A Skull’s Tale: From Middle Bronze Age Subject to Teaching Collection “Object”

Abstract

In 1964, the American Expedition to Hebron began its first of three field seasons of archaeological work at Tell er-Rumeide (ancient Hebron) in the Palestinian territories. One discovery, Tomb 4, was a cave dated to the Middle Bronze Age II that held eight burials. Among these burials was a supine individual associated with a bronze toggle pin and large bronze dagger. Identified by excavators as an aged man, this burial was interpreted to belong to the well-documented Canaanite tradition of “warrior burials.” Approximately four decades later, Dr. William Poe, a participant in the Hebron expedition in 1966, donated a skull to Sonoma State University’s Anthropology Department. This skull is believed to be that of the “warrior” in Tomb 4 at Tell er-Rumeide. Bioarchaeological analysis and accompanying historical and archaeological research, taking place in preparation for the skull’s use in a teaching collection, are recontextualizing these remains. Drawing on multiple lines of evidence from osteology, archaeology, and oral history, the story of this skull can be explored not only from his life to his death but from a subject of Canaanite Hebron to an object of study in modern-day California.