Jar

This jar comes from a rock-cut tomb at Jericho. It was excavated by Dame Kathleen Kenyon in the 1950s.. During this period of Jericho’s long history wealthier and more important individuals were buried in individual tombs carved in the rock. This one was entered via a vertical shaft nearly 3 m deep. As well as the body and a variety of pots and lamps the tomb also contained animal bones suggesting that cuts of meat had been left as a meal for the deceased. It is possible that such individual burials proved too costly or too labour intensive as in later periods bodies were buried collectively in family tombs.