Abstract

CABRERA, Rodrigo. Between wedges, tablets and scribes: the materiality of the funerary landscapes in Mesopotamia during the Third Dynasty of Ur. Rev. Mus. Antropol. [online]. 2019, vol.12, n.2, pp.7-22. ISSN 1852-060X.  http://dx.doi.org/https://doi.org/10.31048/1852.4826.v12.n2.23526.

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze the funerary spatiality during the Third Dynasty of Ur (2110-2003 BCE) in Lower Mesopotamia, based on the theoretical postulates of the so-called studies on materiality in Archeology -which propose the overcoming of the subject/object dialectic- and, for that matter, we will also consider the Peircian semiotic perspective, which will allow us to understand how the available sources (clay tablets and burial structures) could be studied from a view that is no longer dichotomous, but triadic. The discussion about the cuneiform tablets not only as carriers of messages -in our case, administrative texts- is transcendental in the reconstruction of Mesopotamian funerary landscapes. We are interested in analyzing the role of the so-called “funeral chapels” in the administrative/political reconfiguration during the Third Dynasty of Ur, at which time the palace appropriated the control mechanisms of the temples. Likewise, the funeral chapels supposed the strengthening of links between the dead of the elite (ancestors), the goods deposited in their honor (funerary offerings), and the location of evocative places. In short, the funeral chapels pointed out the performance of ritual practices, the political foundation of the emerging palace elite, and the monumentalization of the funerary landscape.

Keywords : Mesopotamia; Third Dynasty of Ur; Funerary landscape; Materiality; Administrative texts.

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