Persian-era mass grave of infants excavated at Azekah

FUNERARY ARCHAEOLOGY: Archaeologists Find 2,500-year-old Mass Grave of Infants in Israel. The jumbled remains of dozens of skeletons at Azekah may help explain why children are not found in biblical-era cemeteries (Ariel David, Haaretz).

More than a decade ago, archaeologists investigating a cistern among the ruins of Azekah, an ancient town southwest of Jerusalem, made a gruesome discovery. The millennia-old water reservoir was not only filled with broken pottery and sediment washed in during centuries of abandonment, as one would expect. It also contained dozens of skeletons of children.

This mass grave for infants, most of them less than two years old, was likely in use during the Persian Period, some 2,500 years ago. It housed the fragile, jumbled remains of up to 89 individuals, the researchers say.

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The underlying open-access peer-review article in the Palestine Exploration Quarterly:

A mass grave of young children and infants from the Persian period in Tel Azekah and its importance for the understanding of burial practices of unweaned infants

Oded Lipschits, Annika Hauser, Noa Shatil, Manfred Oeming, Omer Sergi, Liora Freud, Tal Nemet, Hila Mayl & Sabine Kleimana
Published online: 27 Mar 2026
Cite this article https://doi.org/10.1080/00310328.2025.2589646

ABSTRACT

During the excavations at Tel Azekah, a cistern was discovered on the tell’s lower plateau containing the remains of a minimum of 68 individuals, almost all of whom were infants and young children. The osteological analysis revealed that approximately 90% of the individuals were under five years of age, 70% even less than two years old. The burial seems to be primary, and the deposition of the remains was dated to the Persian period (ca. 5th century bce) based on the analysis of ceramics and small finds. This paper presents the archaeological context, ceramics, small finds, and human remains. We propose that during the Persian period, the cistern functioned mainly as a mass burial site for infants who were not granted individual interments since they were not yet weaned. The findings address broader questions, such as the social status of infants, weaning as a rite of passage, and mortuary practices during the Persian Period.

For more on the Ashkelon brothel infant burials, see here and here and the links in between. For many posts on the infant burials at Carthage, which are widely, but not universally, taken to be human sacrifices, start here and follow the links.

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