In Remembrance of Me

Feasting with the Dead in the Ancient Middle East

edited by Virginia Rimmer Herrmann and J. David Schloen

Book cover: In Remembrance of Me

Extent: 176 pages

Publisher: Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures

Subjects: Ancient Near East

Series: Oriental Institute Museum Publications

Series volume number: 37

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(April 2014)

ISBN: 9781614910176

11.5 x 9.02 inches

Price: $12.95

In stock

This Oriental Institute Museum exhibit catalogue looks at how the living commemorated and cared for deceased ancestors in the ancient Middle East. The focus of the exhibit is the memorial monument (stele) of an official named Katumuwa (ca. 735 BC), discovered in 2008 by University of Chicago archaeologists at the site of Zincirli, Turkey.


This Oriental Institute Museum exhibit catalog looks at how the living commemorated and cared for deceased ancestors in the ancient Middle East. The focus of the exhibit is the memorial monument (stele) of an official named Katumuwa (ca. 735 BC), discovered in 2008 by University of Chicago archaeologists at the site of Zincirli, Turkey. Part I of the catalog presents the most comprehensive collection of scholarship yet published on the interpretation of the Katumuwa Stele, an illuminating new document of ancestor cult and beliefs about the soul. In Part II, leading scholars describe the relationship between the living and the dead in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, and the Levant (Syria-Palestine), providing a valuable introduction to the family and mortuary religion of the ancient Middle East. The fifty-seven objects cataloged highlight the role of food and drink offerings and stone effigies in maintaining a place for the dead in family life.

  • Edited by Virginia Rimmer Herrmann
  • Edited by J. David Schloen