Preliminary investigation of 3rd millennium BC infant burials at Kish, Iraq.

William J. Pestle (Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago)
and
Christina Torres-Rouff (Anthropology, Colorado College)

Large-scale excavations at the site of Kish in the 1920s and 1930s by the Field Museum of Natural History and Oxford University produced sizeable collections that have not been systematically studied. Kish, located on the Euphrates floodplain in modern Iraq, was one of the world’s earliest true cities and a dominant regional polity claiming sovereignty over the whole of Mesopotamia nearly 5000 years ago. Osteological analyses of over 600 largely incomplete and poorly preserved individuals have revealed the unexpected presence of 21 well-preserved fetal and neonate skeletons. It is notable that a large number of these (n=16) were between 38 and 42 weeks post-conception, suggesting a distinct class of funerary treatment for near full-term infants.

Integration of the osteological data with long-separated burial records and fieldnotes reveals further aspects of the mortuary ritual afforded infants at Kish. First, excavation records indicate that the excellent preservation of these fragile remains likely results from the practice of burying this particular category of infants in vessels. In addition, at least five of these infants were buried together in a cache while two others were recovered from opulent graves. Taken together, these data suggest a special canon of burial practice reserved for infants of this age group.

Specialized infant burial practices and precincts are not unique to Kish, having been documented at other Near Eastern sites including Hassuna, Tepe Gawra, and Tell-es Sawaan, where there is evidence of infant burials clustered under a shrine. In the case of the Kish burials, we explore a number of issues including the prospect of infanticide and of the social significance of peri-natal death for early Mesopotamian civilizations.

This project was supported by NEH Grant PI-500014-04, The Field Museum of Natural History, Colorado College, and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest.