s kin” (see Gen 25:8) and “lay down with one’s fathers” (see 1 Kg 2:10), imply the collective burial rites that would have occurred inside the family tomb. So how do we reconcile these contrasting images? The archaeological exploration of ancient Israelite mortuary remains provides insight into this problem. The excavation and survey of Iron Age tombs from Judah show that the dead received two burials, an initial interment when the body was brought to the tomb, and a secondary burial when their bones were transferred to a collection of bones (called a repository) stored inside the tomb. Death as transition, in ancient Judah, was observed through the physical changes that occurred in the corpse. This talk will examine the possible meanings of this transition, where the body moved from a burial bench to a re-interment inside a bin of bones, and suggest that it indicates a process of dying that began once the corpse was brought to the tomb. This process of dying, which contrasts with our modern concept of clinical death, provides new ways of looking at the complex images of death we find in the Hebrew Bible such as Sheol.
Matthew J. Suriano is an Associate Professor in the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland where he teaches Hebrew Bible, ancient religions, and archaeology. A former fellow at the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, Suriano has also participated in several archaeological excavations and surveys in Israel, most recently at Tel Burna. He has written extensively on death and burial in the ancient world, and his book A History of Death in the Hebrew Bible (Oxford University Press, 2018) won the American Society for Overseas Research’s Frank Moore Cross Award. His research interests also involve Jerusalem and he is currently studying the monolithic tombs in Silwan.
This webinar will be recorded and all paid registrants will be sent a link to view the recording.
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All proceeds from this webinar are used to fund scholarships for members as well as increasing ASOR’s online resources, which are free to the public.
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After you sign up for a sponsorship online or over the phone, email the names and email addresses of your guests to Katherine Schmitt at membership@asor.org, who will send your guests a confirmation and the Zoom link before the webinar.
Dr. Darren P. Ashby joined ASOR as ASOR CHI’s Programs Manager on March 1. He previously worked at ASOR from 2017 to 2019 where he reported on threats and damage to cultural heritage and led a project to document the current condition of Jewish cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria. In his new role, Darren will work with CHI leadership to support ongoing projects, strengthen relationships between ASOR’s members and partners, and further develop ASOR’s abilities to protect, preserve, and promote the rich cultural heritage of Southwest Asia and North Africa in collaboration with local communities, heritage professionals, and civil society organizations.
Regan Baker graduated from The George Washington University with a Bachelor’s of Art in Archaeology in May 2023. As an archaeology student, Regan quickly became familiar with ASOR, and she is excited to be coming on as the Office Coordinator. Previously, she interned at the Colosseum while studying abroad in Rome, Italy during the Fall 2022 semester. There, she worked in collections storage under the guidance of a supervising archaeologist and assisted with a project on marble pieces from the Imperial Box.
For the people of Mesopotamia, the past was a source of knowledge and inspiration. Their reverence, both in terms of preserving early buildings and monuments and reviving images and ancient writing styles, is evident in archaeological and textual records. While Mesopotamian monuments and images were produced as historical works, inscribed with texts that marked them clearly and linked them to specific events and times, their efficacy was understood to be unlimited. Dated to the reign of king Nazi-Maruttash (ca. 1307–1282 BCE), the stele of the Goddess Lama, currently in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, offers an excellent opportunity to explore Mesopotamian interaction with the past during the Kassite period (ca. 1574–1157 BCE). Through visual and textual analysis, this talk examines the survival of Lama imagery in this period. It reflects on the religious/political significance of the stele’s production within a broader context. The aim is to demonstrate that the crudely carved and seemingly unimaginative reuse of an earlier protective goddess figure was a deliberately archaizing image and an inspired citation of the past.
Helen Malko is the Associate Director of the Stanford Humanities Center, where she oversees various academic programs in the humanities and interpretive social sciences. Before joining Stanford, she worked at the American Center of Research (ACOR) and Columbia University Global Center in Amman, Jordan. Helen holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Archaeology from Stony Brook University and a BA from Baghdad University, and she is trained in cultural heritage and preservation studies. She has been awarded multiple fellowships at the Metropolitan Museum and Columbia University in New York and has conducted fieldwork and capacity-building projects in Iraq, Jordan, and Turkey.
Pp. 4–13: “Religion(s) in Seals: Old and New Challenges,” by Fabio Porzia
Pp. 14-19: “Mastering the Seven-Headed Serpent: A Stamp Seal from Hazor Provides a Missing Link between Cuneiform and Biblical Mythology,” by Christoph Uehlinger
Pp. 20-25: “Stamp Seals as Jewelry: Identifying Body Ornaments through Seal Impressions,” by Noa Ranzer
Pp. 26-31: “Making a Good Impression: A Typology of Mounted Seal Impressions in the Middle Bronze Age Southern Levant,” by Tatjana Beuthe
Pp. 32-40: “‘Male until Proven Otherwise?’: Searching for Women with the Help of Inscribed Stamp Seals from Jerusalem,” by Bruno Biermann
Pp. 42-52: “Scratching the Surface of Middle Bronze Age Scarabs: Investigating Enigmatic Marks on Stamp Seals from Lachish and Megiddo,” by Nadia Ben-Marzouk and Ben Greet
For the last two decades, the Pyla-Koutsopetria Archaeological Project has explored the coastal region of Pyla village. Located 10 km east of Larnaka and immediately below the famous Late Bronze Age site atop the Kokkinokremos coastal ridge, Koutsopetria featured a now-infilled embayment which likely served as a harbor in antiquity. The location of the site near an ancient harbor and astride the major road running between the ancient cities of Kition and Salamis likely led to the fortification of the prominent coastal height of Vigla in the Hellenistic period. This site likely served as strategic outpost for mercenaries during the tumultuous period after Alexander the Great’s death when his successors battled for control over the island and the Mediterranean littoral. The forces occupying the fort appear to have abandoned it within a generation of its construction leaving behind a fascinating window into the tumultuous life of this strategic site.
During the Roman and Late Roman periods, a prosperous town developed in the coastal zone. Excavations in the 1990s by the Department of Antiquities revealed parts of an Early Christian basilica and the intensive survey carried out by our team showed that the site had trade connections across the Mediterranean. The rise and decline of the Roman period settlement at Koutsopetria was less abrupt than that of its Hellenistic predecessor on Vigla, but our work at Koutsopetria similarly offers a window into an era of significant change on the island. Our excavations and survey at Koutsopetria have revealed that the church and surrounding settlement likely experienced a gradual abandonment over the course of the 7th and 8th centuries. This suggests that the site did not succumb to a catastrophic end at the hands of Arab raiders, but declined gradually perhaps as a result of the changing economic and political landscape of the region.
R. Scott Moore is Distinguished University Professor of History at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
William Caraher is Associate Professor and teaches in the Department of History and American Indian Studies at the University of North Dakota.
