Weapons and implements were also laid in the Sumerian graves, indicating a belief that the spirits of the dead could not only protect themselves against their enemies but also provide themselves with food.  The funerary gifts of fish-hooks suggests that spirits were expected to catch fish and thus obtain clean food, instead of returning to disturb the living as they searched for the remnants of the feast, like the Scottish Gunna,

                 perched alone
    On a chilly old grey stone,
    Nibbling, nibbling at a bone
      That we’ll maybe throw away.

Some bodies which were laid in Sumerian graves were wrapped up in reed matting, a custom which suggests that the reeds afforded protection or imparted magical powers.  Magical ceremonies were performed in Babylonian reed huts.  As we have seen, Ea revealed the “purpose” of the gods, when they resolved to send a flood, by addressing the reed hut in which Pir-napishtim lay asleep.  Possibly it was believed that the dead might also have visions in their dreams which would reveal the “purpose” of demons who were preparing to attack them.  In Syria it was customary to wrap the dead in a sheep skin.[256] As priests and gods were clad in the skins of animals from which their powers were derived, it is probable that the dead were similarly supposed to receive inspiration in their skin coverings.  The Highland seer was wrapped in a bull’s skin and left all night beside a stream so as to obtain knowledge of the future.  This was a form of the Taghairm ceremony, which is referred to by Scott in his “Lady of the Lake".[257] The belief in the magical influence of sacred clothing gave origin to the priestly robes.  When David desired to ascertain what Saul intended to do he said, “Bring hither the ephod”.  Then he came to know that his enemy had resolved to attack Keilah.[258] Elisha became a prophet when he received Elijah’s mantle.[259]

Sometimes the bodies of the Sumerians were placed in sarcophagi of clay.  The earlier type was of “bath-tub” shape, round and flat-bottomed, with a rounded lid, while the later was the “slipper-shaped coffin”, which was ornamented with charms.  There is a close resemblance between the “bath-tub” coffins of Sumeria and the Egyptian pottery coffins of oval shape found in Third and Fourth Dynasty tombs in rock chambers near Nuerat.  Certain designs on wooden coffins, and tombs as early as the First Dynasty, have direct analogies in Babylonia.[260]

No great tombs were erected in Sumeria.  The coffins were usually laid in brick vaults below dwellings, or below temples, or in trenches outside the city walls.  On the “stele of victory”, which belongs to the period of Eannatum, patesi of Lagash, the dead bodies on the battlefield are piled up in pairs quite naked, and earth is being heaped over them; this is a specimen of mound burial.