Endnote 7 – Children in the Ancient Near East
Ethnographic studies suggest that the placement of the burials is also important. For example, studies in Borneo and Malaysia show that burying the jar under the house floor keeps the infant’s spirit close by so that it may be reborn again. Other cultures bury infants in places highly trafficked by women so that the infants may secretly enter a woman’s womb as she walks over the burial. Myths such as the Ugaritic Baal Epic and the Egyptian myth of Isis and Osiris attest to the fact that a belief in rebirth was not a foreign concept in the ancient Near East.