Absorbed organic residues in a Late Bronze Age II clay coffin with anthropoid lid from Tel Shadud, Israel

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Abstract

During salvage excavations carried out in 2013 on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, a seemingly isolated clay coffin with anthropoid lid was uncovered on the lower east slope of Tel Shadud in the Jezreel Valley (van den Brink et al., 2016). The coffin and associated funerary gifts bear strong resemblance to comparable specimens known foremost from Deir el-Balah in the Gaza strip and Bet She'an in the Jordan Valley. This new find should be placed within the context of the Egyptian New Kingdom colonization process of the region during the Late Bronze Age II and succeeding Iron Age I (van den Brink et al., In press). The coffin was systematically sampled for absorbed organic compounds along its profile. The results of the residue analysis reveals a particular burial aspect associated with pre-burial treatment of the coffin.

Introduction

A clay coffin with anthropoid lid was exposed in a pit grave (Fig. 1A) uncovered during a brief salvage excavation conducted in 2013 on behalf of the Antiquities Authority, at the foot of the east slope of Tel Shadud (Fig. 2). The coffin contained a single, primary burial of a single male, 50–60 years old, carrying a bronze dagger on his right side and wearing a scarab set in a gold-folded ring on his left hand. The scarab contains one of the five royal names of Seti I (nb-m3′t-r′), founder of the 19th Dynasty in Egypt and father of Ramses II. The pottery and bronze vessels found in association with the coffin burial are typical of the Late Bronze Age IIB and apart from few small containers (flasks and stirrup jars), are without decoration. The pit in which the anthropoid coffin was found was marked by a simple, upright fieldstone set in place above the base of the coffin (Brink et al., 2017).

The coffin, 194 cm long and with a cross-width of maximum 58 cm, consists of two parts: a tall, near-cylindrical clay box domed at one end (where the head was situated) and flat at the other (where the feet were located), and an anthropoid lid (Fig. 1A). The lid had been cut out from the upper part of the cylindrical container while still in leather-hard condition, creating a large enough aperture enabling insertion of the corpse and associated burial gifts. The lid's exterior surface features a naturalistic human face framed by a nearly indistinctive wig. Ears and crossed, shortened hands surround the actual face. This clay cylindrical coffin was probably the final burial place of a wealthy Canaanite emulating Egyptian burial customs, possibly an official in the Egyptian army or local administration (Brink et al., 2017).

Clay coffins with anthropoid lids like the one from Tel Shadud were found in other places in the region, including ca. 60 coffins from Deir el-Balah (Dothan, 1973, Dothan, 1979), ca. 50 coffins from Tel Bet She'an (Rowe, 1930, Oren, 1973), 1 coffin fragment from Tel Midrash (Tzori, 1962), 3 coffins from Tell el-Far'ah south (Petrie and Tufnell, 1930, Macdonald et al., 1932) and 2 coffins from Lachish (Tufnell, 1953, Hennequin, 1939); and see map Fig. 2.

The provenance of the Tel Shadud clay coffin was established through petrographic analysis of clay samples taken from the coffin. Based on comparison with another clay coffin with anthropoid lid found in Beth She'an, the petrographic results suggest that the Tel Shadud clay coffin was manufactured from clay found in the Beth She'an Valley some 30 km westward of Tel Shadud (Brink et al., in press). Remains of c. 50 clay coffins with anthropoid lids were found in eleven graves in the northern cemetery of Bet She'an (Oren, 1973) where during the 18th–20th Dynasties an Egyptian administrative center was located. Most of the coffins unearthed in Bet She'an are of the cylindrical type with a lid that has facial features depicted similar to the coffin of Tel Shadud. The coffins of Tel Bet She'an are dated between the 13th century and the 11th century BCE. These graves were robbed in antiquity, the bones and attributed objects were scattered and thus they lost their archeological context.

Although located c. 200 km south of the Jezreel Valley, the clay coffin burials excavated in Deir el-Balah and their find context offer a better opportunity for a comparative study of the findings of Tel Shadud. High similarity between the two burial sites was noted, including their synchronology, the east–west orientations of the burials at both sites, the nature of the offerings, the dimensions of the clay coffins and location of the objects in the graves and above them. Pottery vessels, metal objects, scarabs and jewelry were found inside the coffins at both sites, as well as bones of Nile perch; the graves at both sites were marked by jars or stones that were positioned above the head or feet of the deceased to mark the burial place. The similarity of many of the funerary details of Deir al-Balah, Bet She'an and Tel Shadud suggests that this was a mortuary population that had a common burial ideology.

In all of the excavated sites where anthropoid coffins of the Late Bronze Age were found, administration buildings or cultic structures in the Egyptian style were also discovered. The parallels between Canaan and Egypt regarding the burial custom in clay anthropoid coffins have been discussed extensively (Albright, 1932, Wright, 1959, Oren, 1973, Dothan, 1979, Pouls Wegner, 2015). Graves with clay coffins with anthropoid covers shaped in the naturalistic style and dating to the XIX and XX Dynasties were found in the Nile Delta, at Tell el-Yahudiyeh (Naville and Griffith, 1890, Petrie, 1906, Mesnil du Buisson, 1929, Cotelle-Michel, 2004, Pouls Wegner, 2015) and Tel Nebesheh (Petrie, 1888). They were also found at Aniba in Nubia (Steindorff, 1937). In all cases, the anthropoid clay coffins were found together with an assemblage of funerary offerings similar to those discovered in the graves in the southern Levant. The design on one of the anthropoid coffin lids of Tell el-Yahudiyeh is similar to that of the lid from Tel Shadud, as if the two were made by the same craftsman (Dothan, 1982, Pl. 26).

Therefore, as burials in anthropoid coffins are a not uncommon custom in Egyptian and Egyptian-inspired sites of the time and as the body preparation related with these burials is still unclear, organic residue study of the anthropoid coffin is well justified and can shed light on Egyptian burial customs in general.

Section snippets

Materials

To study the body preparation customs related with the anthropoid coffin burial an organic residue analysis study was designed and carried out. Sixteen samples were chosen from eight distinct locations along the profile of the coffin – head (8) to toes (1), as shown in Fig. 1B. Samples were taken from the lowermost parts of the coffin (samples no. 2, 3 and 5), from its middle section (samples no. 1 and 7) and from its uppermost parts (samples no. 4, 6 and 8). At each spot a sample was taken

Results

The organic content detected in samples 4, 6 (in) and 8 (in) consists mainly of palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acids in P/S ratio lower than 1, along with cholesterol (Table 1, Fig. 3A).

The organic content detected in samples 1 and 6 (out) consists of palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acids in relatively equal amounts (P/S = 1) (Table 1, Fig. 3B).

The organic extracts of samples 2, 3 and 5 contain significant amounts of palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acids in P/S ratio higher than

Animal/human fat identification

The organic content detected in samples 4, 6 (in) and 8 (in) consists mainly of palmitic (C16:0) and stearic (C18:0) acids in P/S ratio lower than 1, along with cholesterol (Table 1). This composition fits the molecular distribution typical of animal fat (Baeten et al., 2013). Two main indicators that may help distinguish animal fat from vegetal oily substances are the presence or absence of cholesterol and its derivatives, and the ratio between palmitic and stearic free fatty acids. Part of

Conclusions

Systematic sampling along the coffin's profile revealed the method in which the clay coffin was prepared for accommodating the burial of the deceased's body, after it was made of non-local clay and fired. The interior side of the lower parts of the coffin was sealed with beeswax. Perhaps this sealing was made in order to prevent the fluids of the body to percolate of the coffin and penetrate the ground. One drainage hole was made at the bottom of the coffin, to prevent from the body fluids to

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Natali Zak, Carmen Hersch and Avshalom Karasik from the Israel Antiquities Authority for photographs and drawings.

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