The Role and Value of Children in the Ancient Near East During the 3rd Millennium BC: A View from Archaeological and Textual Sources

In an attempt to reconstruct the role and value of childhood in 3rd millennium BC Near Eastern societies, this article discusses specific archaeological aspects related to the material culture of children, integrating notions provided by contemporary cuneiform sources. In particular, burial contexts from selected sites of the Euphrates Valley will be analysed since they offer a large set of tangible data to investigate the remains of children and the artefacts associated with them. In this respect simple statistics and spatial analysis of burials is presented, ultimately trying to reconstruct the value accorded to children by adults through the lens of the funerary sphere.