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The Ubaid Cemetery of Eridu : Insights into Newly Excavated Graves in the 2022-2023 Campaigns

SAVELLI, Alessia

During the excavations campaigns in 1946-49 , Iraqui archaeologist Fuad Safar described more than 190 graves in Eridu Cemetery . Here we report new insights into construction tecnique emerged from 10 never excaved before graves . These graves have been dug during the archaelogical mission of Sapienza University of Rome . under the direction of professor Franco D’Agostino carried on from early spring of 2022 to the of 2024. The aim of our investigation was to carry on scientific excavations with modern methods and resources to better understand the constuction tecniques and structure of these never excavated grave as compared with the ones described by Safar ; furthermore we made comparisons with other Mesopotamian contemporary cemeteries . Early results of our still ongoing investigations show tath all the graves were built as rectangular boxes made of variable courses of bricks, wich reaches the number of fiftheen in one of the ten graves we dug ,as described also by Safar , but we found the evidence , given by the up to date metodology of excavation used in our campaigns , of a quite different building procedure as compared to the one reported by Safar himself and published in 1981 by Iraqui Ministry of Culture and Information . Several issues have still to be clarified about the tecnical procedures used in the construction of the Ubaid Cemetery of Eridu and these will be investigated in the next campaigns .

Session 4. Crafting Identity and Clusters through Material Culture, Iconography and Texts [info]