AND DEATH SHALL DO US NO PART: SIMULTANEOUS BURIALS IN MIDDLE BRONZE AGE SOUTHERN LEVANT

Much has been written on funerary assemblages and burial customs of the Middle Bronze II in the Southern Levant (Kenyon 1960; 1965; Hallotte 1994; Baker 2012; Cohen 2012). Some MBII tombs show a unique phenomenon: simultaneous burial of several individuals together. It was first noticed by Kenyon (1960), but hardly discussed since. In this article we bring new evidence from the large MBII cemetery of Rishon le-Zion, Israel, and show that simultaneous burials appear in quite a few other sites. It is a significant phenomenon which deserves attention, though its meaning and the identity of those buried remain enigmatic.