An Infant Jar Burial from Zarnūqa: Muslim Funerary Practices and Migrant Communities in Late Ottoman Palestine
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The article presents an exceptional late Ottoman-period funerary assemblage excavated in 2001 at the former Arab village of Zarnūqa, on Israel's southern coastal plain.The assemblage, which formed part of a small cemetery in which mostly children were buried, included three storage jars covered by a stone surface-one contained the remains of a newborn baby, another contained grains and the third had an unknown content.The burial and grain jars were of Egyptian origin.In this article we present an updated inventory of Muslim jar burials from historical Palestine.When analyzed against this database, the Zarnūqa assemblage raises key questions pertaining to Muslim funerary practices, religious belief and magic, and to the migration of Egyptians to late Ottoman Palestine.
Source: Atiqot
Authors: Itamar Taxel, Roy Marom, Yossi Nagar
Institutions: Israel Antiquities Authority, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute
Language: English
Subfield: Archeology
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4409869211