Expediting Reincarnation in the Fifth Millennium BCE: Interpreting the Chalcolithic Ossuaries of the Southern Levant

We examine and reinterpret the phenomenon of containers used for the secondary burial of human remains – ossuaries – in the Chalcolithic period of the southern Levant, c.4500–3700 BCE. Ossuary form and decoration, both plastic and painted, is evocative and symbol‐laden. Since their first discovery in the 1930s, several hypotheses have sought to explain ossuary iconography, but none provides an integrated, holistic interpretation. Chalcolithic iconography, mortuary contexts, and archetypal mythologies suggest that ossuaries, mainly of clay, but also of stone, served as vehicles of reincarnation.