Memorial Grave vs Cenotaph: A Common Ritual Practice during the Third Millennium BCE: Case Studies from Shahr-i-Sokhta and Djarkutan

Human burials in cemeteries have mostly been observed since the beginning of the third millennium BCE in areas of Southeast Iran and South Uzbekistan. The emergence of Urban Societies brought specific economic, social and cultural traits such as social classes, elites, craft specialization, long-distance trade, etc. Some of the latter traits can be traced in the archaeological evidence from cemeteries on the Iranian Plateau and the Oxus Civilization (also known as Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, BMAC. Although the evidence discovered from the graves informs us about objective issues, it also offers valuable information about subjective issues and ritual practice. The aim of this article is two-folded: firstly, to analyse comparatively the graves without skeletons found at two sites (i.e. Shahr-i-Sokhta and Djarkutan) in the above-mentioned areas and dated to the third millennium BCE; and secondly, to assess commons aspects in this kind of the graves at both sites. Many scholars have named this kind of the graves as “Cenotaph”, while in this article they are labelled as “Memorial Grave”.