INTRODUCTION. During a survey of the Roman aqueduct near Megiddo a small trial excavation unearthed two Roman cooking pots containing burnt human ...
CREMATION, ITS PRACTICE AND IDENTIFICATION: A CASE STUDY FROM THE ROMAN PERIOD Israel Hershkovitz INTRODUCTION During a survey of the Roman aqueduct near Megiddo a small trial excavation unearthed two Roman cooking pots containing burnt human bones (Tsuk, present volume). The author had the opportunity to examine these bones. The results are presented in this report. Cremation, the custom of burning the human body, has been practiced in the Middle East since prehistoric times (Wells 1960). In Israel, archaeological evidence for such mortuary practices is relatively scanty, even from the Roman period when cremation was a normal practice (Barkay 1984). Since cremation is forbidden by Jewish law, it is reasonable to assume that all incidents of this practice found in Israel are of non-Jewish origin. From about 400 B.C.E. onwards, cremation was a common mortuary practice among Romans, and it remained so until the first century of the Common Era (Toynbee 1971). The corpse was generally laid on a pyre which consisted of a rectangular pile of wood sometimes mixed with papyrus to facilitate burning. Gifts and some personal possessions of the deceased were placed on the pyre; sometimes even pet animals were killed in order to accompany the soul into the "afterlife". After the corpse had been consumed, the ashes were drenched with wine or some other liquid and then collected by relatives and placed in a receptacle of some kind. The receptacle was kept in the home, placed in a chamber tomb, or buried in an undecorated container above which a marker was placed, usually a plain standing stone or even a large clay pot (Toynbee 1971:101). Before describing the bones which are the subject of this report, some comments on the "nature" of cremation are necessary. Krogman (1943; 1949) notes that the amount of soft tissue surrounding a bone affects the extent of the burning, that is, when the bone is protected by a large muscle mass the heat produces a mol!en condition characteristic of fusion by heat. Baby (1954) observed that fleshless bones remain nearly intact when burned, with little or no reduction in size or alteration in form. He also mentions that burning the whole corpse results in a deep checked pattern in the bones as well as warping and reduction of compact bone, with transverse and diagonal fractures. Binford (1972) concluded that the degree of bone calcining, or incineration, is a function oflength of time in the fire, intensity of the heat, thickness of the protecting muscle tissue, and position of the bone in relation to the point of oxidation of the consuming flame (1972:376). He also observed that water-cooling caused the bone to break up, splitting along heat-produced fractures and longitudinal striae, although there was no increase in the amount of checking (ibid.:375). Wells (1960) noted that differential burning of bones may lend crucial information about the position ofthe body on the pyre. van Vark (1970) demonstrated that only when the body was exposed to temperatures over 7000 C was a reduction in size (up to 25%) and shape of the bones evident. It must be emphasized that despite the fragmentary condition of the bones, and the 98
Hershkovitz: Cremation, Its practice and Identification
changes in size and shape as a result of cremation, a good number of skeletal parts often survive the firing with variable features intact which are worth studying. THE MATERIAL Pot A: The bone remains in this pot consisted of only a few tiny fragments, no more than 1-2 cm. in length. Only one lumbar vertebra was fully preserved: The fragments were all white in colour and manifested curved transverse fracture lines, irregular longitudinal splitting and marked warping. Pot B: This pot (height 28 cm., maximum circumference 91 cm.) contained burnt bones up to 5-6 cm.long. Much ofthe materiafln this pot was, as in the first, distorted and very difficult to interpret. The position of the bone fragments within the pot appeared to be random. Among the bones could be identified several nearly complete vertebral bodies, proximal and distal ends of ~he femora, tibiae and humeri, scapular fragments, ribs, a maxilla, and a mandible (PIs. 15-16). According to the head of the humerus, it appears the skeleton was that of an adult male. The dental arch was partially preserved in both maxilla and mandible and manifested deep dental sockets, attesting to the presence of most of the teeth at the time of death, which would suggest a relatively young age of the individual. The bones are white in color and show the same pattern of fractures and warping as those in Pot A. Other interesting findings were: a piece of burned animal bone (distal end of right radius), possibly of a young pig, Susscrofa, and a small nail, 2 em. long, in the vertebral part of a human rib. Differential burning was evident in a few fragments, the posterior aspects manifesting a bluish-grey rather than a white color as on the anterior aspects. A shiny, glazed substance was found attached to the posterior aspect of a scapular fragment. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The identification of cremated remains poses a problem because the bones are usually very fragmentary, and because firing can produce changes in size and shape (Krogman 1943; Baby 1954; Wells 1960; Binford 1972). The incineration ofthe body in Pot A seems to be nearly total, resulting in very tiny fragments. The fragments from Pot B were larger, although the dominant white color of the bones also points to high temperatures (about 700°C) during the crematory process (Baby 1954; van Vark 1970). Based on lack of arthritic changes in the vertebral bodies found in both pots, the sockets in the dental arches from Pot B, and the fact that all epiphyses were already fused (bones in both pots), the two individuals were probably young adults. The substance found attached to the back of the scapular fragment in Pot B may possibly be keratine from the hair, transformed by high temperatures during cremation (Wells 1960). The external appearance of the cremated bones - transverse fracture lines, irregular lengthwise splitting and marked warping - strongly suggests that cremation was performed on corpses, i.e. on flesh-covered bones (Baby 1954; Binford 1963). As the less damaged skeletal parts in Pot B are the yertebral bodies,' and calcination was usually more complete on the ventral surface of the bones than on the dorsal surface, it appears that either the body was laid bn or close to the ground and the pyre heaped over it, or that it was laid face down on the pyre. ' The above findings suggest that the remains of the two individuals within the pots were 99
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those of Roman soldiers, probably of the VIth Legion which camped near Megiddo. Similar pots containing burned bone fragments, probably of Roman soldiers of the Xth Legion camped in Jerusalem, have recently been reported by Barkay (1984). The characteristics of these finds (state of bones, association of nails and animal bones with human remains, etc.) are in almost complete concordance with our findings. The evidence presented here fits well with the Roman tradition of cremation. Acknowledgements We are grateful to Gaby Barkay from the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, for his helpful advice and comments on the manuscript; and also to Tsvika Tsuk, who excavated the site, for providing the material.
REFERENCES Baby, R.S. 1954. Hopewell Cremation Practices. The Ohio Historical Society. Papers in Archaeology 1:1-7. Barkay, G. 1984. Excavations on the Slope of the Hinnom Valley, Jerusalem. Qadmoniot 4:94-108 (Hebrew). Binford, L.R. 1963. An Analysis of Cremations from Three Michigan Sites. Wisconsin Archaeologist 44:98-110. Binford, L.R. 1972. An Archaeological Perspective. New York. Gejvall, N.G. 1969. Cremation. In: Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E. eds. Science in Archaeology. (2nd ed.). Bristol:468-479. Krogman, W.M. 1943. Role of the Physical Anthropologist in the Identification of Human Skeletal Remains. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin 12(4):17-40; 12(5):12-28. Krogman; W.M. 1949. The Human Skeleton in Legal Medicine: Medical Aspects. In: Levinson, S.D. ed. Symposium on Medicolegal Problems. Ser.2, Lippincot, Philadelphia: 1-90. Toynbee, J.M.C. 1971. Death and Burial in the Roman World. London. van Vark, G.N. 1970. Some Statistical Procedures for the Investigation of Prehistoric Human Skeletal Material. (Thesis) Rijksuniversiteit Croningen. Wells, C. 1960. A Study of Cremation. Antiquity XXXIV:29-37.
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