Includes bibliographical references (pages 130-143).

Introduction; Chapter 1: The Bronze 'Bathtub' Coffins of Mesopotamia and Elam; Chapter 2. Mortuary Remains of Mesopotamia and Elam; Chapter 3. Death, the Afterlife and Funerary Ritual in Mesopotamia and Elam; Chapter 4. Ideological Aspects of the Bronze 'Bathtub' Burials; Chapter 5. Bronze 'Bathtub' Coffins in Historical Context; Chapter 6. Concluding Remarks; Bibliography; Appendix 1: Catalogue of Bronze 'Bathtubs'; Appendix 2: Nimrud Bronze 'Bathtub' Coffin Grave Good Inventory; Appendix 3. Texts.

This volume is dedicated to the examination of a small corpus of bronze U-shaped burial receptacles from ancient Mesopotamia and Elam, dubbed 'bathtub' coffins for their characteristic apsidal shape, reminiscent of a style of 19th and early 20th century bathtub. The coffins are approached in this work as a distinct corpus because they are almost identical in appearance and manufacture, and are known to have been produced and used for only a relatively short time-span by three closely interacting societies. In total the corpus comprises eight excavated bronze 'bathtub' coffins found in burial contexts dating to the 8th-6th centuries BC.