Containers for the dead: the cosmological value of pots in Mesopotamian funerary contexts

Abstract

Clay, fire and water are the three basic elements necessary for making pottery, but they are also
three fundamental elements in framing the mythological dimensions of most of the societies inhabiting
the world both in ancient and modern times (fig. 1). In his book La potière jalouse,
2 Claude LéviStrauss clearly understood this important aspect in the creation of mythological stories among native
American communities and highlighted the important role played by potters and pottery making in the
fundamental process of human religiosity. Thus, in this paper, I will attempt to investigate the
cosmological value entangled in pots to be used for funerary depositions in Mesopotamia between the
3rd and 1st millennia BC. It is especially during this later period that the use of clay containers
became widely dispersed among Assyrian and Babylonian communities demonstrating the important
role played by vessels in the construction of their funerary traditions.