MIDDLE BRONZE AGE SOUTHERN LEVANTINE MORTUARY TRADITIONS AND THE “BURIAL KIT”

Mortuary data from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) in the southern Levant is well-known and well-documented. In examining these materials, many analyses seek to identify a burial or fu-neral “kit”- defined as a standardized grouping of material culture deposited with deceased individuals - and often understand the “kit” as an essential component of MBA mortuary traditions. However, the concept of the “kit” relies on several unsubstantiated assumptions regarding association, applicability, commonality, and materiality in mortuary data. This paper examines the intellectual concept of the “kit”, analyzes these assumptions inherent within the model, and subsequently evaluates its use for understanding mortuary traditions in the southern Levantine Middle Bronze Age.