Burial

= **Burial ** =

== **From the beginning of time until the end of time, people of many different languages and cultures die. Be aware that burials often tell us as much about the survivors and mourners as about the deceased themselves (Gilmour 112). As people have past away we have accumulated many different ways of preparing our dead. In the earlier Iron Age, cremation cemeteries were used and then were replaced by Persian influence by inhumation cemeteries (Wolff 133).** ==

==** During the greater of the Persian Empire, burials were the more prominent form of burial methods. There were three different types of burials: Chamber tombs, Cists and Pits, and Storage Jar Burials. Chamber tombs would have entrances that were either stepped or with a shaft leading to a chamber. Cist and pits are normally coastal in distribution and were graves that were dug down in bedrock, sandy soil or debris and then were lined with mudbrick, stone, or wood and were rather shallow. The third, jar burials were mostly used for infant or child burials. (Wolff 134-135) About seventy-five percent of the burials were oriented in an East-West direction with the head at the East (Coogan 38) **== .





== **Since the formation of complex societies there has always been a sense of inequality. So did the Persian Empire go along with this theory? Once one of status passes away we can tell if they had such status by the way they were buried and if any goods were left behind. Oddly enough, grave goods differed from soldiers, administrators, or local wealthy inhabitants but they also differed from gender. Males were buried with arrowheads, while women were buried with jewelry, such as, anklets and earrings. Most graves contained a single juglet,** a sack shape, triangular or raised handles, and a flat base instead of the earlier round one, replacing the ovoid shape of the Iron Age (Betylon 19) == **, that are normally filled with anklets or some sort of grave good but appear less frequently throughout time. Coffins were the most common burial type in Persia and is reasonable to associate these coffins with Persian soldiers or administrators (Wolff 135).**



==**The towers were the creation of Muhammad b. Makki al-Zanjani, who was an architect of the area of Kharraqan (Stronach and Young 6). **** As they began to flourish in the ways of architecture they created new ways to bury their dead, which many people could not afford to be buried in unique tombs and were resorted to cemeteries. **==
 * It is shown that Persia slowly increased in inequality as time progresses. The people of the Persian Empire were burying their dead long before Christ. The more popular architectural burial tombs or shrines are scattered throughout the Persian Empire but more began to flourish after the formation of The Tomb Towers in the 11th century. **




 ===** As the burial methods continue throughout the empire, it rapidly switching positions and takes a new route on how our dead should be, more or less, dealt with. With the rise of Zoroastrianism that, established around 1000 to 600 BC, burials were not taking place, not at all. The practices of the Achaemenids were replaced when the ancient religion of Zoroastrian had risen. They believed that burials of the dead contaminated the earth in which the worshiped. “ The greatest defilement arises through contact with the dead, as death is Ahrmian’s supremest triumph. The dead body could not be buried, nor burned, nor thrown into the water.. It must be exposed on the Dakhma, or Tower of Silence to dispose of it otherwise would be to incur mortal sin (Jackson 202-203).” ** ===

= = Bibliography --- [|Mortuary Practices in the Persian Period of the Levant]. [|Near Eastern Archaeology], Vol. 65, No. 2, The Archaeology of Death (Jun., 2002), pp. 131-137. The American Schools of Oriental Research. 

--- __Foreign Burials in Late Bronze Age Palestine__. Garth Gilmour. Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 65, No. 2, The Archaeology of Death (Jun., 2002), pp. 112-119. The American Schools of Oriental Research. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3210872> --- [|A Cemetery from the Persian Period at Tell el-] [|Ḥ] [|esi]. Michael David Coogan. [|Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research], No. 220, Memorial Issue: Essays in Honor of George Ernest Wright (Dec., 1975), pp. 37-46. The American Schools of Oriental Research. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/1356233>

--- A People Transformed Palestine in the Persian Period. John W. Betlyon. Near Eastern Archaeology, Vol. 68, No. 1/2 (Mar. - Jun., 2005), pp. 4-58. The American Schools of Oriental Research. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067592>

--- __ Three Seljuq Tomb Towers __. David Stronach, T. Cuyler Young, Jr. Iran, Vol. 4, (1966), pp. 1-20. British Institute of Persian Studies. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/4299570>

---__The Ancient Persian Conception of Salvation according to the Avesta, or Bible of Zoroaster__. A. V. Williams Jackson. The American Journal of Theology, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Apr., 1913), pp. 195-205. The University of Chicago Press. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3154606>