Heading West: Considerations on grave orientation in 3rd Millennium BC Mesopotamia

The paper presents a survey of sub-pavement burials and cemetery graves from Early Dynastic sites aiming at highlighting the presence of meaningful patterns in the orientation of the graves. The archaeological evidence is then interpreted on the light of cuneiform sources. Pending further and more accurate archaeoastronomical analyses and notwithstanding a general variability in the Mesopotamian ED funerary practices, a “solar-based” interpretation of the burials’ orientation is proposed, and the preferred western orientation is tentatively connected with the sun-set on the basis both of the location of the Netherworld and of the chthonic aspects of the sun-god Utu/Shamash.