Death, Burial and Afterlives in Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia

Undergraduate / Graduate

The treatment of the dead in past cultures provides insights into how communities engaged with religious beliefs and cosmology and how they conceptualised identity among the living. This seminar examines death, funerary practices, and beliefs in the afterlife from a cross-cultural perspective, based in the ancient cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Within each of these cultures, the rituals and format of burials and beliefs about 'life' after death varied widely. Most archaeological focus on burials in these cultures has been on the dead as the primary data, and many studies reflect simplistically on the economic cost of burials, rather than the effect of death on the living, the family or the socio-political structure. But there are hints in the archaeological and textual record at the response and responsibilities of those burying the dead. This seminar will use archaeological data, artworks and textual materials (in translation) to examine the diversity of responses to death in two important literate cultures. The seminars will foster engagement with theoretical approaches, varied methodologies, and two extremely rich datasets.