Wealth Sacrifice and Legitimacy:

Radical ‘royals’? Burial practices at Başur Höyük and the emergence of early states in Mesopotamia

“…Wilkinson has highlighted the role of shifting economic modes in marking social change, observing such a transition in ritual-economic systems in the Early Bronze Age Trans-Caucasian sphere of influence that stretched from Anatolia to Iran (Wilkinson 2014). The bronze objects buried at Başur Höyük fall into a pattern of ritual deposits that clearly mark Early Bronze Age funerary rituals as locations for the communication of wealth and status (Sağlamtimur & Massimino 2015). The importance of that display is not diminished by the presence of administrative artefacts such as the cylinder seals and ceramics marked with seal impressions that were also found inside the cist tomb.…”

“…The largest tomb so far uncovered in the Early Bronze Age cemetery contains two separate burial contexts: an inner chamber within a stone-slab-sided tomb (grave 15), and an external portico immediately adjacent to, and at the same level as, the stone structure (grave 17) (Figure 2). The contents were remarkable both in number and quality: hundreds of bronze objects, thousands of beads of local and exotic origin, and diverse ceramics (Sağlamtimur 2009; Sağlamtimur & Kalkan 2015; Sağlamtimur & Massimino 2015). Large numbers of ceramics and even a bundle of bronze pins still retaining traces of their original textile wrapping were deposited in clusters (Figure 3).…”