Elam and its neighbours: a view from Neo-Elamite mortuary remains

After a period of silence in the earlier years of the first millennium BCE, textual sources begin to document increasing socio-political interaction between Elam and its Babylonian and Assyrian neighbours from around the middle of the 8th century. Focussing on material excavated from Neo-Elamite burials at a handful of sites in southwest Iran, the present paper seeks to explore the ways in which this interaction may have played out in funerary practices. Various aspects of the mortuary record, particularly burial typology and grave good assemblages, are queried in order to assess whether any discernible chronological changes might be attributable to new forms of “international” contact or, conversely, whether distinctly local practices prevail.