Les vivants et les morts d’Urkesh (Nord de la Syrie) : Les différents modes d’inhumation au Bronze Moyen.

Abstract

– Discovered between 1998 and 2004, the funerary area of Tell Mozan, located in the upper town of Urkesh (The Hurrian’s political and economic capital), has delivered a hundred graves dating from the early second millennium BC and remained until now unpublished. The archaeo-anthropological study that I carried out on this remarkable ensemble aimed, at first, to shed light on new funerary practices for this period in this Mesopotamian region, then in a second time, to present a complete vision funerary conceptions and the relation to death in the ancient society of Urkesh. This study relies, on the one hand, on the archaeo-thanatological data (setting up deposits and analysis of the environment of the tomb), and on the other hand, on the biological data (age, sex and condition health of the deceased). While the majority of Urkesh burial sites fall within the funerary norms of the period and the region, others are more atypical, such as the disposition of the corpse and the number of associated objects. In addition, fire structures and deposits of animal remains associated with the graves seem to be related to the biological identity of the deceased. In addition, the study of the organization of the funeral space highlights groupings according to the age and sex of the deceased. Finally, there seems to be an evolution of funerary practices between the two phases of use of the necropolis that reflects changes in social organization during this transition