By Bashar Mustafa
ABSTRACT
The focus of this paper is an analysis of Phoenician anthropomorphic sarcophagi located in the ancient
territory of the Phoenician necropolis site of Amrit (Syria) through exhaustive archaeological
contextualization of each sarcophagus. Our goal is to raise awareness of the need to bring scant
documentation of findings from previous centuries into a condition more consistent with current historicalarchaeological
contexts. We begin with findings documented in the nineteenth century and map the
evolution of the changing approach of studies related to these enigmatic funerary objects. This will allow us
to propose possible reasons for and causes of the treatment of these funerary containers more as artwork
than archeologically significant objects. These sarcophagi will also be examined in order to establish their
socio-ideological significance.
