2021/05/28 by Anne Porter, Thomas McClellan, Susanne Wilhelm +10 · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Ancient Near East History #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Archaeological Research and Protection #Mesopotamia #Victory #Battle #Ancient history #Heaven #Archaeology #Population #History #Adversary #Resistance (ecology) #Geography #Demography #Law #Sociology #Biology
paper · pdf · doi:10.15184/aqy.2021.58
openalex publication_date 2021/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
Burial mounds piled high with enemy corpses are well known in Mesopotamian inscriptions as symbols of victory, but no archaeological examples have so far been recovered. Archaeological investigations of a tall mound adjacent to the site of Tell Banat in Syria have revealed an unusual, late third-millennium BC mortuary population, dominated by adult and sub-adult males. The systematic placement of these human remains and associated assemblages suggests that, rather than containing enemy combatants, this was a memorial to a community's battle dead. The authors propose that the deceased belonged to an organised army, with broader implications for state administration and the adherence or resistance to a new regime fostered by such monumentalisation.