Laerke Recht 2018

“‘Asses were buried with him’: Equids as markers of sacred space in the third and second millennia BC in the Eastern Mediterranean,”
in Louis Nebelsick et al. (eds.), Sacred space: Contributions to the archaeology of belief, Warsaw: Institute of Archaeology, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, pp. 65-94.

The paper focuses on the sacrifice and deposition of asses or equids together with an important deceased (as in the case, e.g., of Ur-Nammu’s burial).

After an introduction devoted to the history of the introduction and diffusion of equids in the Mediterranean, the author devotes two paragraphs to the analysis of the different species attested by archaeological samples and to the identification of equid remains according to osteological analyses.

The following sections are focused on the geographical distribution of equids in the Mediterranean and the ancient Near East and to the description of complete equid skeletons found in graves (data about this topic are summarized on table as fig. 4, on p. 69).

The concept of ‘liminality’ of equid burials is then analysed, describing this peculiar burial system connected to specific tombs. As for Urkesh: “A Near Eastern Middle Bronze Age example comes from Tell Mozan, ancient Urkesh, in north-eastern Syria. In this case, Tomb 37 is a chamber tomb, integrated into a domestic house and associated with the ritual Chamber AX (Cat. S8). The burial chamber itself contained the skeleton of a child and a man aged ca 60, buried at different times. An equid was interred in front of the tomb. It was the complete skeleton of an adult female donkey. The equid skeleton was placed in a liminal space, directly in front of the entrance to the tomb itself. In these cases, equids could be interpreted as guardians or as animals providing transport for the deceased from this world to the next – again underlining their transitional nature. They may also have transported the deceased to the tomb, acting as a kind of hearse, and subsequently sacrificed as part of the funerary rituals” (p. 70).

Other paragraphs investigate the role of equids as social actors, the cuneiform and iconography referring to equids, the gender of the deceased presenting burials with horses’ deposition. The sex of the equids in Mediterranean and most of all in the ancient Near East can also be investigated by analysing terracotta figurines (such as those found at Tell Mozan), also explaining how humans and equids encountered in iconography (for instance mentioning sealings A13.28 and A9.27 from Tell Mozan).

In conclusion, getting to the very point: “Equids had a highly symbolic value that made them extremely suitable for religious and mortuary contexts. […] Equids were used in warfare, hunting, agriculture, transport (including use by messengers and for officials and royalty) and ritual. They appear with men and women, although some roles seem to mostly occur with either male or female figures. […] For equids to perform these roles, daily interaction in the form of handling, care, training and breeding was necessary, creating dynamic bonds between human and animal. […] The activities involving equids necessitate close relations between equids and humans, and ultimately equids are both honoured by and in turn honouring humans by being placed in mortuary sacred space” (p. 84). An appendix reports a catalogue including equids in graves in the Aegean and in the Near East.

[It results fairly interesting that burials of equids are attested also in Egypt during the pre-dynastic period (ca. fourth millennium BC): see, e.g. Flores, Diane Victoria 2004, “Funerary sacrifice of animals in the Egyptian predynastic period”, in Hendrickx, S., R.F. Friedman, K.M. Cialowicz, and M. Chlodnicki (eds.), Egypt at its origins [1]: studies in memory of Barbara Adams. Proceedings of the international conference “Origin of the state: predynastic and early dynastic Egypt, Kraków, 28th August - 1st September 2002, Leuven; Dudley, MA: Peeters, pp. 731-763; cf. Flores, Diane Victoria 2003, Funerary sacrifice of animals in the Egyptian Predynastic period, BAR International Series 1153, Oxford: Archaeopress; Flores, Diane Victoria 1999, The Funerary Sacrifice of Animals during the Predynastic Period, PhD dissertation [University of Toronto]; Stevenson, Alice 2002, “Predynastic Burials”, UCLA Encyclopaedia of Egyptology 1/1].