Ancient Egyptian “pot burials” are not what they seem

Enlarge / A selection of child and infant pot burials from an ancient cemetery in Adaïma, Egypt. They are between 7,500-4,700 years old. Note that some of the pots are distinctly egg-shaped. (credit: Béatrix Midant-Reynes, Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale)

Around 3,500 BCE, the ancient Egyptians began to practice a ritual that has long perplexed archaeologists. They buried their dead in recycled ceramic food jars similar to Greek amphorae.

For decades, scholars believed that only the poor used these large storage containers, and they did so out of necessity. But in a recent article for the journal Antiquity, Ronika Power and Yann Tristant debunk that idea. They offer a new perspective on pot burial.

Burial in pots took many forms. Egyptians buried their dead in all types of ceramic vessels, and, sometimes, the body was simply placed underneath a pot in a grave. Though pot burials were popular, especially for children, people also used coffins and even stone-lined pits to inter their loved ones. The practice of pot burial probably came to Egypt from the Levant region, where pot burials date back to at least 2,000 years before the first known examples in Egypt.