Death and Burial in Arabia and Beyond

Book excerpt: This volume represents the proceedings of the conference entitled Death, Burial and the Transition to the Afterlife in Arabia and Adjacent Regions that was held at the British Museum from November 27th to 29th, 2008. Contents: Introduction to the contributions on burial archaeology (Lloyd Weeks); 1) Remarks on Neolithic burial customs in south-east Arabia (Adelina U. Kutterer); 2) Ornamental objects as a source of information on Neolithic burial practices at al-Buhais 18, UAE and neighbouring sites (Roland de Beauclair); 3) On Neolithic funerary practices: were there necrophobic manipulations in 5th-4th millennium BC Arabia? (Vincent Charpentier and Sophie Mery) ; 4) The burials of the middle Holocene settlement of KHB-1 (Ras al-Khabbah, Sultanate of Oman) (Olivia Munoz, Simona Scaruffi and Fabio Cavulli); 5) Results, limits and potential: burial practices and Early Bronze Age societies in the Oman Peninsula (S. Mery); 6) Life and Death in an Early Bronze Age community from Hili, Al Ain, UAE (Kathleen McSweeney, Sophie Mery and Walid Yasin al Tikriti); 7) Patterns of mortality in a Bronze Age Tomb from Tell Abraq (Kathryn Baustian and Debra L. Martin); 8) Discerning health, disease and activity patterns in a Bronze Age population from Tell Abraq, United Arab Emirates (Janet M. Cope); 9) Early Bronze Age graves and graveyards in the eastern Jaalan (Sultanate of Oman): an assessment of the social rules working in the evolution of a funerary landscape.(J. Giraud); 10) An inventory of the objects in a collective burial at Dadna (Emirate of Fujairah) (Anne Benoist and Salah Ali Hassan); 11) Collective burials and status differentiation in Iron Age II Southeastern Arabia (Crystal Fritz); 12) Camelid and equid burials in pre-Islamic Southeastern Arabia (Aurelie Daems and An De Waele); 13) The emergence of mound cemeteries in Early Dilmun: new evidence of a proto-cemetery and its genesis c. 2050-2000 BC (Steffen Terp Laursen); 14) Probing the early Dilmun funerary landscape: a tentative analysis of grave goods from non-elite adult burials from City IIa-c (Eric Olijdam); 15) The Bahrain bead project: introduction and illustration (Waleed M. Al-Sadeqi); 16) The burial mounds of the Middle Euphrates (2100-1800 B.C.) and their links with Arabia: the subtle dialectic between tribal and state practices (Christine Kepinski); 17) Reuse of tombs or cultural continuity? The case of tower-tombs in Shabwa governorate (Yemen) (Remy Crassard, Herve Guy, Jeremie Schiettecatte and Holger Hitgen); 18) A reverence for stone reflected in various Late Bronze Age interments at al-Midamman, a Red Sea coastal site in Yemen (Edward J. Keall); 19) The Arabian Iron Age funerary stelae and the issue of cross-cultural contacts (Jeremie Schiettecatte); 20) Sabaean stone and metal miniature grave goods (Darne ONeil); 21) Excavations of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Yemen: a Minaean necropolis at Baraqish (Wadi Jawf) and the Qatabanian necropolis of Hayd bin Aqil (Wadi Bayhan) (Sabina Antonini and Alessio Agostini); 22) Funerary monuments of Southern Arabia: the Iron Age early Islamic tradition (Juris Zarins); 23) Burial contexts at Tayma, NW Arabia: archaeological and anthropological data (Sebastiano Lora, Emmanuele Petiti and Arnulf Hausleiter); 24) Feasting with the dead: funerary Marzea? in Petra (Isabelle Sachet); 25) Biomolecular archaeology and analysis of artefacts found in Nabataean tombs in Petra (Nicolas Garnier, Isabelle Sachet, Anna Zymla, Caroline Tokarski, Christian Rolando); 26) The monolithic djin blocks at Petra: a funerary practice of pre-Islamic Arabia (Michel Mouton); 27) Colouring the dead: new investigations on the history and the polychrome appearance of the Tomb of Darius I at Naqsh-e Rostam, Fars (Alexander Nagel and Hassan Rahsaz); 28) Introduction to the contributions on Arabia and the wider Islamic world (Janet Starkey); 29) The intercessor status of the dead in Maliki Islam and in Mauritania (Corinne Fortier); 30) Cairos City of the Dead: the cohabitation between the living and the dead from an anthropological perspective (Anna Tozzi Di Marco); 31) Observations on death, burial, graves and graveyards at various locations in Ras al-Khaimah Emirate, UAE, and Musandam wilayat, Oman, using local concerns (William and Fidelity Lancaster); 32) Shrines in Dhofar (Lynne S. Newton); 33) Wadi Ha?ramawt as a Landscape of Death and Burial (Mikhail Rodionov); 34) Attitudes, themes and images: an introduction to death and burial as mirrored in early Arabic poetry (James E. Taylor); 35) Jewish burial customs in Yemen (Dina Dahbany-Miraglia); 36) In anima vili: Islamic constructions on life autopsies and cannibalism (Jose M Bellido-Morillas and Pablo Garcia-Pinar); 37) Instituting the Palestinian dead body (Suhad Daher-Nashif).