Unnamed Infant

The boy had no name. He was born into an early Neolithic farming village in the inland hills above the Turia. A few dozen families lived there, governing themselves through their elders without any chief or lord. His parents lived in a small house of timber and mud-plaster near other dwellings and pens, taking part in household rites at the hearth: ground grain and water set down before eating, and whispered words addressed to the family dead.

His father spent much of the year moving sheep and goats between scrubby slopes and better pasture, sleeping out with other men and returning with cheese and hides. His mother ran the house when he was away, shaping clay into wide-mouthed jars, trading pots and woven bands of fiber for grain and dried meat.

This was to be her first child. She labored through the day and pushed the boy out by evening. He came wet and quiet. Within hours his skin mottled and his belly tightened, and he cried once with a thin sound. By night he lay still.

Before dawn, his mother washed him with warmed water and set a few grains of barley at his lips—food for whatever journey followed. His father dug a shallow place at the edge of the settlement and covered the body with soil, pressing a plain potsherd into the fill as a marker.