Image Details

© Erich Lessing

BONE JARS. During the Chalcolithic, large storage jars, or pithoi, were used not only to store grain, but also to bury the dead. Though they lacked burials, nearly identical jars made of copper (shown above) were found in the Cave of the Treasure near the Dead Sea. Arav suggests that like the seemingly dead grain that will sprout, in the Chalcolithic mind, so too would the dead bones come back to life.