THE TYPOLOGY AND TOPOGRAPHY OF SPARTAN BURIALS FROM THE PROTOGEOMETRIC TO THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD: RETHINKING SPARTAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND THE OSTENSIBLE CESSATION OF ADULT INTRAMURAL BURIALS IN THE GREEK WORLD

2018 ◽  
Vol 113 ◽  
pp. 307-363
Author(s):  
Paul Christesen
Keyword(s):  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Building Activity ◽  
Greek World ◽  
Made In

This article makes use of recently published graves to offer the first synthetic analysis of the typology and topography of Spartan burials that is founded on archaeological evidence. Our knowledge of Spartan burial practices has long been based almost entirely on textual sources – excavations conducted in Sparta between 1906 and 1994 uncovered fewer than 20 pre-Roman graves. The absence of pre-Roman cemeteries led scholars to conclude that, as long as the Lycurgan customs were in effect, all burials in Sparta were intracommunal and that few tombs had been found because they had been destroyed by later building activity. Burial practices have, as a result, been seen as one of many ways in which Sparta was an outlier. The aforementioned recently published graves offer a different picture of Spartan burial practices. It is now clear that there was at least one extracommunal cemetery in the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. What would normally be described as extramural burials did, therefore, take place, but intracommunal burials of adults continued to be made in Sparta throughout the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods. Those burials were concentrated along important roads and on the slopes of hills. The emergent understanding of Spartan burial practices takes on added significance when placed in a wider context. Burial practices in Sparta align closely with those found in Argos and Corinth. Indeed, burial practices in Sparta, rather than being exceptional, are notably similar to those of its most important Peloponnesian neighbours; a key issue is that in all three poleis intracommunal burials continued to take place through the Hellenistic period. The finding that adults were buried both extracommunally and intracommunally in Sparta, Argos and Corinth after the Geometric period calls into question the standard narrative of the development of Greek burial practices in the post-Mycenaean period.

Gymnasium and Polis

2021 ◽  
pp. 497-508
Author(s):  
Nigel Kennell
Keyword(s):  
Liberal Arts ◽  
Archaic Period ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Local Elite ◽  
Jewish Society ◽  
User Groups ◽  
Greek World

The article sketches the development of the gymnasium from its origins in the archaic period to the later Hellenistic period when, in addition to its military function, the gymnasium was a multi-use complex numbering among a city’s largest buildings. Epigraphical and archaeological evidence provide insights into the gymnasium’s infrastructure, user groups, and contests which were peculiar to it. Its administrator, the gymnasiarch, was a prominent official, whose position provided opportunities for displays of competitive generosity. The gymnasium also received benefactions from the local elite, kings, and dynasts, who thereby burnished their reputations as supporters of Hellenic culture. Gymnasia were also equipped with instructors in athletic and military subjects, with lectures or courses in the liberal arts mostly provided by travelling teachers. The homogeneity of its programme throughout the Greek world made the gymnasium an effective vehicle for transmitting Hellenic culture to non-Greeks, although Jewish society was ambivalent about its benefits.

Diocletian's Price-Edict at Ptolemais (Cyrenaica)

1955 ◽  
Vol 45 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 106-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giacomo Caputo ◽  
Richard Goodchild
Keyword(s):  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
The West ◽  
Italian Government ◽  
Systematic Exploration ◽  
Roman Age ◽  
The City ◽  
Made In ◽  
Late Roman

Introduction.—The systematic exploration of Ptolemais (modern Tolmeita), in Cyrenaica, began in 1935 under the auspices of the Italian Government, and under the direction of the first-named writer. The general programme of excavation took into consideration not only the important Hellenistic period, which gave the city its name and saw its first development as an autonomous trading-centre, but also the late-Roman age when, upon Diocletian's reforms, Ptolemais became capital of the new province of Libya Pentapolis and a Metropolitan See, later occupied by Bishop Synesius.As one of several starting-points for the study of this later period, there was selected the area first noted by the Beecheys as containing ‘heaps of columns’, which later yielded the monumental inscriptions of Valentinian, Arcadius, and Honorius, published by Oliverio. Here excavation soon brought to light a decumanus, running from the major cardo on the west towards the great Byzantine fortress on the east. Architectural and other discoveries made in 1935–36 justified the provisional title ‘Monumental Street’ assigned to this ancient thoroughfare. In terms of the general town-plan, which is extremely regular, this street may be called ‘Decumanus II North’, since two rows of long rectangular insulae separate it from the Decumanus Maximus leading to the West Gate, still erect. The clearing of the Monumental Street and its frontages revealed the well-known Maenad reliefs, attributed to the sculptor Callimachus, a late-Roman triple Triumphal Arch, and fragments of monumental inscriptions similar in character to those previously published from the same area.

scholarly journals Polyhedron Seals of the Transcaucasian Origin Dated 2nd – 1st CC BC from the Burials of the Nomads of Asian Sarmatia of the 1st – First Half of the 2nd Century AD

2020 ◽  
pp. 200-217
Author(s):  
Mikhail Treister ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
The Caucasus ◽  
Blue Glass ◽  
Lower Volga ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Indirect Confirmation ◽  
Dark Blue ◽  
Made In

The article features the gem of rather rare forms, namely so-called prisms, polyhedra, scaraboids and bifacial gems which were found in the burials of the Asian Sarmatia nomads. The author describes an attempt to attribute seals in the form of polyhedra from Sarmatian burials dated back to the 1st – first half of the 2nd century AD within the Lower and Upper Don and the Lower Volga regions. Polyhedra belong to the forms of gems, which became widespread in the Classical era, both among Greek and so-called Greek-Persian gems. In the 2nd – 1st centuries BC the seals in the form of polyhedra were widely distributed across the Caucasus and, especially, in Transcaucasia region. According to the finds, they are represented by numerous items made of carved stone, as well as of dark blue glass, milky white and greenish color. Moreover, there are also known rectangular forms of prints of such seals on the bulls, in particular which were excavated from the palace at Dedoplis Gora in Caucasian Iberia, dated to the 1st century BC – 1st century AD. The analysis of the shapes, materials and subjects of the images on the seals from the Sarmatian burials considered in the current article suggests that they were made in Transcaucasian workshops of the 2nd – 1st centuries BC. The probable Transcaucasian origin of the seals and their dating to the late Hellenistic period are an indirect confirmation of the hypothesis previously expressed by the author about the early cylindrical, conical seals and scaraboids of the mid-2nd – mid-1st millennium BC found in Sarmatian burials of the 1st century BC – 2nd century AD, originating from the sanctuaries of Transcaucasia.

Did the Ancients Care When their Children Died?

1988 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 152-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Golden
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Correct Answer ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Very Young Children ◽  
Imperial Period

Did the ancients care when their children died? The question is blunt, but not straightforward. How are we to define ‘care’? Whose children – anyone's, family members', one's own? Any thorough answer must be correspondingly complex, taking into account variables of many different kinds. So, for example, it has been argued that mothers cared for their children more than fathers, that very young children were missed less than older ones, that urban and servile populations tended to commemorate young children with gravestones more than others, that variations in burial practices among Greek communities may ‘suggest varying degrees of affection on the part of the parents’, that care for children increased in the later fifth century in Athens or in the Hellenistic period in Greece or in the later Republic or the Imperial period at Rome. In this paper, I make no claim to the nuanced and sophisticated presentation these difficulties demand; I will present evidence from various genres, referring to diverse places and times, concerning children from a range of ages. My aim is modest: to consider two arguments that have been applied to this subject. My question has been raised several times within the last few years, each time by first-rate scholars, and these have given what I think is clearly the correct answer. Yet that answer has not been expressed as firmly as it might be; and in giving it some have raised an issue which needs clarification. Let these be my excuses for opening the question again.

Ancient Greek Terracotta Sculpture

2022 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Southern Italy ◽  
Hellenistic Period ◽  
Greek Life ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Monumental Sculpture ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Terracotta Figurines ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Greek World ◽  
Material Form

The phrase “terracotta sculpture” refers to all figurative representations in fired clay produced in Greece and in the Greek world during the first millennium bce, (from the Geometric period to the end of the Hellenistic period), whatever their size (figurine, statuette, or statue), whatever their manufacturing technique (modeling, molding, mixed), whatever their material form (in-the-round, relief, etc.), whatever their representation (anthropomorphic, zoomorphic [real or imaginary], diverse objects), and whatever the limits of their representation: full figure (figurines, statuettes, groups), truncated or abbreviated representations, including protomai, masks, busts, half figures, and anatomical representations, among others. All these objects, with the possible exception of large statues, were the products of artisans who were referred to in ancient texts as “coroplasts,” or modelers of images in clay. Because of this, the term “coroplasty,” or “coroplathy,” has been used to refer to this craft, but also increasingly to all of its products, large and small, while research on this material falls under the rubric of coroplastic studies. Greek terracottas were known to antiquarians from the mid-17th century onward from archaeological explorations in both sanctuary and funerary sites, especially in southern Italy and Sicily. Yet serious scholarly interest in these important representatives of Greek sculpture developed only in the last quarter of the 19th century, when terracotta figurines of the Hellenistic period were unearthed from the cemeteries of Tanagra in Boeotia in the 1870s and Myrina in Asia Minor in the 1880s. These immediately entered the antiquities markets, where their cosmopolitan, secular imagery had a great appeal for collectors and fueled scholarly interest and debate. At the same time, sanctuary deposits containing terracottas also began to be explored, but scholarly attention privileged funerary terracottas because of their better state of preservation. For most of the 20th century, the study of figurative terracottas basically was an art-historical exercise based in iconography and style that remained in the shadow of monumental sculpture. It is only in the last four decades or so that coroplastic studies has developed into an autonomous field of research, with approaches specific to the discipline that consider modalities of production, as well as the religious, social, political, and economic roles that terracottas played in ancient Greek life by means of broad sociological and anthropological approaches. Consequently, this bibliography mainly comprises publications of the last forty years, although old titles that are still essential for research are also included.

Britannia Superior (c. AD 225–50)

2021 ◽  
pp. 313-325
Author(s):  
Dominic Perring
Keyword(s):  
Belief Systems ◽  
Government Official ◽  
Third Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Diverse Range ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Temple

This chapter explores further manifestations of wealth and power in and around early third-century London, particularly evident in the rise of mystery cults and new burial practices. It starts by reviewing evidence of the expansion of the presumed suburban villa and building of a bathhouse at Shadwell c. AD 228. This was perhaps occupied by an important government official linked to the coastal supply routes later developed into the forts of the Saxon shore. Several other villas and townhouses were refurbished at this time, when the temple of Mithras was built. These and other finds reported on here attest to the popularity of a diverse range of mystery and salvation cults, with a particularly wide repertoire of Bacchic motifs. London’s later Roman cemeteries expanded as inhumation gained in popularity, and cremation became a rarer rite. The chapter describes the archaeological evidence for these changed burial practices which can also be linked to the rise of soteriological belief systems that encouraged ideas of physical resurrection. The reasons for these changed mentalities are considered in the context of the history of the period.

3. Material clues

2019 ◽  
pp. 21-33
Author(s):  
Barbara Graziosi
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Seventh Century ◽  
Sixth Century ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Original Audience ◽  
Greek World

‘Material clues’ considers the archaeological evidence for when the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, including Heinrich Schliemann’s quest to find Troy on the basis of clues in the texts. The Iliad and the Odyssey refer to material circumstances not found before the later eighth or early seventh century BCE. They describe a distant, mythical past, but are set in a real and recognisable landscape. No interpretation leads to a single original audience, historical context, or specific political agenda, but earliest quotations from, and references to, Homer in other poets’ work prove that by the late sixth century BCE, the poems were well known throughout the Greek world.

The first archaeological evidence for death by spearing in Australia

Antiquity ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 81 (314) ◽  
pp. 877-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josephine J. McDonald ◽  
Denise Donlon ◽  
Judith H. Field ◽  
Richard L.K. Fullagar ◽  
Joan Brenner Coltrain ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Know How ◽  
Made In

An Aboriginal man done to death on the dunes 4000 years ago was recently discovered during excavations beneath a bus shelter in Narrabeen on Sydney's northern beaches. The presence of backed microliths and the evidence for trauma in the bones showed that he had been killed with stone-tipped spears. Now we know how these backed points were used. A punishment ritual is implied by analogies with contact-period observations made in the eighteenth century AD.

Jewish Life Before the Revolt: The Archaeological Evidence

2005 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Berlin
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
First Century ◽  
Actual Behavior ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Shared Beliefs ◽  
Religious Sensibility ◽  
Ethnic Solidarity

AbstractIn this paper, I present material remains relevant to understanding Jewish life in Palestine in the century or so before the Revolt. These remains comprise tangible data by which Jewish praxis, actual behavior, as well as attitudes, can be identified and dated. From the early-mid first century B.C.E., Jews adopted what I call 'household Judaism'—using mikva'ot as well as locally manufactured oil, wine, and cooking vessels—in order to incorporate a religious sensibility into their daily lives. At the end of the first century B.C.E. and in the early first century C.E., they began using plain oil lamps and stone dishes as markers of ethnic solidarity and, perhaps, religious attitudes. Throughout these years, most Jews in Jerusalem and Judea followed identical burial practices, with understated funerals at undecorated family tombs. 'Household Judaism' developed outside halakhic or priestly concerns. The remains reflect shared beliefs as well as a broad desire for material possessions that would encode and reflect religious unity and identity.Other remains, however, tell a different story. In country villas and in the Upper City of Jerusalem, wealthy Jews embraced the use of decorated table vessels, Italian-style cooking pans, and foreign modes of dining. They built elaborate display tombs whose large courtyards and impressive façades provided a classicizing backdrop for staged funeral ceremonies. These sorts of remains are rare or absent in rural Judea, Jewish Galilee, and Gaulanitis. The archaeological evidence thus provides an eyewitness view of a population strongly unified in religious practices but sharply divided by cultural ethic. Over the course of the first century that division may have helped weaken the link between position and moral authority, which in turn created a space and a platform for new voices and different agendas.

Early Euboean Pottery and History

1957 ◽  
Vol 52 ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Boardman
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
National Museum ◽  
Greek Language ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The North ◽  
Syrian Coast ◽  
Greek World

This paper is divided into three sections. In the first a group of pottery fragments from Chalcis serves as an introduction to a study of early Euboean pottery, and of its appearance and imitation in other parts of the Greek world. In the second some archaic and black-figured vases are published as addenda to my article on ‘Pottery from Eretria’ in BSA xlvii. 1–48, plates 1–14. This I refer to here simply as Eretria. Finally some historical considerations are prompted by the archaeological evidence reviewed. Briefly they involve the following theses: that Strabo's ‘Old Eretria’ may lie at or near Amarynthos at the distance from Eretria that Strabo indicated; that Euboeans played a major part in the foundation of Al Mina (Posideion) on the North Syrian coast in the early eighth century B.C.; that they may be largely responsible for the adoption of the Semitic alphabetic characters for the Greek language; and that Eretria was the ultimate victor in the ‘Lelantine War’.Mme Semni Karouzou has with customary generosity granted me permission to publish several vases in the National Museum, Athens. Other pieces in the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Ashmolean Museum are illustrated by permission of the authorities of those museums. Mrs. A. D. Ure has been particularly helpful in the study of the black-figured vases and is herself preparing a study of a series closely related to the Euboean vases which are discussed here.

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