Funerary Iconography on an Infant Burial Jar from Ashkelon

Abstract

The 2007 season of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon unearthed ar emarkable intramural infant jar burial, bearing roughly incised images on both sides. While a number of intramural infant burials have been recovered from late twelfth-eleventh century levels at the site, this jar is the first burial to reveal anything about the funerary beliefs and rituals that might be associated with such practices. The iconography itself is unique within the Philistine milieu, as well as within the broader context of Syro-Palestinian funerary imagery, instead echoing Egyptian funerary motifs. After a brief discussion of the jar and its archaeological context we offer an interpretation of the burial jar's iconography and explore its possible relationship to Egyptian funerary ritual. THIRTY years of excavations within the Philistine Pentapolis have allowed us tremendous insight into the material culture, history and religious practices of the immigrant Sea Peoples. Nevertheless, we have little understanding of how the Philistines approached death and the ritual of burial. Iron I-II burials connected with Sea Peoples have been so attributed on the basis of essentially circumstantial evidence, their ethnicity assigned according to small amounts of Philistine-style pottery, presumed 'regional'connections with Sea Peoples, or limited evidence of potential Aegean influence. 1 No cemeteries have been excavated which can conclusively be associated with either the Philistine Pentapolis sites or any other Sea Peoples'settlement. 2

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