Please summarize the below article in approximately 100 words: Why Are Ground St
ID: 182186 • Letter: P
Question
Please summarize the below article in approximately 100 words:
Why Are Ground Stone Tools Found in Middle and Late Bronze Age Burials?
By Jennie R. Ebeling
Grave goods deposited in Middle and Late Bronze Age tombs in the southern Levant offer evidence for some of the activities surrounding death and are suggestive, perhaps, of some of the beliefs behind them. Since every artifact excavated from a human burial was selected and deposited for specific reasons, every artifact is "encoded" with information that can be used to reconstruct aspects of mortuary ritual and cosmology. Ceramic vessels, bronze weapons and implements, and artifacts made of precious materials have been the focus of previous research, but little attention has been paid to the many ground stone tools made of locally available materials that have been uncovered in the very same tombs. Ground stone tools , including mortars and bowls, grinding slabs and querns, pestles, pounders, abraders, and other implements, often indicate domestic activities in the archaeological record, although they are found in many contexts including ritual ones-in Middle and Late Bronze Age strata. Although ground stone tools do not make up a large percentage of the total grave good assemblage of this period, the wide range of tool types, and their appearance in diverse burial contexts, suggests that they fulfilled certain functional and symbolic needs.
Food Preparation and Consumption in This Life and the Next
There were three phases in the passage or transition of death for the Bronze Age population of the southern Levant. The first, the pre interment phase, may have involved feasts honoring the dead. The second, the interment phase, included supplying the deceased with food and equipment for use in the afterlife or on the journey to it. And the third, the post-interment phase, required provisioning the spirit of the deceased after burial (Ilan 1995: 136). Activities related to all three of these phases may have involved the use of specific stone implements, and it is possible to some degree to identify the archaeological correlates of these activities. It is difficult to distinguish between the archaeological remains of phases one and two in tomb deposits, since these events took place before the tomb was closed and the burial completed. The archaeological remains of feasting might include stone grinding and pounding equipment used to process grain and other foodstuffs, cooking pots, serving vessels made of ceramic, stone, and wood, and the actual remains of food and drink. "Leftovers" from this feast, including vessels and other implements, might then be deposited in the tomb with the deceased (Parker Pearson 1999: 10-11). This may explain why complete, functional sets of stone processing equipment are sometimes found in tombs. Tomb 26 at Megiddo, for example, contained a grinding slab with a handstone in close association, while a pestle and a tripod mortar were found together in Tomb D13 at Jericho (Guy 1938: fig. 127; Kenyon 1965: fig. 221). We know from textual sources dating to this period that the spirit required sustenance after death, and evidence for "feeding" the dead after burial can be found in the artifactual deposits above or near certain tombs. A roughly-carved basalt mortar set into the stone roof of Tomb 234 at Megiddo, for example, was probably used as a container for gifts of food and drink long after burial (Guy 1938: fig. 58). A second basalt mortar was set into what appeared to be the stone roof of another tomb nearby, but upon excavation there was no indication that a tomb was ever dug into the ground beneath it. This may have been a cenotaph, a place set aside to honor the dead whose body was never recovered, and the mortar probably served the same symbolic function as that above Tomb 234 gifts have also been found above tombs at Tel Dan (Ilan 1995: 136) and other sites in this region.
Gender, Status, and Personal Representation
Ethnographic studies of con buried with her beads, firestones, example, a woman is typically and the smaller of her two grinding the Lugbara of Uganda, for (McHugh 1999: 32-34). Among stones, symbolizing her role as girl, wife, and mother (Middleton 1960: 200). Unfortunately, it is difficult to identify the gender associations of grave goods in Middle and Late Bronze Age tombs, in part because most of the human remains cannot or have not been sexed. We can assume, however, that an individual's personal property (which in the case of an adult woman would include her grinding stones) would sometimes be buried with him or her. This may explain why a single handstone, pestle, mortar, or other stone tool is often found among other objects typical of the domestic repertoire in burials dating to this period. Assessing an individual's status based on associated grave goods is also problematic (Ucko 1969: 266-68), although the interment of certain prestige objects might be a reflection of an individual's acquired wealth. The most common stone implements found in Middle and Late Bronze Age tombs seem to be mortars and bowls. Types range from crude, roughly-worked mortars to well executed, unusual types of plates and bowls that were probably quite costly. A shallow basalt plate with lug handles found in Tomb 912 at Megiddo, for example, is one of only a few stone plates of this type known, and a four-legged mortar bowl found in Tomb D22 at Jericho has no exact parallel (Guy 1938: fig. 72; Kenyon 1965: fig. 123.1). These unusual stone implements may have been intended to represent the exceptional wealth acquired by a deceased individual, just as a common grinding tool could have represented the role of a woman as wife, mother, and provider.
Tokens and Talismans
Infants were buried in jars under the floors of domestic structures throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages, but this practice became widespread only toward the end of the Middle Bronze Age (Hallote 1994: 58). Ceramic vessels are the most common grave goods found in infant jar burials, although many burials contain small, token objects of various types as well. It has been suggested that the scarabs and jewelry sometimes placed in infant jar burials were talismanic in nature, intended to protect the infant (Bloch-Smith 1992: 65; Ilan 1997: 433). Other token gifts, including small ground stone implements, may have had the same talismanic function. One of two MB IIC infant jar burials excavated at Tell el-Wawiyat included a small basalt pestle along with four complete ceramic vessels. The second jar burial contained a ceramic stopper and a fragment of a flint blade along with several complete ceramic vessels. The diminutive size and fragmentary nature of the stopper and the blade may further support the token nature of the pestle in the first jar (Nakhai, Dessel, and Wisthoff 1993: 1500). Infant jar burials from other sites in the southern Levant yielded small stone implements as well. Perforated basalt weights were found in two infant jar burials in Area C at Hazor, and two small hammerstones, one chert and the other limestone, were found in jar burial T645 at Megiddo (Yadin, et al.: pl. CXXVI: 10; Guy 1938: pl. 116: 11-12). These small grave goods do not seem to be indicative of an infant's status, wealth, or gender, and may have been interred as a small token of protection for the infant's journey to the afterlife. This brief survey demonstrates how artifacts from an overlooked class of material culture contribute to our understanding of mortuary practices during the Middle and Late Bronze Age. Although ground stone tools were surely used in everyday domestic activities, they also served specific utilitarian and symbolic functions related to death and burial. A planned study of all ground stone tools found in mortuary contexts, coupled with the results of a completed analysis of tools found in Middle and Late Bronze Age temples and sanctuaries, will hopefully reveal other ritual functions of ground stone implements during this period.
Explanation / Answer
The archaeological remains of feasting might include stone grinding and pounding equipment used to process grain and other foodstuffs, cooking pots, serving vessels made of ceramic, stone, and wood, and the actual remains of food and drink.
A second basalt mortar was set into what appeared to be the stone roof of another tomb nearby, but upon excavation there was no indication that a tomb was ever dug into the ground beneath it.
A planned study of all ground stone tools found in mortuary contexts, coupled with the results of a completed analysis of tools found in Middle and Late Bronze Age temples and sanctuaries, will hopefully reveal other ritual functions of ground stone implements during this period.