Author Description

"The Dying Child: The Death and Personhood of Children in Ancient Israel is a social history of the death of infants and children in Iron Age Israel. The study concentrates on three aspects of death: a regional analysis of burials, the place of the child in the household of the afterlife, and the personhood of the child. The study is divided into two parts. Part One concentrates on the archaeological remains of child burials in various regions of ancient Israel including the Philistine Plain, Southern Phoenician Coast, the Galilee, Jezreel Valley, and Central Highlands. Part Two further teases out the larger themes found in the burials, focusing on memorials and commemoration, the materiality of tombs, and concepts of personhood, by comparing what is found in Judah to that of surrounding regions. The study not only adds to the understanding of children in ancient Israel, but to the understanding of death, dying, and the meaning of the Judahite cult of the dead en large. It addresses infants and children primarily from the mortuary record, and secondarily from the biblical record. In doing so it moves beyond the limitations of what the biblical record can say with regards to infants and children vis-à-vis the dying process, the cult of the dead, and personhood. Finally, in understanding the tomb as an extension of the household in the afterlife, the study beings to uncover the personhood of infants and children and their place in the Iron Age household of the living"--