Reading Qs 15

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Peter Pfalzner, “How did they bury the kings of Qatna?” Pages 205-218

  1. Pfalzner draws on scholarship about rites of passage to explain the goals of funeral rituals. What are the three phases of rites of passage? How do you think this would apply to a dying/dead person?
  2. How do these phases relate to initial/primary and secondary/final burials?
  3. When were the royal tombs of Qatna sealed off, and how? (206)
  4. There was only one initial/primary burial found in the tombs. How was she buried? (With what, in what? How was the body treated?) (207-211)
  5. Pfalzner says that 13-16 persons were found in secondary burials. What made him think that these burials were secondary, not primary/initial?
  6. What important bone is missing from most of the secondary burials? Why might this be? (211-212)
  7. In the royal tombs, which deceased persons/groups seemed to be receiving food offerings, and which weren’t? Why might this be?
  8. 6-7 persons were found in a tertiary (?) burial in an ossuary. What state were the bones found in? What else was mixed in with the bones? (213-215)
  9. What did Pfalzner find in Tomb VII? Why might this be here?
  10. How might these burial practices have been connected to the difference between individual and collective memory of the dead?
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