Sidon (Lebanon): Twenty Middle Bronze Age Burials from the 2001 Season of Excavation

Abstract

The 2002 season of the British Museum excavations at Sidon uncovered twenty burials of the Middle Bronze Age. These included 'warrior' burials in constructed graves containing bronze weapons, child burials in jars, as well as the more common types of simple burials on plaster floors or sand. More burials have been found in the following season and the total so far has reached thirty-six. The graves and their contents are described in detail in the first article by Doumet-Serhal followed by an article on the scarabs (Taylor). Analysis of skeletal remains was undertaken at the Department of Archaeological Sciences in Bradford University (Ogden and Schutkowski) and the faunal material which includes not only sheep/goat but also fish, pig, tortoise and bovid is described by Vila (CNRS, Lyon).