Les vivants et leurs morts

In April 2010, scholars of Assyriology and Biblical Studies at the College de France, Paris, gathered for a colloquium to discuss the archaeological and textual evidence for the ways in which ancient Near Eastern societies dealt with their dead. How did these societies view the "afterlife," and what kind of relationship did they have with those who lived before them?For the cuneiform documentation, this raises, for example, the question of how the living commemorated their deceased, particularly by means of the kispum funerary rite whose specific practice and meaning remain to be explored.