Funerary practices, ancestors cult, and the transmission of family estate in ancient Mesopotamia

Abstract

The aim of this article is to establish relations between two phenomena: from one side, the transmission of the family estate and, from the other, the funerary practices, in particular in contexts of inhumations in the house underground. One can see that the need of securing the cult of ancestors by means of funerary rites had an important role in the process of material and symbolic inheritance of the domestic group in the Babylonian region, and was decisive to distinguish the position of the first born son from that of the other heirs.