Gifts For The Dead: Function And Distribution Of Grave Goods

2017 ◽  
pp. 77-101
Author(s):  
Lidewijde de Jong
Keyword(s):  
The Dead ◽  
Grave Goods

A gold diadem from Aegina

1987 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 182-182
Author(s):  
Reynold Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The South ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Middle Helladic ◽  
Dead Man ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Grave Goods

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.

A Classical Athenian Grave (No 48, 470–50 BC) and Its Content from the Area between the So-Called ‘Ēriai’ Gate and the Dipylon

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-309
Author(s):  
Antonia Kokkoliou
Keyword(s):  
Young Men ◽  
Archaeological Site ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Road ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Grave Goods

Abstract During a rescue excavation a section of a cemetery dated between the Geometric and Hellenistic periods came to light, approximately 300 metres away from the archaeological site of the Kerameikos, along the ancient road that linked the route of the Dēmosion Sēma with the road that passed through the so-called ‘Ēriai’ Gate, and near the Sanctuary of Artemis Aristē and Callistē. Of the 91 graves that were unearthed, two are of particular interest. This paper offers an in-depth discussion of Grave 48, dated to 470-50 BC, which belongs to a boy aged between ten and thirteen years. The grave contains lekythoi, a strigil, a lyre and an aulos, deposited as grave goods next to his left arm. The grave goods that characterize the life of the dead are buried along with the body and symbolize their unlived future: hence they express the unbounded grief which the death of unmarried young men inevitably causes. The paper attempts to analyse the grave goods as symbols of the life of the deceased, and interpret the presence of the lyre in children’s graves.

Status and Burial

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Organic Materials ◽  
Domestic Space ◽  
Good Preservation ◽  
Combining Evidence ◽  
Generic Character ◽  
Hierarchical Relationships ◽  
The Dead ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Grave Goods

This chapter presents the burial of the dead as a key arena, like public and domestic space, for articulating status relationships. In mortuary rites distinctions of rank and resources were asserted through scale, materials, and symbolic resonance. With the benefit of new evidence for cremation process and from inhumation graves with good preservation of organic materials, this differentiation can be explored through the ritual sequence, including the laying out of the corpse and its treatment on the pyre, as well as in containers for the dead and in the number, variety and allusive properties of grave goods. In their generic character and their individual ‘biographies’ the latter linked burial to other occasions, ceremonial or convivial, when hierarchical relationships were manifested and reproduced. Combining evidence from inscriptions and sculpture and the in situ remains of markers also reveals differentiation among the dead in a form enduring long beyond the funeral.

The forethought of Themistocles

1987 ◽  
Vol 107 ◽  
pp. 182-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Holladay
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
British Museum ◽  
The South ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Middle Helladic ◽  
Dead Man ◽  
The Bronze Age ◽  
Grave Goods

A recent discovery on the island of Aegina by Professor H. Walter (University of Salzburg) throws a new light on the origins of the so-called Aegina Treasure in the British Museum.In 1982 the Austrians were excavating the Bronze Age settlement on Cape Kolonna, to the north-west of Aegina town. Immediately to the east of the ruined Temple of Apollo, and close to the South Gate of the prehistoric Lower Town, they found an unrobbed shaft grave containing the burial of a warrior. The gravegoods (now exhibited in the splendid new Museum on the Kolonna site) included a bronze sword with a gold and ivory hilt, three bronze daggers, one with gold fittings, a bronze spear-head, arrowheads of obsidian, boar's tusks from a helmet, and fragments of a gold diadem (plate Va). The grave also contained Middle Minoan, Middle Cycladic, and Middle Helladic (Mattpainted) pottery. The pottery and the location of the grave in association with the ‘Ninth City’ combine to give a date for the burial of about 1700 BC; and the richness of the grave-goods would suggest that the dead man was a king.

scholarly journals Governing from the Grave: Vampire Burials and Social Order in Post-medieval Poland

2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracy K. Betsinger ◽  
Amy B. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
Opportunity To Learn ◽  
Social Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Funerary Rites ◽  
Grave Goods

Mortuary treatments are ways in which archaeologists can learn about the culture and lifestyle of past societies, in terms of how they view the dead. The dead, however, can continue to play a role in the lives of the living, which may also be reflected in funerary rites and burial treatments. This article explores the social agency of the dead, focusing on the ‘vampire burials’ of the post-medieval Polish site of Drawsko 1. These burials, identified through their grave goods, provide a unique opportunity to learn how vampire folklore and the deceased ‘vampires’ influenced the living, most notably as ways to encourage social order, as an explanation for the unknown, and as an economic commitment.

Status, Wealth and the Chronological Ordering of Cemeteries

1988 ◽  
Vol 54 ◽  
pp. 327-329 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Social Position ◽  
Social Variation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Selection Of ◽  
Grave Goods

The study of grave goods plays a central role in two very different kinds of archaeology. As groups of artefacts that were deposited together, grave finds occupy a key position in chronological studies. At the same time, it is commonly supposed that the selection of artefacts for deposition with the dead may be some reflection of the social position that they had enjoyed in life; the contents of different graves may be studied for evidence of wealth and status. Although chronological studies have the longer history, these two types of analysis ought to be most informative where social variation can be traced over a lengthy sequence. As we shall see, this raises special problems.

Disputing the Dead: U. S. Law on Aboriginal Remains and Grave Goods

1992 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 546
Author(s):  
Larry J. Zimmerman ◽  
H. Marcus Price
Keyword(s):  
The Dead ◽  
Grave Goods

Graves and grave-goods

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Harding
Keyword(s):  
Final Stage ◽  
Western Society ◽  
Random Pattern ◽  
Implicit Assumption ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Funerary Ritual ◽  
Small Clusters ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Grave Goods

It has been stressed that the archaeological remains of the dead in a formal grave represent only the final stage in what may well have been a protracted and complex series of stages in funerary ritual. From this final stage, however, the archaeologist is potentially able to make an informed assessment of several aspects of the prevailing funerary practice, notably: • the context of burial, whether individual, grouped, or collective; • its structure, whether simple pit, with or without coffin, cist, or more elaborate tomb with the provision of additional space for accompaniments; • the placement of the remains, whole or part, cremation or inhumation, in the latter case including factors such as orientation and posture; • the presence or absence of grave-goods, their intrinsic character, and their choreography within the burial area; • any adjacent features, such as remains of pyres or related structures that might reflect pre-depositional stages in funerary ritual; • any secondary episodes of activity, such as subsequent burials or ‘grave robbing’. There is an implicit assumption that cemeteries should be relatively compact groups of graves, with or without a defining enclosure boundary. In the case of a larger cemetery, it might even be possible from grave associations to determine that it expanded over time in one particular direction, as in the case of Wetwang Slack or in the classic instance at Münsingen. Some graves in larger cemeteries were collectively ordered in regular ranks, as at Rudston or Harlyn Bay, implying an informed rather than random pattern of expansion. Smaller burial grounds, however, perhaps used over a shorter period of time, may be dispersed, or in small clusters over a wider area, as at Adanac Park, Cockey Down, Melton, or Little Woodbury, making their recognition more difficult in the absence of widespread stripping. This pattern could arise if a family group, for example, was segregated from the next allowing for infilling over time, which may not have happened if the settlement served by the cemetery for some reason was abandoned. In present-day western society a grave is simply a place of burial, designed for the disposal and commemoration of the dead.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document