DMP IX: Summary Report on the Fourth Season of Excavations of the Burials and Identity team
Abstract
The fourth season of the Burials and Identity component of
the Desert Migrations Project in 2010 focused on completion
of excavation work at two main cemeteries (TAG001
and TAG012) and smaller-scale sampling work at a number
of nearby cemeteries. The investigation of a number of
burials in a semi-nucleated escarpment cemetery TAG063
produced interesting new information on Proto-Urban
Garamantian funerary rites, dating to the latter centuries bc.
The excavations at TAG001 were extended to two areas of
the cemetery characterised by different burial types to the
stepped tombs that were excavated in 2009. A second type
of fairly monumental burial was identified, but these had
been heavily robbed and it was not possible to demonstrate
conclusively that these pre-dated the stepped tombs. Most
of the other burials excavated were simple shaft burials and
were relatively sparsely furnished with imported goods, in
comparison with the larger tombs, though quite a lot of
organic material was identified (matting, wood, gourds,
textiles and leather). At TAG012, a series of additional mudbrick
tombs was emptied. All had been robbed, but pockets
of the original fill and associated finds survived intact, yielding
some interesting assemblages. The majority of these
tombs appear to be Late Garamantian, though some contained
artefacts from much earlier times
, (11-2010)
