Middle Bronze Age Burials in the Southern Levant: Spartan Warriors or Ordinary People?

Abstract

Summary Intermediate and Middle Bronze Age tombs with weapons (mainly daggers) in the southern Levant were often interpreted as ‘warrior graves’. Taking into consideration new data from Rishon Le-Zion (Israel), recent work on early warfare and warriors, and a study of so-called ‘warrior graves’ in Mesopotamia (Rehm 2003), we suggest that most of these graves are not graves of elite warriors, but typical male burials. We also discuss the assumed ‘burial kit’ and the decline in numbers of weapons per burial, which is in our view related to the shift from individual burials (in the Intermediate Bronze and Middle Bronze IIA periods) to multiple shaft burials (in the Middle Bronze IIB period).