Profiling death, Neo-Elamite mortuary practices, afterlife beliefs, and entanglements with ancestors / / Yasmina Wicks.

• VerfasserIn: Wicks, Yasmina,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands ;, Boston, Massachusetts : : Brill,, [2019]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 98.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource.

Recent scholarship has begun to unveil the culturally rich and dynamic landscape of southwest Iran during the first half of the first millennium BCE (aka the Neo-Elamite period) and its significance as the incubation ground for the Persian Empire. In Profiling Death. Neo-Elamite Mortuary Practices, Afterlife Beliefs, and Entanglements with Ancestors , Yasmina Wicks continues the investigation of this critical epoch from the perspective of the mortuary record, bringing forth fascinating clues as to the ritual practices, beliefs, social structures and individual identities of Elam’s lowland and highland inhabitants. Enmeshed with its neighbours, yet in many ways culturally distinct, Elam receives its due treatment here as a core component of the ancient Near East.

Table of Contents

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Illustrations -- Alas, Short is the Joy of Life! Why Study Elamite Mortuary Practices? -- -- The Backdrop: Elam in the First Millennium -- Neo-Elamite Geography, Chronology, History, and the Textual and Iconographic Evidence Used in this Book -- The Mortuary Evidence -- The Burial Evidence -- Burial Location, Typology, Orientation and Body Arrangement -- The Assemblages -- Neo-Elamite Social Identities: Portraits in Graves -- Social Identity in the Mortuary Record -- Combining Archaeology and Text: Death, Afterlife and the Neo-Elamite Funeral -- “Alas, Short is the Joy of Life”: Death and the Afterlife through an Elamite Lens -- Imagining the Neo-Elamite Funeral from Archaeology and Texts -- Concluding Note: the Neo-Elamite Period at the Juncture of Old and New -- Back Matter -- Table of Neo-Elamite Burials -- Bibliography -- Index.