The Archaeology of Purity and Impurity: A Case-Study from Tel ʿEton, Israel Avraham Faust & Hayah Katz The distinction between clean and unclean, often associated with bodily functions, is a com- mon feature of human societies. Consequently, diverse groups developed different ways of maintaining separation between the realms. Despite its prominence in many ethnographies and in anthropology at large, and although the spatial expression of this separation is sus- ceptible to archaeological enquiry, the concept of purity had received less attention by ar- chaeologists. The completion of the excavation of a large house at Tel ʿEton supplied us with detailed information on household life and practices in Iron Age Israel. The fnds from this house, along with a very large archaeological dataset about Iron Age Israelite society at large and the wealth of textual data from this period, give us insights into the practices associated with purity/impurity. The article reconstructs how Iron Age Israelite society coped with the implications of impurity (mainly women during menstruation) in its daily life, how impu- rity was contained, and offers a reconstruction of the ritual that accompanied the change of status from impure to pure. All cultures appear to make some distinction be- tween clean and unclean things, between pure and polluted objects, actions, and people (Buckser 1996, 1045) Most societies have clear concepts of what is pure and clean and what is not, and in many in- stances such concepts are related to bodily functions (e.g. Douglas 1966). Menstruation, for example, and even childbirth or other bodily emissions, are asso- ciated in many societies with impurity (see below). 1 Typically, the pure and the impure should be sepa- rated, and human societies developed different ways of maintaining this separation. Despite its prominence in anthropological studies, however, and although the spatial expression of this separation is susceptible for archaeological enquiry, the concept of purity has received little attention by archaeologists (e.g. Fowles 2008; Galloway 1998; Milner 2011, 112; and below). There are, of course, good reasons for this (supposed) neglect, as the issue poses many methodological and practical problems (cf. Fowles 2008; Milner 2011, 112). In this article we present a case-study from Iron Age Tel ʿEton (Israel), where the intersection of a de- tailed archaeological case-study (a complete structure that was carefully excavated in the course of 10 sea- sons), along with a very large archaeological dataset about the society at large and the existence of textual data, enable us to pass the threshold and to peer into the archaeology of purity. In this paper, therefore, we will use the fnds at Tel ʿEton in order to reconstruct how Iron Age Israelite society coped with the impli- cations of impurity in its daily life, and will attempt to reconstruct the ritual that accompanied the change of status from impure to pure. Background: impurity and its study in archaeology While men can be (and were) impure as a result of various causes (more below), impurity was far more often associated with women, especially during menstruation (and after childbirth: see below) (e.g. Cambridge Archaeological Journal page 1 of 27 C  2016 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research doi:10.1017/S0959774316000494 Received 22 December 2015; Accepted 5 September 2016; Revised 1 August 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0959774316000494 Downloaded from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. Open University of Israel, on 30 Oct 2016 at 09:11:35, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at http:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms.