life and death in nabataea: the north ridge tombs and nabataean burial practices

Life and Death in Nabataea: The North Ridge Tombs and Nabataean Burial PracticesAuthor(s): Megan A. PerrySource: Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 65, No. 4, Petra: A Royal City Unearthed (Dec., 2002),pp. 265-270Published by: The American Schools of Oriental ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210858 .

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Life and Death in Nabataea: The North Ridge Tombs and Nabataean Burial Practices By Megan A. Perry

Without a doubt, Petra's monumental rock- cut tombs epitomize the complexity of Nabataean culture and remain the most

visible aspect of the regional archaeological land- scape. As a result, research at the site has focused primarily on the tomb facades' architectural rich- ness and unique conservation problems. Ironically, this emphasis on the tombs has not greatly increased our understanding of Nabataean funerary customs, nor has it stimulated research into the city's inhabitants. The clearing of many tombs since antiquity for shelter or storage means that, for archaeologists, they stand only as an empty testament to the significance of mortuary ritual and death in Nabataean society. Happily, recent excavations of two Nabataean tombs on the North Ridge of Petra suggest that less elaborate funerary structures also can provide con- siderable data on Nabataean mortuary customs and the ancient inhabitants of their capital.' The only documentary information on Nabataean burial

practices comes from the first century CE observations of the traveler and philosopher, Athenodorus, which are included within the ancient geographer Strabo's multi-volume work, Geography. Strabo reports:

[The Nabataeans] have the same regard for the dead as for dung, as Heracleitus says: "Dead bodies are more fit to be cast out than dung"; and therefore they bury even their kings beside dung heaps. (XVI.4.24)

This rather ambiguous statement stimulated many early discussions on Nabataean mortuary rituals. Rather than taking the literal stance that the Nabataeans buried themselves and

Aerial view of the North Ridge.

their royalty on dung-heaps, most researchers interpret Strabo's description as ritual exposure of the body, after which the relatively clean, disarticulated remains were gathered and buried in an enclosed tomb. Ritualized treatment and reburial of a partially or completely decomposed corpse remains the most prevalent form of secondary burial around the globe. Secondary burial practices in general have had a visible role in Neolithic and Hellenistic Near Eastern mortuary programs. Thus, many scholars do not question its role in Nabataean mortuary rituals. In actuality, however, the ongoing excavation of burials and cemeteries suggests noticeable diversity in Nabataean funerary customs beyond secondary burial.

In many cases, the almost universal disturbance of the tombs since antiquity has hindered the interpretation of Near Eastern mortuary practices. Many post-Byzantine inhabitants of the Petra basin looted and/or cleared out some of the larger rock- cut cave tombs to create warm, dry residences and storage areas. Furthermore, the reuse of many tombs over generations, which caused displacement of earlier, decomposed burials, complicates the assessment of original burial disposition. These disturbances have resulted in commingling of skeletal materials, often incorrectly interpreted as secondary burial. Tomb disturbance should not prohibit material cultural or bioarchaeological analyses, however. Apparently, only gold or other raw materials with market value held the interest of most grave scavengers, who left behind rich ceramic and bio- anthropological data.

NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 65:4 (2002) 265

- O -ILICc 1



Nabataean Cemeteries in Petra In general, three forms of Nabataean burial exist in the

archaeological record. These include burial in large, monumental tombs with intricately carved facades (such as at Petra and Medain Saleh), burial in communal shaft tombs and single burials in cist tombs or coffins. Archaeologists have excavated only a few monumental tombs in Petra, mostly uncovering modern occupational debris rather than in-situ grave deposits. Early researchers such as George and Agnes Horsfield failed to discover any mortuary remains beyond bases of long-since-looted sarcophagi while clearing these tombs (Horsfield and Horsfield 1939: 93-94). Additionally, the Horsfields, along with Murray and Ellis, excavated and cleared a number of communal shaft tombs near el-Habis and Wadi Abu 'Ulleqa (Horsfield and Conway 1930; Horsfield and Horsfield 1938, 1939, 1942; Murray and Ellis 1940). Most of

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the undisturbed tombs contained both articulated and commingled skeletons, suggesting occasional reuse of the tombs. Many of these graves likewise held a substantial quantity of ceramic artifacts, wooden coffins and jewelry.

Unexpectedly, the Horsfields also discovered a number of apparent cremations in at least two different tombs. Near Eastern funerary customs did not regularly include the western practice of cremation, which conflicted with Semitic traditions of body disposal (Toynbee 1971: 33-34). Excavation reports describe some remains as "calcined" and others as burnt black (Horsfield and Horsfield 1939: 109-10, 115). These descriptions provide tantalizing but insufficient evidence for the practice of cremation at Petra. For example, the bum pattern in Tomb E3 suggests the deposition of burning material over the skeletonized bodies, rather than incineration of the corpses themselves (see Horsfield and Horsfield 1939: 115). The reported presence of many

foreigners in Petra (see Strabo Geog. XVI.4.21, 26), however, could have resulted in the practice of non-local burial customs such as cremation. Other researchers have identified Roman-period cremations at Mampsis (Negev 1971: 124-25, 1986: 83-84) and the Queen Alia Airport Cemetery (Zabayir Zahir edh-Dhiyab; Ibrahim and Gordon 1987: 38-39). Excavators attributed these practices to foreigners likely associated with the Roman military. Further indirect evidence for cremation at Petra comes from a rock-cut columbarium for funerary urns presumably containing cremated remains (Horsfield and Horsfield 1939: 99; McKenzie 1990: 171). Unfortunately, no cremations in Petra have been analyzed well enough to help us better understand this infrequent, and likely foreign, funerary custom.

The North Ridge tombs provide further evidence for Nabataean burial practices, particularly the little-known rituals of the kingdom's urban residents. In the course of the 1998 excavation of the Ridge Church, we uncovered the entrances of two Nabataean-period shaft tombs while clearing soil deposits outside of the structure. The opportunity to excavate a Nabataean tomb within Petra properly and to analyze the human burials and material culture it contained was an exciting one. Records of past Petra tomb excavations are rare and have never included an adequate human osteological study. The contents of the tombs contained much more information than we imagined.

Location, plans, and sections of Tombs 1 & 2 on the North Ridge. Drawings by Megan Perry, Pierre Bikai and Patricia Bikai.

266 NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY 65:4 (2002)



Local project employee, Mohammed Nuweja, in Tomb 2. Photo

by the author.

Utilitarian ceramics from Tomb 1 and 2. Drawing by Patricia M. Bikai.

0Tomb 1 Tomb 2\ 0 5cm mr

Tomb 1, located underneath the north side of the Ridge Church, was a simple shaft tomb containing four parallel loculi cut into the floor of a chamber measuring 3.5 meters east to west by 2.5 meters north to south. Sometime in its history, Tomb 1 had been disturbed by both human and natural factors. Ancient robbers entered the tomb more than once, and the tomb filled periodically with water during winter rains. The builders of the Ridge Church last opened the tomb to construct a pillar within the tomb shaft to support the north wall of the church, bridging the tomb opening in the process.

As a result of repeated disturbances, the human skeletal remains were in fragmentary condition and were scattered throughout the soil layers within the chamber and loculi. At minimum, the tomb contained four individuals, including an adult man, a woman, a six to twelve month-old infant and a three to four-year-old child.

Despite its disturbed state, the material culture within Tomb 1 provides broad information regarding the installation's date and use. The recovered artifacts include a substantial corpus of ceramics containing both unpainted and painted wares dating to the first half of the first century CE. The ceramics contain a number of unpainted utilitarian items likely used in funerary feasts honoring its occupants, such as storage jars, piriform-

bodied unguentaria (small glass vials for make-up, perfumes or oils), strap handled pitchers and dipper juglets. The most prominent elements are bowls with flaring body walls and a vertical rim and typical round- bottomed cooking pots. In addition, the Tomb 1 sample contains a wide range of painted and unpainted fine ware items. Classical Nabataean eggshell-thin bowls and vertical-rim serving dishes with elegant painted designs comprise the majority of the fine ware vessels. Unique to the tomb are extremely thin-walled painted cups and an exquisite double-handled chalice with a painted interior.

The much larger Tomb 2 is located just to the south of the southern wall of the Ridge Church. The plain, square chamber measures five and a half meters east to west by five meters north to south and contains no features typical for a Nabataean-period shaft tomb-no loculi, no arcosolia, and no benches to receive the corpse. A doorway midway along the northern wall leads to a smaller, square room measuring 2.25 meters north to south by 2.60 meters east to west. Apparently, workers never completed construction of the tomb, for within the northwest corner of this room remained an uneven, sloping ledge of sandstone. In addition, on the tomb




Tomb 1

Tomb 2

Fine ware items from Tombs 1 and 2. Drawing by Patricia M. Bikai.

floor directly outside of this room sat a layer of sandstone construction debris about a half a meter thick. Therefore, the lack of installations within the main tomb chamber could have resulted from incomplete construction.

Despite its unfinished appearance, the tomb was used for the burial of at least thirty-six individuals during the second half of the first century CE, overlapping the use of Tomb 1. Ceramic evidence from Tomb 2 differs slightly from that in Tomb 1. To our surprise, eight of these burials were still intact and articulated on the floor of the tomb. Sometime in antiquity, a large slab of sandstone fell from the ceiling, protecting these individuals from later tomb disturbances. The discovery of in-situ burials within a Petra communal tomb was itself remarkable, but we were more intrigued by the realization that many of these individuals had been buried at the same time. The earliest burial was of an 18 to 20-year-old female, partially disturbed by later tomb activity. Shortly after that interment, four more individuals were placed within the tomb at the same time: a 20 to 24-year-old female with a six-month-old infant placed by her side in a wooden coffin, and a 45 to 49-year-old of unknown sex holding a newborn baby. After a short period, three more burials were placed simultaneously within the tomb: a 25 to 29-year-old male, a 35 to 39-year-old female, and a 55 to 59-year-old female. The male and 35 to 39- year-old female were placed on their sides, the female behind and embracing the male. Bio-anthropological data revealed nothing that could explain what simultaneously killed these individuals. The other twenty-eight individuals within the tomb were

found commingled and scattered due to human and natural disturbances. Of these commingled individuals, twenty-two were

adults (four females, four males and the rest indeterminate) and six were children aged from newborn to eleven years old. Some of the skeletal elements were semi-articulated, suggesting soft tissue still joined some of the bones when the skeletons were disturbed. This could mean this skeleton was pushed aside to make room for another burial before decomposition had completed, and/or that the first incursion by tomb robbers occurred soon after the individual was buried.

Analysis of the human skeletal remains from the tomb discovered that these individuals lived relatively healthy, active lives compared to regional contemporary populations (for more information see Bikai and Perry 2001). The demographic profile in this tomb fits that of other Nabataean, Roman, and Byzantine communal tombs from the Near East. A majority of pathological lesions observed in the skeletal material derived from natural, age-related degeneration of the skeleton. In addition, these individuals suffered from frequent fractures, particularly of the ribs, the wrist, and the ankle. According to forensic studies, trauma to these skeletal elements usually results from falls (Galloway 1999: 107, 138, 204), not unexpected in a rugged environment such as Petra. Additionally, we noted little evidence of physiological stress in the skeletal remains, suggesting these individuals rarely suffered from malnutrition, disease or other biological perturbations compared with regional populations.

Excavation of the North Ridge tombs has allowed for a better picture of first century CE Nabataean mortuary practices in the urban center of Petra. For example, the evidence for multiple concurrent burials suggests that a fatal event, such as a disease epidemic or other citywide




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Intact burials discovered in Tomb 2. From left to right, a sixth-month-old baby (#10) in a wooden coffin, an eighteen to twenty-year-old woman (#8), a twenty-five to twenty- nine-year-old man (#4) embraced by a thirty-five to thirty-nine-year-old woman (#6) and covered by another fifty-five to fifty-nine-year-old woman (#5), and a forty-five to forty- nine-year-old adult (#2) holding a newborn baby (#9). Drawing by the author.

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occurrence, may have resulted in a large number of deaths in a short time period during the first century CE.

Nabataean Cemeteries Outside of Petra Nabataean burials outside of Petra also suggest

diversity in Nabataean funerary customs. Excavations of the Mampsis cemetery, for example, uncovered examples of direct inhumation, burial within cedar coffins and secondary burial. At the site, most burials contained only a few artifacts such as personal jewelry and, in one case, an alabaster jug (Negev 1986: 76-78). In one grave, a wooden box containing papyrus documents was placed at the feet of the deceased and burned (Negev 1971: 119). Additionally, Negev interprets commingling or scattering of skeletal material within four tombs as secondary burial, including one grave containing a small limestone ossuary holding a cloth bundle of bones (Negev 1971: 120-21). As noted above, the presence of commingled and scattered human skeletal material does not necessarily indicate secondary burial practices. Other human and non-human activities can cause dispersion of a human skeleton, such as reuse or robbing of the tomb, collapse and decomposition of the coffin and corpse, animal burrowing and root growth. In addition, a partially decayed skeleton can mimic, to the untrained eye, disarticulated, scattered bones. Therefore, only the first century CE ossuary stands as definitive evidence for secondary treatment of the corpse at Mampsis (Negev and Sivan 1977: 113-14). Negev

surmises, probably correctly, that the ossuary may have contained a Jewish individual buried at Mampsis, as the mourners arranged the bones according to edicts within the Palestinian Talmud (Negev 1971: 122). In addition, Negev interprets archaeological deposits near the tombs as detritus from funerary feasts accompanying the burial of the deceased (Negev 1971: 111-14, 127; 1986: 89-91).

Burials from two other Nabataean cemeteries in southern Jordan, Khirbet edh-Dharih and Khirbet Qazone, depict a slightly different mortuary program than the larger centers of Petra and Mampsis. The twenty-two extremely well-preserved graves from the first-second century CE cemetery of Khirbet Qazone each contained one individual, occasionally wrapped in decorated and stitched leather shrouds or textiles. Excavators discovered few artifacts within the grave context besides the leather shrouds, clothing and jewelry. They also recovered five funerary stelae and three Greek papyrus scrolls from within and near disturbed tombs (Politis 1999: 128).

Excavations at Khirbet edh-Dharih likewise recovered mostly primary burials, interred in a large communal monument and single stone-lined cist tombs dating from the first to fourth and sixth to seventh centuries (Lenoble et al.




2001). Funerary stelae marked some Nabataean, Roman, and Byzantine period burials: commemoratory nefesh (Nabataean inscriptions) in earlier periods, symbolic Christian remembrances in later eras. The Nabataean-period stelae sat on a smaller structure associated with a large communal tomb at the site, and onomastic evidence from their inscriptions suggests that the tomb contained members of an extended family (Lenoble et al. 2001: 130-32). Additionally, remnants of decorated leather shrouds surrounded many interments. Archaeologists recovered surprisingly little ceramic evidence, lacking most notably the ubiquitous unguentaria (Lenoble et al. 2001: 144). Preliminary human osteological analysis discovered twenty-one subadults and thirty-six adults within the communal tomb and six adults and nine subadults in the cist tombs (Lenoble et al. 2001: 114-16, 143). Looting disturbed many burials in the communal and cist tombs, making a study of the skeletons difficult.

Finally, only a few examples of another communal tomb structure have been discovered near Petra and Umm al-Jimal. The walls of these large tombs contain "cubby-holes" constructed of limestone slabs, measuring about forty-five by forty-five centimeters at their opening and extending back about one and a half meters to receive the corpse. Mourners interred these individuals with a wide range of ceramic artifacts, including lamps, unguentaria and vessels likely left over from the traditional funerary feast.

Archaeological, bioarchaeological and architectural evidence taken together provide a glimpse of death and burial rites in Nabataean society. Funerary feasts apparently served a primary role in Nabataean funerary rituals. Additionally, Nabataeans apparently did not adhere to a strict mortuary code, for their funerary practices display a variety of interment techniques. Communal tombs and primary cist graves provide the majority of funerary types. Frequently, after decomposition of the corpse, the body would be moved aside to make room for the next interment, suggesting that the decay of soft tissue marked complete the transformation of the deceased's social persona from the world of the living to the dead.

Note 1. Funding for research on Petra's North Ridge derived from the Petra Endowment, a grant provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development. I would like to thank Patricia M. Bikai, Director of the North Ridge Project for many images used in this article, and project staff and numerous field volunteers for their assistance. Further support in Amman was provided by Pierre M. Bikai and the staff of the American Center of Oriental Research. Finally, ACOR and the Petra North Ridge project would like to thank the Department of Antiquities, particularly its Director, Dr. Fawwaz al-Khraysheh, and staff in Petra, Ms. Tahani al-Salihi and Mr. Suleiman Farajat.

References Bikai, P M., and Perry, M. A.

2001 Petra North Ridge Project Tombs I and 2: Preliminary Report. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 104: 59-78.

Galloway, A. 1999 Fracture Patterns and Skeletal Morphology. Pp. 81-223 in

Broken Bones: Anthropological Analysis of Blunt Force Trauma, edited by A. Galloway. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas.

Horsfield, G., and Conway, A. 1930 Historical and Topographical Notes on Edom: With an

Account of the First Excavations at Petra. The Geographical Journal 76: 309-90.

Horsfield, G., and Horsfield, A. 1938 Sela-Petra, the Rock, of Edom and Nabatene. The Quarterly

of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 7: 1-42. 1939 Sela-Petra: The Rock, of Edom and Nabatene: Chapter III:

The Excavations. The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 8: 87-115.

1942 Sela-Petra, the Rock, of Edom and Nabatene: IV. The Finds. The Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities of Palestine 9: 105-204.

Ibrahim, M. M., and Gordon, R. L. 1987 A Cemetery at Queen Alia International Airport. Wiesbaden:

Harrassowitz. Lenoble, P; AI-Muheisen, Z.; and Villeneuve, E

2001 Fouilles de Khirbet edh-Dharih (Jordanie), I: Le cimiti&re

au sud du Wadi Sharheh. Syria 78: 89-151.

McKenzie, J. 1990 The Architecture of Petra. British Academy Monographs in

Archaeology 1. Oxford: Oxford University. Murray, M. A., and Ellis, J. C.

1940 A Street in Petra. London: British School of Archaeology in Egypt. Negev, A.

1971 The Nabataean Necropolis of Mampsis (Kurnub). Israel Exploration Journal 21: 110-29.

1986 Nabataean Archaeology Today. New York: New York University.

Negev, A., and Sivan, R. 1977 The Pottery of the Nabataean Necropolis at Mampsis. Rei

Cretariae Romanae Fautorum acta 17/18: 119-31. Politis, K. D.

1999 The Nabataean Cemetery at Khirbet Qazone. Near Eastern Archaeology 62: 128.

Strabo 1930 Geography. Trans. H. L. Jones and J. R. S. Sterrett, from Latin.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Toynbee, J. M. C.

1971 Death and Burial in the Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.

11 ABOUT

THE]AUTHOR I

Megan A. Perry is an Assistant Professor o of Anthropology at East Carolina -- University. She received her Ph.D. from the Anthropology Department at the University of New Mexico in 2002. Perry began fieldwork in the Near East in 1992, excavating in both Israel and Jordan and residing as a USIA and CAORC fellow at the American Center of Oriental Research Megan A. Perry (ACOR) in Amman. Her research focuses primarily on the bioarchaeology of Classical-period Jordan and Israel. Currently she is Assistant Director of the ACOR- sponsored Petra North Ridge Project, and plans to continue her bioarchaeological research at the nearby site of Bir Madhkur.




life and death in nabataea: the north ridge tombs and nabataean burial practices

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