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‘Atiqot 100 (2020)
ISBN 2948-040X
The Persian-Period Necropolis in the French Hospital Compound, Yafo (Jaffa): Case Study and Overview
(pp. 225–242)
Yossi Nagar
Keywords: necropolis, anthropology, epigenetic traits, pathologies, burial postures, demography, populations, ethnicity, burial practices
The human skeletal remains retrieved from the Persian-period (fifth–fourth centuries BCE) burial caves in the French Hospital Compound represent at least 37 individuals. The anthropological examination yielded important data concerning the demographic profile of the interred, comprising infants, children and adults of a wide age range and of both sexes, which is typical of a civilian population. Some of the tombs were used for a single burial, while others housed 2–8 individuals. All the individuals were placed on their backs, in an east–west orientation, as customary in other Persian-period cemeteries along the Israeli coastline and northern valleys. These burial practices allude to the predominantly Phoenician identity of the Yafo population.