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Commemorating bodies and lives at Kish’s ‘A Cemetery’:

(Re)presenting social memory

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Social Archaeology

Commemorating bodies and lives at Kish's 'A Cemetery': (Re)presenting

social memory
Christina Torres-Rouff, William J. Pestle and Blair M. Daverman
Journal of Social Archaeology 2012 12: 193
DOI: 10.1177/1469605312439972

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Article
Journal of Social Archaeology
12(2) 193–219
Commemorating bodies ! The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1469605312439972

‘A Cemetery’: jsa.sagepub.com

(Re)presenting social
memory
Christina Torres-Rouff
Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo, Universidad
Católica del Norte, Chile, and Department of Anthropology,
Colorado College, USA

William J. Pestle
Department of Oral Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences, College of
Dentistry, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA

Blair M. Daverman
Department of Anthropology, Purdue University, USA

Abstract
Over the course of a decade, the Joint Oxford-Field Museum Expedition to Kish
recovered artifacts and skeletal remains from one of the most influential city-states in
ancient Mesopotamia. We focus here on the process of commemoration of the dead as
evidenced in the graves excavated from Kish’s ‘A Cemetery’. We use skeletal remains,
fieldnotes, and artifactual evidence to situate these individuals within their biological and
mortuary contexts and to explore elements of living, dying, and remembering at Kish.
The repetitive actions involved in burying the dead in the ruins of a razed palace suggest
the construction of social memory aimed at creating communal cohesion and reinfor-
cing local norms. The details afforded each individual and their grave suggest that burials

Corresponding author:
Christina Torres-Rouff, Instituto de Investigaciones Arqueológicas y Museo, Universidad Católica del Norte,
Chile, and Department of Anthropology, Colorado College, USA
Email: ctorresrouff@coloradocollege.edu

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194 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

functioned both to engage a new political landscape and to create spaces in which the
bereaved commemorated individual lives.

Keywords
commemoration, Mesopotamia, mortuary archaeology, social identities, social memory

The grave is a space where communities commemorate the dead, and both those
who buried the dead and the deceased themselves inform the style and substance of
that commemoration. In the moment of memorialization, groups construct social
identities that tie the dead to the living and to the memory of the group (Joyce,
2001: 12). Here we explore commemoration and representation at one
Mesopotamian burial place. In doing so, we build on a foundation laid originally
by Binford (1971) and Saxe (1970) and expanded in ensuing decades. These per-
spectives on the moment of burial, its regularities, and its variability demonstrate
the importance of considering the social context in mortuary archaeology. We
explore these themes via an analysis of skeletal remains and mortuary assemblages
at Kish’s ‘A Cemetery’. Kish was one of the most powerful political entities in
Early Dynastic Mesopotamia until its incorporation into the Akkadian Empire
between c. 2350 and 2150 BC. During this brief period of transition, some of the
city’s inhabitants constructed new homes in which they ultimately buried their dead
on what we know as the ‘A Cemetery’ or Mound A. The residents, however, knew
this place as the burnt remains of an expansive palace. The people who lived and
died during this time built their homes and conducted their mortuary rituals over
these ruins, creating a social memory of tradition and cohesion despite disruption.

Commemorating the dead

. . . mortuary rituals provide a sensuous arena in which the dead are mourned, social
memories are created and (re)asserted, social bonds are renewed, forged, or broken,
and individuals make claims for individual identities and group memberships.
(Chesson, 2001a: 1)

In this article we focus on commemoration of the dead and the creation of social
memory, defined as ‘the construction of a collective notion (not an individual
belief) about the way things were in the past’ (Van Dyke and Alcock, 2003: 2).
Commemorative ceremonies, of which the funeral rite is a pre-eminent example,
combine general representations of a real or imagined community with the more
specific memory of the individual. As Meskell (2003: 36) elegantly writes, ‘What
may superficially appear to reflect continuity and memorialization might instead
represent a palimpsest of meanings’. While communities often seek to standardize
the actions and behaviors for their treatment of the dead, the time surrounding
burial is also a moment when the multiplicity of social identities expressed by an

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Torres-Rouff et al. 195

individual – gender, age, social roles, communities – are overlain on traditional,

structured, and orderly disposal of the dead.
Social memory often finds expression in funerary practices. While this type of
memory is neither permanent nor immutable, its construction during commemora-
tive events reconstitutes the past. In his seminal work, How Societies Remember,
Connerton (1989: 72–73) separates inscribed memory (monuments and represen-
tations) from incorporated memory (bodily practices). Critics have suggested that
this is a false dichotomy (e.g. Hamilakis, 2010; Roddick and Hastorf, 2010), par-
ticularly given that bodily practices can have material outcomes and the gestures of
the mortuary ritual may produce concrete memorials. Ultimately, as Robb (2007:
293) argues, ‘Funerary ritual is first and foremost cultural action’ and as such can
be manipulated and used to enforce social norms. Much as Connerton (1989: 45)
characterizes the repetition that is part of commemorative ceremonies as an inher-
ent form of recollection, we argue that the repetitive rites enacted for burial at
Mound A following the Akkadian takeover contributed to the construction of
social memory. The placement of these burials over the ruins of a palace of the
old order not only highlights the importance of social memory at this time but also
the possibility that mortuary ceremonies allowed for specific kinds of forgetting
(Hamilakis, 2010) and ultimately facilitated the creation of new social memories.
More than simply a political platform for negotiating memory, however, the
grave is also a locus for the emotions of the mourners and society. Joyce (2001: 14),
in her powerful treatment of burial at the central Mexican site of Tlatilco,
writes that

We must consider not only regularities but also variation: the general practices whose
conformity suggests intent by the living to bury in the manner of Tlatilco, as well as
the distinctive actions that testify that each burial was itself an act of structuration
through which social memory was formed and reformed.

As such, the death of each individual also created an iterative space for memory
construction. Among the many ways to analyze variability in the grave, we focus
on it as a result of the actions of the living and the ideas they maintained about
each individual as expressed through the funerary rites and the act of interment. In
this way, burial can function in much the same way that Tarlow (2000: 218) argues
the modern cemetery functions: as ‘an aesthetic and sentimental landscape of
remembering’. By exploring variability in Mound A’s graves in relation to differ-
ences between the people themselves, as well as among the offerings and style of
each tomb, we can better understand the use of mortuary practice to construct and
reinforce social memory and the presentation of identity.
Exploring the act of burial as a commemorative ceremony that carries great
significance for a community, we hope to understand the creation of social memory
and social identities at Mound A. By focusing on regularities in burial we hope to
make visible the construction of both inscribed memory – which can be seen in
elements such as tomb structure, burial position, and acceptable contents – and

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196 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

incorporated memory, including the act of dressing the dead and, ultimately, of
laying the body in the tomb. In addition, our focus on the grave’s details provides
an opportunity to glimpse an individual’s life, multiple social identities, and mem-
orialization. Our investigation of commemoration and memory at Mound A recon-
textualizes the ways the ancient people of Kish commemorated individual lives in
the grave, and how doing so brought the community together following the
Akkadian conquest.

The city of Kish

The expedition and contemporary work on the collections
The archaeological site of Kish lies approximately 80 km south of modern Baghdad
on the floodplain of the Euphrates River (Figure 1). Kish occupies 24 km2, divided
into eastern and western portions by the ancient course of the Euphrates. Overall,
the site includes 40 different mounds. The Ingharra series (Mounds D and E)
dominates the eastern complex while the Ziggurat of Uhaimir (Mounds Z, T,
and X) marks the city’s western remains. In 1921, Stephen Langdon of the
University of Oxford began conversations with Berthold Laufer of Chicago’s
Field Museum of Natural History about excavating in the Near East (Pestle
et al., 2006). This dialogue produced the Joint Oxford-Field Museum Expedition
to Kish (JOFME). Under permit from the British Mandate, the JOFME excavated
on 17 mounds over the course of a decade in enormous and occasionally haphazard
excavations. The excavation uncovered evidence of nearly 5000 years of occupa-
tion, including substantial palaces and ziggurats from the Early Dynastic Period, a
large Neo-Babylonian temple, and over 700 burials from the Early Dynastic
through Achaemenid periods (Buxton, 1924; Buxton and Rice, 1931; Field, 1946;
Langdon, 1924; Mackay, 1925, 1929, 1931; Watelin, 1930, 1934).
The generally poor quality of excavation and the early deaths of the excavation’s
directors left behind only patchy interim reports, although a second generation of
Kish scholars made great advances (Algaze, 1983–4; Gibson, 1972; Lloyd, 1969;
Moorey, 1978; Rathbun, 1975). In the ensuing decades, information was lost and
the then standard policy of distributing artifacts between participating institutions
complicated further study. Project rules dictated the Iraq Museum receive half of
the artifacts and all one-of-a-kind pieces while the excavating institutions divided
the remainder (Pestle et al., 2006). Given the predilections of the academic staffs,
this did not play out as planned. Of relevance here, nearly all of the skeletal remains
retained by the JOFME were sent to the Field Museum. Unfortunately, documen-
tation, as with many other elements of the expedition, was not of the highest
quality and over the years many of the material remains became decontextualized
(Lloyd, 1969: 48).
Since 2005 we have formed part of a large team working towards recontextua-
lization of Kish’s material remains, employing field notes, archival records, and
museum catalogues from the Ashmolean and Field Museums. In the Kish

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Torres-Rouff et al. 197

Figure 1. Map of Mesopotamia (courtesy Jill Seagard, Field Museum).

Osteology Project, we have employed a contextualized bioarchaeological approach

(sensu Buikstra, 1977) that considers the grave and the people themselves as a
means of exploring the history of the city and its people. Here, we focus on one
burial place that was in use for little more than a century to explore the commem-
oration of the dead and the construction of social memory.

Kish in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC

Kish developed into a large city-state during the Jemdet Nasr Period (3200–2900
BC) and ultimately gained significant political standing during the subsequent
Early Dynastic (Postgate, 1992: 24–28). During the Early Dynastic III Period
(EDIII), the kings of Mesopotamian city-states competed for control of fertile
lands and trade routes close to Kish, especially along the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers (Van de Mieroop, 2004). Gaining the upper hand, the King of Kish gradually
led the city to power over neighboring polities, and ultimately the entire region
(Postgate, 1992: 22). This dominance proved short lived, however, as after
Lugalzagesi’s conquest of the city and Sargon’s restoration thereof (EDIII/

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198 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Akkadian Period, 2350–2150 BC; Cooper, 1993; Sinopoli, 1994; Yoffee, 1995), the
capital of the nascent Akkadian Empire shifted to Agade/Akkad. Kish, however,
continued to occupy a favored position (Weiss, 1975).
Kish’s inhabitants in the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia lived in a period of
pronounced and significant change for the site and the region’s political, ethnic,
and social constitution. Nevertheless, a general theme of cultural continuity
harkening back to the earlier portion of the Early Dynastic seems to have prevailed
(Nissen, 1993). As we explore elsewhere (Pestle et al., in press a, in press b), mor-
tuary practice at Kish’s various mounds (particularly in the diachronic swath rep-
resented by the Ingharra burials) is constant, although subtle stylistic variation in
grave goods appears over time (variation that is swamped by substantive differ-
ences in grave wealth). Burial practice throughout the region was similarly stan-
dardized and long standing as exemplified by sites like Abu Salabikh (Postgate,
1977, 1980; Postgate and Moorey, 1976), Fara (Heinrich, 1931), Khafajah
(Delougaz et al., 1967), and even at Ur if the Royal Tombs are set aside
(Moorey, 1977; Woolley, 1934).
As Pollock (1999: 215) notes, ‘burial participates in the construction of a pan-
Mesopotamian tradition of common mortuary customs through similarities in
body treatment, placement, and many kinds of grave goods’. Throughout the
region, intra-mural burial and inhumation dominate, grave shafts without notable
surface embellishment are most common, coffins are absent until centuries, if not
millennia, later, and while some children were buried in ceramic vessels, wrappings
of cloth or matting were usually the only barrier between the body and the earth.
Moreover, the body’s orientation could vary widely, although positioning the
hands as if bringing a cup (often present) to the face was commonplace. Finally,
while some individuals were buried without embellishment, most adults had grave
goods (admittedly with wild variation).

The ‘A Cemetery’
The low tell known as Mound A is in eastern Kish (Figure 2). Over three years of
work, the JOFME excavated 154 graves from A, the largest number of graves
recovered from any portion of the site save Ingharra. Ernst Mackay conducted
the Mound A excavations, and his diligence produced detailed contextual data for
most of its graves. While scholars have debated the chronology of Mound A’s
burials (Gibson, 1972; Hrouda and Karstens, 1967; Moorey, 1970, 1978;
Whelan, 1978), consensus holds that, excepting a few late burials (A0, A41, A44,
A111, and A114), the remaining 150 graves are from a brief period of time. Moorey
(1970: 104, 1978: 74) cogently argued that they represent the time when Kish was
being consolidated by Akkadian forces during the late EDIII or early Akkadian
Period (2350–2150 BC). All together, these 150 EDIII/Akkadian Period graves, the
‘A Cemetery’, appear to have contained the remains of 162 individuals.
Our analysis of individuals and their mortuary context is based on the notes,
annotated field cards and publications left by Mackay (1925, 1929), together with

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Torres-Rouff et al. 199

Figure 2. Kish site map (image courtesy Field Museum).

Moorey’s (1970, 1978) recontextualization of the dispersed material. In addition,

we employ bioarchaeological data from our recent reanalysis of the extant skeletal
material from Kish. Of the 150 EDIII/Akkadian graves excavated from Mound A,
we were able to associate the skeletal remains of 63 individuals with their burial
place.
The graves at Mound A were dug down from the floors of buildings or houses
overlaying the remnants of a structure known as the ‘A Palace’. This palace, which
featured elegant friezes depicting offerings and captives being borne to the city’s
king, was built early in EDIII, at the height of Kish’s political dominance
(Figure 3). It was twice expanded and ultimately destroyed later in that same
period (Gibson, 1972: 79–80; Mackay, 1929: 76; Moorey, 1970: 64–65).
Following its destruction (perhaps by the forces of Sargon during their conquest
of the city late in EDIIIb), Mound A became a residential sector and burial place,
as residents built modest houses made largely from bricks scavenged from the razed
palace (Moorey, 1970: 92). The ‘A Cemetery’ burials were made from within these
homes, demonstrated by their orientation parallel to house walls. The lack of
superposition of walls over grave cuts indicates their contemporaneity (Mackay,
1925; Moorey, 1970, 1978).
The intra-mural or residential placement of Mound A burials is similar to con-
temporary examples found at Khafajah (Delougaz et al., 1967), Abu Salabikh
(Postgate, 1977, 1980; Postgate and Moorey, 1976), and in the Early House
Stratum at Ingharra (Algaze, 1983–4). Although failing to conform to modern
norms defining cemeteries as removed places used exclusively for disposing of
the dead, the ‘A Cemetery’s’ residential burials, made in such close proximity to
living spaces, would have served to extend and strengthen ties between the living

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200 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Figure 3. Remnants of a stone frieze inlaid with shell and mother of pearl from the A Palace
(Ashmolean Museum 1924.702, image courtesy William Pestle).

and the dead. They likely further increased the socio-political potency of mortuary
practice and commemoration in the creation of social memory (Adams and King,
2011; Brück, 2004; McAnany, 2011).
As mentioned above, these residential burials were not, however, dug in virgin
soil, but instead intruded upon the recently razed ‘A Palace’. It is unlikely that this
was happenstance, especially when one considers the short time that elapsed
between the palace’s destruction and the new constructions (Moorey, 1978). The
choice to live and die atop the ruins of the ‘A Palace’ was most likely a conscious
one, and one that had no small amount of symbolic intent. Depending on who lived
in the homes of Mound A (Sumerians of Lugalzagesi’s conquering army?
Akkadians in the retinue of Sargon? Nonpartisans of Kish?), the act of living
and dying in that place was intended to shape and send a message. Brück (2004:
310) writes, ‘The careful placement of burials allowed links with the ancestral dead
to be constructed, creating historical narratives that depended on the drawing of
contrasts and comparisons between the newly deceased and previous interments.’
As such, Mound A is an ideal space to explore social memory construction. Despite
significant biological difference between individuals in the earliest and latest graves
from Mound A, explored more fully elsewhere (Pestle et al., in press a), the overall
cultural/mortuary homogeneity of the burials appears to have been intended to
foster a common social memory.

Death and memorialization at Kish

We argue that the people of Kish during the EDIII/Akkadian Period connected
burial at Mound A to the memorialization of individuals and their social ties as

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Torres-Rouff et al. 201

well as to the construction of collective social memory. Both the burial ground as a
whole and the individual graves served as sites where the living commemorated the
dead in the fashion appropriate to their place and time. Moreover, the tomb func-
tioned as a space wherein varied social identities could be displayed and each
person could be memorialized. Together, those who carried out the burial could
construct a social memory – an idea of what it meant to be a citizen of Kish.
While it has been argued that regularity in burial customs erases the variability
sought after in mortuary analyses, it does provide some perspective on collective
social memory. As Scott (2011: 75) writes, ‘For the living, these shared practices
constituted one of the ways in which they created and maintained their local com-
munity’. Sumerian texts similarly suggest that interment rites included a set series
of events and fostered a collective manner of burial (Katz, 2007). There is a start-
ling homogeneity to the Mound A burials in grave structure, body placement, and
the mortuary assemblage that we contend likely reflects the intentional construction
of group social memory. The way of burial seen in Mound A may also stand as
evidence for ‘collective experiences that conferred communal, emblematic social
memories to the participants’ (Roddick and Hastorf, 2010: 172).
Typical burials in Mound A contained single individuals placed directly into a
plain rectangular grave cut with a suite of goods (Figure 4; Mackay, 1925, 1929).
Children, men and women were interred in this fashion and demographic variables
did not generally affect the layout and nature of burial. Eighteen of the graves
contained children, including one infant. With the notable exception of the infant
(A36) discussed below, individuals were most commonly placed on their side in a
semi-flexed position (Mackay, 1925). It appears that neither the orientation nor the
side on which a body was placed followed any type of rigid rules. These broad
patterns suggest loose yet noticeable site-wide norms for burial in Mound A,
reflecting the structure of the Kish burial rite.
Field records and other data also suggest that the mortuary assemblages had
some community-wide patterning (Table 1). Some of the A graves had been dis-
turbed prior to their excavation, yet evidence suggests that, in general, the grave
good assemblage was substantial in both number and quality. A standard element
in the mortuary assemblage, pottery accompanied over 90 percent of burials. This
pattern holds for other sites in the ancient Near East including Abu Salabikh
(Postgate, 1980), Ur and Khafajah (Pollock, 1999), and Umm el-Marra where
‘scores of vessels’ adorned all undisturbed graves (Schwartz, 2007: 49). At
Mound A, ceramic vessels often surrounded the individual in the grave, although
they varied in shape and number (A106, for example, was interred with 21 pots). As
Katz (2007: 172) and Schwartz (2007: 49) argue, it was important in ancient
Mesopotamia to provide for the deceased in the afterlife and offer gifts for the
deities. The proliferation of ceramic vessels may therefore reflect mourners, cere-
monies, and rituals surrounding burial (Pollock, 1999: 211). While pottery proved
most ubiquitous, people were frequently interred with items of personal adornment
and goods that communicated individual characteristics. Most graves included
beads, pins, pigment shells, jewelry, and weapons or tools. More broadly,

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202 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Figure 4. Grave A19, Mound A. Note individual lying on their left side in a semi-flexed
position with grave goods distributed around the body (Negative number 52797, image
courtesy Field Museum).

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 Torres-Rouff et al.

Table 1. Frequency (percentage and count) of grave goods in Mound A by age and sex of individual. The total of 162 individuals is the result of
some graves with multiple individuals as well as the exclusion of some individuals who could not be positively associated with any particular grave.
Jewelry
(amulet, Toilet
bracelet, set Needle,
Cosmetic earring, Dagger/ Metal or Ostrich Stone Spindle bodkin,
Sex/Age Pottery Beads Pin shell ring) Seal knife bowl razor Axe Adze eggshell bowl Cymbals whorl or awl Toy

Adult Female 89.5% 60.1% 68.4% 60.5% 44.7% 60.5% 15.8% 31.6% 5.3 0% 10.5% 5.3% 5.3% 0% 13.2% 5.3% 0%
(34/38) (23/38) (26/38) (23/38) (17/38) (23/38) (6/38) (12/38) (2/38) (0/38) (4/38) (2/38) (2/38) (0/38) (5/38) (2/38) (0/38)
Adult Male 93.8% 64.6% 58.3% 58.3% 52.1% 56.3% 41.7% 25.0% 25.0% 16.7% 16.7% 10.4% 6.3% 16.7% 2.1% 6.3% 0%
(45/48) (31/48) (28/48) (28/48) (25/48) (27/48) (20/48) (12/48) (12/48) (8/48) (8/48) (5/48) (3/48) (8/48) (1/48) (3/48) (0/48)
Subadult 82.1% 53.6% 14.3% 17.9% 42.9% 10.7% 3.6% 10.7% 0% 0% 0% 3.6% 3.6% 0% 0% 0% 3.6%
(23/28) (15/28) (4/28) (5/28) (12/28) (3/28) (1/28) (3/28) (0/28) (0/28) (0/28) (1/28) (1/28) (0/28) (0/28) (0/28) (1/28)
Indeterminate 93.8% 54.2% 45.8% 35.4% 35.4% 33.3% 18.8% 18.8% 10.4% 8.3% 0% 4.2% 8.3% 4.2% 0% 2.1% 0%
Adult (45/48) (26/48) (22/48) (17/48) (17/48) (16/48) (9/48) (9/48) (5/48) (4/48) (0/48) (2/48) (4/48) (2/48) (0/48) (1/48) (0/48)
Total 90.7% 58.6% 49.4% 45.1% 43.8% 42.6% 22.2% 22.2% 11.7% 7.4% 7.4% 6.2% 6.2% 6.2% 3.7% 3.7% 0.6%

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(147/162) (95/162) (80/162) (73/162) (71/162) (69/162) (36/162) (36/162) (19/162) (12/162) (12/162) (10/162) (10/162) (10/162) (6/162) (6/162) (1/162)
203
204 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Brück (2004) suggests the possibility that instead of being direct representations of
the deceased, such items may be gifts from mourners or reflect a mode of dress that
was specific to the act of burial.
This brief perusal indicates the presence of a somewhat normative canon of
interment practices and grave provisioning that speaks to the construction of
social memory, a particularly notable phenomenon in this period of cultural
change. Pollock (2007: 213) argues that there was ‘an underlying ‘‘standard’’
Early Dynastic interment ritual’, albeit stronger earlier in the period, which
may also be evident at Mound A. The burial patterns found across the Mound
reflect a normalizing element, a manner in which all members of the community
represented their group membership and perhaps crafted a communal social
memory. Funeral rituals involving similar actions bring to the fore the ways
that the recreation of an event can be used to craft social memory, which in
turn can highlight or obscure elements of a common past. The construction of a
social memory through commemorative ceremonies emphasizing cohesion and
prosperity is interesting given that the Akkadian takeover probably created a
fraught cultural climate. Burial practices recalled the earlier Early Dynastic and
underscored cultural continuity (Nissen, 1993). Connerton (1989: 6) stresses that
‘All beginnings contain an element of recollection’. A similar idea may have
played out as the people of Kish attempted to begin again and may have
sought to maintain long-standing traditions of burial instead of representing a
new era. The repeated actions of carving a grave along the walls of Mound A’s
homes and placing the deceased and an array of goods into this while enacting
necessary rites functioned as commemorative ceremonies. It is worth noting that
these same actions may have served as a means of forgetting and creating what
Hamilakis (2010: 196) calls ‘a positively valued negative space’ that would ‘allow
new remembering to be generated’. Burials are a way to stress the social memory
of the group, and perhaps in the case of Mound A, where the dead were placed in
palace ruins, of forgetting conflict, conquest, and the complexities of imperial
control.
The same kind of mortuary regularity (if not the same elements) holds true for
other sites in the ancient Near East and eastern Mediterranean (e.g. Katz, 2007;
Schwartz, 2007). For example, Sumerian texts describe consistency in the different
elements of burial (Katz, 2007: 169). Bab edh-Dhra, Jordan, shows evidence of
‘a particular set of standards in their mortuary rites, forging a sense of similarity
between people in this region, as well as nurturing a sense of tradition in the
treatment of their dead’ (Chesson, 2001b: 110). Unlike the rigid patterns docu-
mented in Christian burials (e.g. Scott, 2011), these regularities are not overwhelm-
ing, in that a high degree of variability is woven into normative burial. Burial at
Mound A, while serving as a locus for the construction of social memory, was not,
as we argue below, the result of an unyielding structure that obliterated individual
variation. The overlapping forces at play in each interment at Mound A comme-
morated the multiple group and individual identities that intersected in each
person.

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Torres-Rouff et al. 205

Memorializing the dead

While the preceding discussion gives some idea of how Kish’s people were generally
treated in death, larger patterns that serve to represent a collective manner of
remembering and commemorating the dead did not obscure the more varied qua-
lities of interment. The variability in graves, which perhaps served as a way to
memorialize the dead as distinct individuals and as members of particular social
groups internal to Kish society, allows us to see a different set of details and finer
representations of social identities than those seen in the overall burial space. Joyce
(2001: 13) notes that ‘traditional archaeological practice treats the particularity of
burials as noise to be filtered out in pursuit of regularities’; however, it is precisely
these particularities that may reflect an individual’s life. While archaeologists work-
ing in the ancient Near East have occasionally focused on individual variation (e.g.
the Royal Cemetery at Ur), in the main, examination of mortuary behaviors is
generally focused on canons rather than group or individual-level variation. We
argue that individuals buried at Mound A retained significant markers of the mul-
tiple identities they bore in life in addition to being buried in ways that marked
their membership in an archaeologically visible community. Here we explore some
of the different identities represented and the varied ways such identities were or
were not commemorated in the grave, by considering burial over the lifecourse, sex
differences, social standing, and differential access to valuable resources. In each of
these areas we take care to describe individual burials to demonstrate the construc-
tion of social memory, presentation of distinct social identities, and particular
elements of the grave that stand out as unique.

Burial over the lifecourse

While physical characteristics change over the course of one’s life, some shifts in
physical form are accompanied by shifts in social identity. Consequently, we con-
sider first the notion of childhood as seen in the burials of the young (Figure 5). The
JOFME uncovered the remains of 18 juveniles at A.1 It is unclear if these were the
only children interred here, or if skeletal fragility resulted in the erasure of others
from the archaeological record. While an underrepresentation of those who died
before adulthood, these children’s graves provide us with a glimpse of funerary
treatment of the young at Kish.
Gibson (1972) refers to one individual, A36, as an infant in an urn. Mackay
(1929: 129) writes that burials A147–A154 were also infants in pottery; however, no
skeletal elements remain to confirm this. The nine other juveniles from the mound
appear to have been older children or adolescents, something we successfully cor-
roborated for those three individuals for whom we have skeletal remains (A3, A45,
and A101). A36, unlike other juveniles interred at Mound A, appears to have
received notably different burial treatment from that afforded the Mound’s
adults. A36 was buried with only what the excavators described as baked clay
animal toys and a single barrel-shaped bead. Beads are a common feature of A’s

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206 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Figure 5. Excavation photograph of infant in an urn from Kish, unknown mound (Negative
number 58503, image courtesy Field Museum).

mortuary assemblages, although the placement of a single large bead with this
infant may be a gift from the bereaved instead of a piece of jewelry worn in life.
The toys from A36 were unique among all A graves. Perhaps these stand as sym-
bols of a form of emic, culturally constructed childhood for the very young as
argued by others studying children’s mortuary rituals (e.g. Baxter, 2005; Borič
and Stefanovič, 2004). Epigraphic data for the period shows cultural differentiation
between child/adult and young/old, but also divisions within early childhood such
as fetus (ša libbiša), newborn (ina mêšu), baby (šerru), nursing baby (tur.gaba or
lakû), and weaned child (pirsu) (Harris, 2000: 6–10). A36’s distinct mortuary treat-
ment may reflect an understanding of infancy as separate from other moments in
childhood. Finally, the placement of the toys and bead in this grave may have been
specific to this infant and a manifestation of bereavement.
In contrast to A36, several older juveniles (ranging from 6–16yo) seem to have
been memorialized similarly to adults in burial. In content and layout, their graves
parallel those of adults, including, for example, the metal dagger buried with A3.
The bereaved typically paid attention to adorning the deceased’s body, perhaps
reflecting elements of the collective funerary rite. A100, like other older children
and adults, was interred with beads, bracelets, rings, earrings and a nose ornament.
Surprisingly, A100 was interred without any ceramics but with a cylinder seal. Seals
had primarily administrative functions (Charvát, 2005; Noveck and Gorelick,
1975; Porada, 1993), making it an unusual object for a child’s grave. However,

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Torres-Rouff et al. 207

at Mound A we see cylinder seals, occasionally in groups of two or three, with

several older children as well as with adult males and females. It is worth
considering, as Noveck and Gorelick (1975: 16) have argued, that these may
have functioned as amulets or offerings. It is possible that mourners placed
them in the grave and that, like jewelry, they may have been an element of
variability tied to the emotions and rituals surrounding burial. Similarly, they
could be interpreted as markers of crossing a threshold into adulthood
(Gilchrist, 2007: 151). Regardless, its presence in this grave serves as an intri-
guing piece of evidence suggesting that older children may have been incorpo-
rated into adult social life at Kish.
Burial context indicates that the graves of older juveniles reflect multiple social
identities and the collective social memory of Kish. Ultimately, the particularity of
the lone infant burial may tell us more about the grief surrounding that infant’s
death, while more standard burial treatment of older children may suggest that
they occupied a similar space in the construction of social memory as adults.
The mortuary assemblages that accompanied adults, like those accompanying
children, show idiosyncratic variation within the collective form of burial. The
excavators, particularly during the first season, believed they saw radical distinc-
tions in the assemblages of males and females. The differences that they perceived
in the distribution of objects were often used to assign sex to individuals, identify-
ing men as those individuals interred with daggers and axes and women as those
with toilet kits. Vestiges of this are seen in an excavation photograph caption
(Oxford Negative 166):

A Sumerian burial in the palace showing the large pots with handles and the cham-
pagne vase, both new discoveries in Mesopotamian pottery. Each man was
buried with a water jar, a drinking cup, and a dish for food. His weapons of
copper and his seal lay beside him. In the case of women, their jewels and hairpins
were found.

Many gendered associations of material culture crumble when sex is osteologic-

ally determined. While the nature of the collection did not allow us to determine
adult age ranges with sufficient detail to consider here, we are able to discuss some
variation in treatment related to sex. In our reanalysis, we used the sexually
dimorphic features of the skull and pelvis to assign sex whenever possible
(Buikstra and Ubelaker, 1994). Of the 41 adults for whom we could estimate a
sex, we could determine burial number and context for 33. While we concurred in
many of the male assessments, we identified a number of females that had previ-
ously been classed as males. In part, we assume this is an artifact of reliance on
grooming objects to determine sex, since it appears that pins and toilet kits were
less female-specific than originally believed.
Our analysis showed that while two of the 11 women we identified were interred
with knives and one with a dagger, this type of weapon was indeed more common
among male burials. Interestingly, however, no toilet kits were found with

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208 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

identified females, while six were found with the 22 males. Beads, pottery, seals,
and pigment shells were evenly distributed between the sexes. While bracelets were
more common among the burials of females, earrings, rings, and pins were shared
between the sexes. It appears that each individual possessed (in death, if not also in
life) a personal suite of goods and adornments. People were dressed for the grave
with items that may have been specific to their habits or to those who interred them
(Brück, 2004; Sayer, 2010). We note that Brück (2004: 326) has argued that ‘mor-
tuary practices into which objects were drawn allowed mourners to express and to
cope with the social impact of death’. Considering this, it would seem that both the
regularities of collective burial structure and the variability between graves speak to
both the group and the individual.
Individual A23 (As.13–23/13), whom Moorey singles out as a ‘richly equipped
female burial’ (1970: 91), was confirmed by us as female osteologically. She was
buried with five ceramic vessels, two metal bowls, a silver disk, two pigment shells,
three cylinder seals, a metal adze, a shell spindle whorl, and one weapon – a metal
knife. Additionally, she wore a suite of jewelry including a silver bracelet, a metal
pin, one shell and multiple silver rings. Male mortuary assemblages were similarly
varied. The male buried in A77 (As.13–23/1) had seven pottery vessels, all of dif-
ferent types, and a wide array of beads made of copper, carnelian, jasper, and
faience. Like the woman in A23, he also had pigment shells, cylinder seals, and
pins. In his case, the pins were both metal, but one had a faience head. While not
accompanied by a toilet kit, he did have a razor and wore three silver rings and a
silver fillet. Through this we can see both the variability in adult burial accoutre-
ments and the overlap between sexes.
In sum, our analysis of the adult mortuary assemblages showed no strong sex-
based patterns. Interestingly, however, our assessment of skeletal indicators of
nutrition and disease at Mound A shows that female health was worse in three
indicators of childhood health and resource access (cranial porosities and dental
enamel hypoplasia) and in indications of lifestyle (caries rate) (Larsen, 1997). This
is consistent with patterns at Kish throughout time and may not be specific to
Mound A or the Akkadian (Pestle et al., in press b). While some bio-cultural
elements (including diet) likely signaled gender identity at Kish, observed gender
differences are not pronounced within the graves’ mortuary contents. Schwartz
(2007: 48) sees something similar at Umm el-Marra where ‘there is little or no
gender-specificity with respect to objects and their association with bodies of dif-
ferent sexes. Almost every object type is associated with individuals of either sex’.
The tendencies we note among grave goods may fall in line with gendered belong-
ings if we consider the fact that some objects in the grave may have been tied to
particular funerary rites or to the identities of a gifter. However, we have probably
lost some more clearly gendered elements (particularly clothing) to the vagaries of
preservation. The act of readying the body for burial involved the selection of
clothes and jewelry as well as more intimate preparations of the corpse (e.g.
Brück, 2004; Chesson, 2001b) and contributed to the construction of individual
identities and social memory for the group.

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Torres-Rouff et al. 209

Considering social standing

There is no shortage of richly furnished burials at Mound A, as at other burial
places of the time (Pollock, 1999). However, we would like to move beyond a
simplistic assessment rooted in counts of objects and a Saxe/Binford focus on
rank in order to consider some other elements associated with wealth, patterns
of health, and resource access. For each individual buried at Mound A, certain
items were thought worthy of inclusion in the burial space, perhaps as personal
possessions. Stone bowls, likely imports, and ostrich-egg cups stand out as rare
items in A Cemetery tombs. Nine stone vessels were found in A graves, including
graves of great affluence like that of the adult male in A104 (discussed below).
Individuals found with ostrich-eggshell cups (3 males, 1 female, 3 adults of inde-
terminate sex, and 1 child) generally had a larger mortuary assemblage, potentially
suggesting enhanced resource access. In some cases, as in the mother-of-pearl inlaid
vessel found with A128 (Figure 6), these ostrich-eggshell cups are finely decorated.
An ostrich-egg was interred with A120, a seemingly elite child found with a silver
medallion, a handled metal bowl, and beads of inlaid carnelian gold, shell, and
onyx. This could coincide with the notion that adults and older children shared a
similar social space or could support an argument that class trumped age.
In addition to stone bowls, it would appear that other materials traveled great
distances to be interred in Mound A (Rapp, 2009), although no sourcing studies
have been conducted to confirm this. Many beads, among the most common grave
inclusions at A, probably arrived there through long-distance trade relationships.
Lapis lazuli likely came from northern Afghanistan, carnelian from Iran, and in the
specific case of carnelian inlaid with white from as far as the Indus Valley. This last
material is found in 11 graves, and never without other beads made of carnelian,
lapis, faience, gold, shell, porphyry, or onyx. Such beads are found with males and
females, children and adults. The extent of the social relationship that their pro-
curement required implies something about the individuals buried with them, since
they, their kin, or a participant in the funerary rites seemingly had the necessary
knowledge of and access to extralocal social groups. The possession of exotic
goods, and frequently jewelry, has been understood as a consequence of an ability
to tap into a widely dispersed network of peers, goods, and information, any and
all of which may be required to build or maintain differential social status (Blanton
et al., 1996; Helms, 1988; Schwartz, 2007). The wearing or gifting of these small but
potentially valuable goods may be tied to social standing. They might also have
carried emotional resonance, as suggested by the lone bead in A36.
While not rare, some of the daggers found in 23 Mound A graves could be
considered elite artifacts. The copper bladed, iron bladed, silver hilted, gold
hilted, ivory handled, wooden handled, calcite handled, and sheathed daggers are
so varied in construction they could indicate some level of personalization and may
also suggest display value. One would certainly consider the iron bladed, gold
hilted, and ivory handled dagger found with A104 an object of great rarity and
value.

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210 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Figure 6. Decorated ostrich eggshell cup interred with A128 (FM156984, image courtesy
Field Museum).

The materials and crafting skills evident in many of the objects found in Mound
A graves indicate the overall affluence interred there. On the other side of this
spectrum, some evidence suggests that not everyone was buried with great
wealth.2 Preservation may have erased some differences and exacerbated others,
notwithstanding problems with excavation quality. Excavators do note three undis-
turbed individuals interred with no preserved goods at all (A35, A37, A145).
Skeletal remains from A145 (FM192751), an adult male buried with no goods,
show no indication of systemic stress in the form of cranial porosities or of inter-
rupted growth in the form of dental enamel hypoplasia (Larsen, 1997). In fact, he
shows no evidence of dental pathology and no arthropathy. These skeletal

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Torres-Rouff et al. 211

indicators suggest that while his grave was left without a mortuary assemblage,
there were no health effects indicative of deprivation or heavy body use. Aside from
these three individuals, five other adults and four children were interred without
pottery. However, this absence would not appear to be tied to low socio-economic
standing as, for example, A130 is interred with beads of inlaid carnelian, a metal
pin, pigment shells, and earrings, while A100 (the aforementioned juvenile with a
cylinder seal) is also among those without ceramics.
This exploration of the mortuary assemblage suggests a range of social standing
at the cemetery, but perhaps a narrow one, a fact that might result from the burial
of a particular and limited group of people over a short period of time. Or, con-
versely, that burial was a time when opulence was considered appropriate.
Nevertheless, the mortuary assemblages reflect tremendous variation in quantity
and style of goods suggesting that the particular deceased individual was comme-
morated within the collective way of burial.

The death of a man

We would like to conclude this discussion of life and death at Mound A with a
closer look at one person in order to better consider the intersection of social
memory and individual social identities in the grave. Individual A104 (As.13–23/
5) is notable among the Mound A dead in that he was one of the older individuals
in his community (probably in his mid to late 40s) and, judging by his grave wealth,
among the more affluent. All that remains of his body now is his cranium, which
bears no signs of pathology or violence that would differentiate it from the other
males in this generally healthy population. In keeping with tradition, he was buried
alone in a simple earthen tomb. He was laid into this pit on his side in a semi-
extended fashion, with his body oriented from east to west. One hand was placed
over his face while the other lay along the side of his body (Breniquet, 1984: 22).
The normativity of these burial practices is consistent with Sayer’s (2010: 63) com-
ment that, ‘the community, family and kin groups that survived the decea-
sed . . . contributed to a collectively remembered past and funeral events would
have been arranged based on the previous funerals they participated in’. In the
case of A104, no effort was made to distinguish his tomb from others in terms of
structural embellishment or distinctive placement. He was interred following the
patterns that formed part of inscribed memory in the city, in other words, he was
interred as befitted a man from Kish.
Although the poor preservation of organic materials does not allow us to
glimpse his clothes, it is clear from the surviving materials that A104’s body was
richly prepared for the grave and the life beyond (Table 2). Moreover, several of
the objects that accompanied him in death were probably intimately tied to his
body. The metal toilet kit, an item that was not particularly common in this burial
place, suggests specific concern for grooming. A104 wore a number of pieces of
metal jewelry including multiple earrings, two bracelets, and a small silver medal-
lion. His beads, made of porphyry, lapis lazuli, carnelian, and one of inlaid

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212 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

Table 2. Contents of grave A104 (Moorey, 1978).

Object class Details

Pottery Type A(1), Mother goddess vessel

Type B(1), Brazier
Type C(6), Straight shouldered vessel
Type K(2), Flat-based jar
Type L(2), Round-based pot
Straight shouldered vessel
Type K, Flat-based jar
Straight shouldered vessel
Type K, Flat-based jar
Type A? Mother goddess vessel?
Type B, Brazier
Pin Copper alloy with lapis head set in silver
2x Copper alloy, cow-headed
Dagger Copper alloy blade
Iron blade, gold pommel, ivory handle
Toilet case Copper alloy
Bracelet 2x Copper alloy, thin wire, open ends
Earring 2x Silver, wire, twisted
Medallion Silver, circular, depicting radiations with encircling line
Cymbals 2x Copper alloy
Metal bowl Copper alloy, undecorated
Copper alloy, handled, spouted
Axe-blade Copper alloy battle axe
Bead 1 silver
7 lapis
1 breccia
1 carnelian
1 decorated carnelian
Stone bowl Flat bottomed, granite
Ostrich eggshell cup No base
Cosmetic shell 2x, one with black pigment, one with white
Cylinder seal Shell, depiction unknown
Shell, lion attacking an antelope
Limestone, lion rampant

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Torres-Rouff et al. 213

Figure 7. Elaborate dagger interred with A104 (FM236415, image courtesy Field Museum).

carnelian, included some materials that had traveled great distances to adorn his
body. His clothes, or perhaps his hair, were held in place with long pins, one plain
and two with small animal heads. Based on the multiplicity of adornment and dress
items interred with A104, it would appear that those who buried him took great
care in the incorporated memory or bodily practices surrounding his death. Brück
(2004: 318) has suggested that these types of items might be vestiges of preparing
the body for the funerary rite and that ‘the careful deposition next to the body of
the tools used to prepare and dress it for the funeral rite would have highlighted the
identity of those who undertook this intimate task’. These actions would have
served to commemorate him, his mourners, and those in charge of preparing the
mortuary space while also serving as a means of constructing social memory for the
group.
Five ceramic vessels along with somewhat unusual items such as metal bowls
and cymbals surrounded his body in the grave. Also following Mound A patterns,
particularly for males, he was buried with two metal daggers and an axe. Perhaps in
keeping with his specific social role, he was also accompanied by three cylinder
seals, which are suggestive of administrative activities. Two other rare objects, a
stone bowl and an ostrich-egg cup, stand out from A104’s abundant mortuary
assemblage.
Although conforming to the overall way in which the dead were treated at Kish,
the number of A104’s grave goods laden with symbols suggesting high standing
indicates that the mortuary environment could be highly personalized. His indi-
vidual identity and personal connections, which seemingly stretched to distant
lands, also appear to have been memorialized. One of the daggers in his grave
(Figure 7; FM236415) boasts a blade made of cold hammered iron (of either ter-
restrial or meteoric origin), a gold hilt, and an ivory handle – all non-local goods
offering a visible sign of his access to unique resources. His beads likely came from
as far as Afghanistan and the Indus Valley. One of his pins and one of the five pots
from his grave were among the few objects at Mound A that were tied to the new
Akkadian Empire, implying a relationship that wasn’t particularly antagonistic
between A104 and this polity or, indeed, that he may have been more closely
tied to the Akkadian Empire than others buried here. As such, while the interment
of A104 reflects the practices of the time in that he was not accorded a special

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214 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

burial space or tomb structure, we argue that he was also demarcated through
grave furnishings in a manner suited to his specific social identities within the
group.

Conclusion
Our analysis of mortuary practices at Mound A helps to elucidate the changes
occurring at the time of the Akkadian conquest. Given Kish’s importance as one of
the first seats of regional empire and as a city with influence throughout
Mesopotamia, their reaction to foreign invasion stands as a significant element
of the city’s history. The patterns we explore in Mound A burials provide a
means of seeing how mortuary practices might contribute to the construction of
a collective social memory that allowed Kish’s people to move forward after con-
quest. This may fall in line with the idea that Kish occupied a favored space in the
empire. What we see suggests that, after the tumult associated with the Akkadian
takeover, the groups who made their lives there attempted to pull together and
create a social order, an effort manifest in the generally homogenous burial rituals
at Mound A. As Chesson (2001b: 100) has argued, ‘commemorative ceremonies set
into motion richly textured interactions in which individuals and groups can assert
identities, craft social memories, and repair the social fabric of the community’. In
this case, with a palace of tremendous grandeur stripped and burned, the need for
this sort of repair and for strengthening of community was likely profound, espe-
cially given Kish’s ongoing relationship with Akkad.
Arnold (2001: 215) finds that ‘The patterned disposal of the dead was one of the
ways Early Iron Age populations in the west Hallstatt area naturalized, organized,
categorized and interpreted their world in order to make it appear timeless, uni-
versal and inevitable’. The regularized elements of the burial ritual at Kish may
have functioned in the same fashion, allowing the community to move beyond the
conflict that resulted in the razing of the A Palace and towards a recollection of
past eras. In this way, burial, an important commemorative ceremony for any
population, was structured to (re)present social memory for the inhabitants of
Mound A.
Beyond the group, the graves show possible evidence of individuals and the
bereaved. As Tarlow (2000) has asserted, burial creates an emotional landscape.
We argue that this is visible in the care with which individuals were interred and in
small elements such as the toys and bead interred with the infant in A36. The act of
mourning individuals and preparing their bodies for the grave was not only the
domain of the bereaved, the (social) body of the deceased had impact in these
actions as did the community at large (Arnold, 2001; Brück, 2004). It was not
the case that the grave served the sole function of representing one idea or one
identity, rather it was space wherein different elements of the individual life were
expressed, elements that ranged from personal details to group identities to the
larger patterns that symbolized their community.

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Torres-Rouff et al. 215

The graves excavated at Mound A reflect the crafting of social memory at Kish,
a confluence of normative, perhaps ideal, burial practice, and signs of the individ-
ual life. To come back to Connerton (1989: 39), our analyses of burial at Mound A
allow us ‘to emphasise the fact that to study the social formation of memory is to
study those acts of transfer that make remembering it in common possible’.
Here, we suggest that these elements of standardization were not immutable
social proscriptions, nor did they serve as overwhelming practices, but rather com-
plemented the personal burial rituals enacted at Mound A. It would seem that the
vast majority of the graves at A were constructed in the general fashion of burial at
Kish, but intended to commemorate individual lives. At Mound A, multiple iden-
tities intertwined in memorializing the dead and constructing personal and social
memory. The specific place and time in which these people were interred speaks to
the need to create a social memory following the Akkadian takeover, one focused
on remembering or possibly even forgetting the destruction of the A Palace. The
ways in which Mound A functioned as a burial place ultimately speak to the
importance of the grave and the act of burial in the construction of social
memory during times of great change.

Acknowledgements
The Kish Project was generously supported by NEH Grant PI-500014-04, the Field Museum
of Natural History, Colorado College, and the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. The
detailed attention given to the original manuscript by Lynn Meskell and four anonymous
reviewers allowed us to make substantial improvements. While not intended as such, a
summer fellowship at Dumbarton Oaks (CTR) was of great help during the drafting of
this manuscript. Some of these ideas were first presented in a session at the 2011 meeting of
the Society for American Archaeology organized by Benjamin Porter and Alexis Boutin. We
would like to extend thanks to Nina Cummings, Jill Seagard, Karen Wilson, and the staffs of
the Field, Ashmolean, and British Natural History Museums as well as to the late Donny
George. Finally, our gratitude to Ted Rathbun and Roger Moorey for their pioneering
research, which serves as a foundation for our analyses.

Notes
1. A3, A10, A18, A36, A45, A48, A59, A68, A100, A101, and A147–A154.
2. The exact social positioning of the individuals and the degree, or lack of, socio-economic
differences among and between them is a topic of debate. Moorey (1978: 64, 69) describes
the homes associated with A as ‘primitive’ and the ceramic assemblages as ‘ordinary’, and
yet certain goods from within the graves (iron daggers, stone bowls, beads of semi-pre-
cious stone) are of exotic origin and highly refined crafting skills. Perhaps the variation in
quantity and type of good, which Hrouda and Karstens (1967) attribute to temporal
differences are, instead, a product of differences in socio-economic status among those
buried in Mound A. Regardless, the richest graves of Mound A do not approach the
wealth or potentially the status exhibited in the earlier cart burials of Ingharra or even
some contemporary graves interred there (Moorey, 1978: 71). As with many other aspects
of the Kish excavations, poor field technique and recording render the ultimate answer to
this question unknowable.

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216 Journal of Social Archaeology 12(2)

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Author Biographies
Christina Torres-Rouff is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department
at Colorado College. She is currently on leave and working as Associate Professor
and Curator of Archaeology and Osteology at the Museo Le Paige in Chile where
she is continuing her research on social identities, mortuary archaeology, and body
modification among pre-Columbian Chilean groups.

William Pestle is currently a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of

Oral Medicine and Diagnostic Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In
addition to spearheading the Kish Osteology Project, he is actively pursuing
research on ancient diet and its ties to power and social stratification in prehistoric
Puerto Rico and northern Chile.

Blair Daverman is a master’s student in Anthropology at Purdue University, where

she has focused her research on the biological ramifications of imperial conquest in
ancient Mesopotamia.

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