DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49516#0112
68
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
clearly made out the exact nature of the burial custom which resulted in the presence of
several bodies in one open pit grave. In any case, at Kerma, a custom is clearly revealed
with sufficient material to determine its exact character.
Now, these multiple burials at Kerma are the result of one funeral on one definite day.
They are not the result of a series of acts extending over a long period of time as are the
burials in a communal grave. The bodies are not mummified in any way, but in those cases
in which the organic tissues were well preserved, the bodies had been cured in the same
natural manner by desiccation in which the bodies were found in the predynastic cemetery
at Naga-’d-Der. The only possible conclusion is that the extra persons in the grave had
died within a day of the death of the chief person buried in that grave. The importance
given to the chief body by placing it on the bed, by grouping the offerings, the ram or rams,
and even the other human bodies around the bed, and by the relatively better equipment
of the chief body with personal adornments: all these facts force the conclusion that the
extra bodies are subordinate to the chief body. The presence of the well-equipped female
body directly in front of the bed, which is itself in a few cases placed on a bed, increases the
conviction that this conclusion is correct. The group represents a family group; that is,
made up from the members of one family although not necessarily including the whole
family. The extra bodies are for the greater part the bodies of females often quite young;
in a few cases of children and even babies. From the evidence afforded by the skulls, the
extra bodies seem of the same race as the chief body, although negroid strains are not want-
ing, and an occasional negress is present.
When the facts presented by the large tumuli are taken under examination, they are
found to be exactly the same as in the subsidiary and independent graves, but on a much
larger scale. In these, the chief burial has been without exception entirely cleared out, and
the accompaniments scattered in the debris. In K III, K IV, and K X, the chief body was
in a separate room which, in K III and K IV at least, was roofed with a vault of crude-
bricks; in the other graves the separation was not so clear, although the tumuli, KXVI,
K XVIII, and K XIX, each contained more than one main burial chamber. In K III, the
fragments of a bed were found made of blue-glazed quartzite but of exactly the same form
as the ordinary wooden bed; and the fragments of a slate bed, which I believe to have
come from K IV, were found in the debris of the cemetery chapel K II. In K X, the body
was buried in a box, a temporary variation of the ordinary custom which extended to a few
subsidiary graves in that tumulus. In the other tumuli the beds were of wood and of the
usual form. From the fragments found in the debris disturbed by the plunderers, a series
of unusual objects were recorded which I assign without hesitation to the chief burial and
which show that the equipment of that body was of the same general character as that of
the chief bodies in the subsidiary graves but much more expensive and of finer materials.
The parallel is continued by the contents of the other rooms in these tumuli which, accord-
ing to the form, I call sacrificial corridors or sacrificial chambers. These apartments con-
tain a large number of bodies in the same variety of attitudes and positions as the extra
bodies in the subsidiary graves and resting also on the floor of the room, sometimes in al-
most regular rows but more often in quite irregular groups. The numbers of the extra
bodies were as follows. I give also the estimated original number, as all these sacrificial
apartments had been more or less plundered, although many individual bodies were quite
intact:
HARVARD AFRICAN STUDIES
clearly made out the exact nature of the burial custom which resulted in the presence of
several bodies in one open pit grave. In any case, at Kerma, a custom is clearly revealed
with sufficient material to determine its exact character.
Now, these multiple burials at Kerma are the result of one funeral on one definite day.
They are not the result of a series of acts extending over a long period of time as are the
burials in a communal grave. The bodies are not mummified in any way, but in those cases
in which the organic tissues were well preserved, the bodies had been cured in the same
natural manner by desiccation in which the bodies were found in the predynastic cemetery
at Naga-’d-Der. The only possible conclusion is that the extra persons in the grave had
died within a day of the death of the chief person buried in that grave. The importance
given to the chief body by placing it on the bed, by grouping the offerings, the ram or rams,
and even the other human bodies around the bed, and by the relatively better equipment
of the chief body with personal adornments: all these facts force the conclusion that the
extra bodies are subordinate to the chief body. The presence of the well-equipped female
body directly in front of the bed, which is itself in a few cases placed on a bed, increases the
conviction that this conclusion is correct. The group represents a family group; that is,
made up from the members of one family although not necessarily including the whole
family. The extra bodies are for the greater part the bodies of females often quite young;
in a few cases of children and even babies. From the evidence afforded by the skulls, the
extra bodies seem of the same race as the chief body, although negroid strains are not want-
ing, and an occasional negress is present.
When the facts presented by the large tumuli are taken under examination, they are
found to be exactly the same as in the subsidiary and independent graves, but on a much
larger scale. In these, the chief burial has been without exception entirely cleared out, and
the accompaniments scattered in the debris. In K III, K IV, and K X, the chief body was
in a separate room which, in K III and K IV at least, was roofed with a vault of crude-
bricks; in the other graves the separation was not so clear, although the tumuli, KXVI,
K XVIII, and K XIX, each contained more than one main burial chamber. In K III, the
fragments of a bed were found made of blue-glazed quartzite but of exactly the same form
as the ordinary wooden bed; and the fragments of a slate bed, which I believe to have
come from K IV, were found in the debris of the cemetery chapel K II. In K X, the body
was buried in a box, a temporary variation of the ordinary custom which extended to a few
subsidiary graves in that tumulus. In the other tumuli the beds were of wood and of the
usual form. From the fragments found in the debris disturbed by the plunderers, a series
of unusual objects were recorded which I assign without hesitation to the chief burial and
which show that the equipment of that body was of the same general character as that of
the chief bodies in the subsidiary graves but much more expensive and of finer materials.
The parallel is continued by the contents of the other rooms in these tumuli which, accord-
ing to the form, I call sacrificial corridors or sacrificial chambers. These apartments con-
tain a large number of bodies in the same variety of attitudes and positions as the extra
bodies in the subsidiary graves and resting also on the floor of the room, sometimes in al-
most regular rows but more often in quite irregular groups. The numbers of the extra
bodies were as follows. I give also the estimated original number, as all these sacrificial
apartments had been more or less plundered, although many individual bodies were quite
intact: