The Mesopotamians were an Ancient Egyptian culture settled on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers around 5000 B.C. Their settlement changed the pace of society as the world knew if from a nomadic hunting and gathering society to a settled agricultural superpower in which towns and city states formed around the stable resources of the rivers. In this part of the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period religion and superstition were founded among these people and a strange belief system towards burial and the afterlife began to shape the way people not only identified with themselves but also their community and the land around them.
Mesopotamians believed the human body was the most sacred part of their world. As such, when a revered ancestor died their heads were decapitated from their bodies and buried beneath the house of their families. After initial burial and decomposition a skull of an ancestor was dug up and the mandible removed. The eye sockets, nose and face were then smeared and filled with plaster and a chin was molded over the space where the mandible had once been.
Finally, bivalve shells were cracked in half and placed over the missing eyes. After this process was completed the skull was reburied and only occasionally dug up for religious and superstitious rituals. The Mesopotamians participated in these "ancestor cults" as a way of physically embodying the belief that they had a right to the land because their ancestors "came from it". As they were a highly agricultural group, this was of great importance to them.
[...] Stein, G. (2010, December 29). The Origins of Civilization, Gil Stein. Teaching the Middle East: A Resource for Educators. Retrieved October from http://teachmiddleeast.lib.uchicago.edu/foundations/origins-of- civilization/essay/essay- 02.html Fearon, J. (1999, November 3). What Is Identity (As We Now Use The Word)?. Standford, Calif: Stanford University Press. [...]
[...] In this way Richardson is stating that identity and social construction of said identity is tied not only to the practices people knowing commit everyday but also the actions stemming from their beliefs such as their fears and anxieties of not perfectly performing a ritual, etc. However, many anthropologists looking at this Mesopotamian burial ritual as a form of identity also see a close tie to the formation of community. For instance Richardson writes, are obligated to do more than look at burial as an ‘ideal type' purely upholding social inclusion,”. (Richardson p192). [...]
[...] FROM BEHIND THE MASK: Plastered Skulls from Ain Ghazal. Retrieved October from http://www.laits.utexas.edu/ghazal/ChapV/ Nanda, S., & Warms, R. (2012). Culture Counts: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (2nd ed.). Belmont, Calif: Wadsworth. RICHARDSON, S. (2007). DEATH AND DISMEMBERMENT IN MESOPOTAMIA: DISCORPORATION BETWEEN THE BODY AND BODY POLITIC. PERFORMING DEATH SOCIAL ANALYSES OF FUNERARY TRADITIONS IN THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST AND MEDITERRANEAN (pp. 189-209). Chicago: The University of Chicago. [...]
[...] Mesopotamian skull preservation and identity The Mesopotamians were an Ancient Egyptian culture settled on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers around 5000 B.C. Their settlement changed the pace of society as the world knew if from a nomadic hunting and gathering society to a settled agricultural superpower in which towns and city states formed around the stable resources of the rivers. In this part of the Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period religion and superstition were founded among these people and a strange belief system towards burial and the afterlife began to shape the way people not only identified with themselves but also their community and the land around them. [...]
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