Abstract
ABSTRACT Understanding mortuary ritual provides new perspectives for interpreting spatial collective memory and the relationship between elite and non-elite practices. Aššur serves as a case study to investigate the mortuary cult of the Neo-Assyrian period via ‘necrogeography’ in Mesopotamia. This study compares the textual sources to architectural and material features of elite and non-elite spaces in which burials and tombs were located. Neo-Assyrian domestic burials and their associated cults are then compared to the royal tombs and rituals surrounding the death of rulers. Concepts of space and memory from the theoretical works of Pierre Nora and Mircea Eliade are applied to Mesopotamian ideas of death and the afterlife to understand the necrogeographies of Assyrian burials in relation to the living. This conceptualizes location and memory in relation to sacred and profane space, concluding that burials were intentionally placed to establish a link to the underworld, benefitting both the deceased and the living.
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