scholarly journals The Appropriation of Death In Classical Athens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexandra Donnison
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Funeral Practice ◽  
Grave Markers ◽  
Ideological Change

<p>This thesis is about the change in Athenian burial practices between the Archaic and Classical periods (500-430 B.C.E.), within the oikos and the polis. I argue that during this period there was a change in both burial practice and ideology. I hypothesise that the Homeric conception of death was appropriated by the state leading to a temporary ideological change in Athens between 500-430 B.C.E., with the result that the aristocratic Athenian oikoi exhibited a trend of anti-display. There then followed another shift in ideology, whereby the Athenian aristocrats reappropriated death, taking state funerary symbols and applying them to private death, which then resulted in the re-emergence of lavish yet iconographically different grave monuments. This is a study of varied and disparate sources ranging from archaeological evidence to later literature. It is divided into three parts. Chapter One outlines exactly what the changes in funeral practice were between the Archaic and Classical periods. It focuses on the decline of grave markers, the shift to extramural burial, the change in how funerals and death were depicted, the increased emphasis on state burial and the change in both public and private mourning practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that there was a definite change in how the Athenians interacted with their dead, both physically and ideologically. Chapter Two examines the reasons behind the change in burial practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that it is improbable such a complex change had simple factors or motivations behind it but rather that the most likely cause of such a shift in attitude was a combination of complex reasons, where a few predominate, such as appropriation of death by the polis resulting in glorified state burials and development of democracy. Chapter Three examines the re-emergence of grave monuments. The archaeological record reveals a reappearance of stone funerary sculpture a decade or so after the middle of the fifth century (c. 440-430 B.C.E.). I argue that the re-emergence of funeral sculpture was influenced heavily by foreign workers who brought with them their own burial practices which in turn inspired Athenian aristocrats to re-appropriate death and begin erecting private funeral monuments, however instead of only using Homeric imagery, as they had in earlier periods, they appropriated state symbols and incorporated them into private monuments.</p>

scholarly journals The Appropriation of Death In Classical Athens

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alexandra Donnison
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Foreign Workers ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Funeral Practice ◽  
Grave Markers ◽  
Ideological Change

<p>This thesis is about the change in Athenian burial practices between the Archaic and Classical periods (500-430 B.C.E.), within the oikos and the polis. I argue that during this period there was a change in both burial practice and ideology. I hypothesise that the Homeric conception of death was appropriated by the state leading to a temporary ideological change in Athens between 500-430 B.C.E., with the result that the aristocratic Athenian oikoi exhibited a trend of anti-display. There then followed another shift in ideology, whereby the Athenian aristocrats reappropriated death, taking state funerary symbols and applying them to private death, which then resulted in the re-emergence of lavish yet iconographically different grave monuments. This is a study of varied and disparate sources ranging from archaeological evidence to later literature. It is divided into three parts. Chapter One outlines exactly what the changes in funeral practice were between the Archaic and Classical periods. It focuses on the decline of grave markers, the shift to extramural burial, the change in how funerals and death were depicted, the increased emphasis on state burial and the change in both public and private mourning practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that there was a definite change in how the Athenians interacted with their dead, both physically and ideologically. Chapter Two examines the reasons behind the change in burial practices around 480 B.C.E. I argue that it is improbable such a complex change had simple factors or motivations behind it but rather that the most likely cause of such a shift in attitude was a combination of complex reasons, where a few predominate, such as appropriation of death by the polis resulting in glorified state burials and development of democracy. Chapter Three examines the re-emergence of grave monuments. The archaeological record reveals a reappearance of stone funerary sculpture a decade or so after the middle of the fifth century (c. 440-430 B.C.E.). I argue that the re-emergence of funeral sculpture was influenced heavily by foreign workers who brought with them their own burial practices which in turn inspired Athenian aristocrats to re-appropriate death and begin erecting private funeral monuments, however instead of only using Homeric imagery, as they had in earlier periods, they appropriated state symbols and incorporated them into private monuments.</p>

scholarly journals Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 363-412
Author(s):  
Augustin F.C. Holl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Territorial Strategies ◽  
Territorial Marking

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012)  frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

scholarly journals Megaliths in Tropical Africa: Social Dynamics and Mortuary Practices in Ancient Senegambia (ca. 1350 BCE – 1500 CE)

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (15) ◽  
pp. 363-412
Author(s):  
Augustin F.C. Holl
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Landscape ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Tropical Africa ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
Territorial Strategies ◽  
Territorial Marking

When analyzed systematically, Tropical Africa megalithism appears to have emerged in contexts of friction between different lifeways, agriculturalists versus foragers, pastoralists versus hunter-gatherers-fishermen, or agriculturalists versus fishing folks. The monuments built were clearly part of actual territorial strategies. Research conducted by the Sine Ngayene Archaeological Project (2002-2012)  frontally addressed the “Why” of the emergence of megalithism in that part of the world, and probes the reasons for the performance of the elaborate burial practices preserved in the archaeological record. This paper emphasizes the diversity and complexity of burial protocols invented by Senegambian “megalith-builders” communities from 1450 BCE to 1500 CE. Senegambian megalithism is shown to have proceeded from territorial marking imperatives, shaping a multi-layered cultural landscape through the implemented mortuary programs anchored on the construction of Ancestorhood. Keywords: Megaliths; Senegambia; Cultural landscape; Mortuary program; Burial practice; Monolith-circle; Sine-Ngayene;

scholarly journals SPATIAL REGENERATION OF MUSLIM BURIAL PRACTICES IN THE METROPOLITAN AREAS OF KUALA LUMPUR AND JAKARTA

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamad Reza Mohamed Afla
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Metropolitan Areas ◽  
Design Guidelines ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Muslim Population ◽  
Burial Practices ◽  
Burial Practice ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Full Body

This article focuses on the subject of burial practices which are performed by the Muslim population and the management at public cemeteries within the metropolitan areas of Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. This research examines specifically, the conventional way of burial practice by the majority of the Muslim population. Unlike other major religions in Southeast Asia which are more open and flexible in the disposal of corpses, full body burial is mandatory in Islam. In response to the escalating issue of lack of space and land shortage for Muslim cemetery, local authorities of the two metropolitan areas have identified alternatives and solutions in handling these alarming situations. This research has recognised factors that lead to these problems, as well as discussing available methods to overcome these issues. The finding exhibits Muslim cemetery’s layout to be problematic due to abundance of burial practices accumulated by patrons which led to disorganisation of space and claustrophobia. This article concludes by providing proposals and design guidelines at the terrain level, together with recommendations that emphasise the long-term usage of the grave plots.

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.

Slaves without Shackles: An Archaeology of Everyday Life on Gorée Island, Senegal

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ibrahima Thiaw
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Settlement Pattern ◽  
Heterogeneous Population ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Urban Settlement ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Transnational Community ◽  
Changing Patterns

This chapter examines how slavery was imprinted on material culture and settlement at Gorée Island. It evaluates the changing patterns of settlement, access to materials, and emerging novel tastes to gain insights into everyday life and cultural interactions on the island. By the eighteenth century, Gorée grew rapidly as an urban settlement with a heterogeneous population including free and enslaved Africans as well as different European identities. Interaction between these different identities was punctuated with intense negotiations resulting in the emergence of a truly transnational community. While these significant changes were noted in the settlement pattern and material culture recovered, the issue of slavery — critical to most oral and documentary narratives about the island — remains relatively opaque in the archaeological record. Despite this, the chapter attempts to tease out from available documentary and archaeological evidence some illumination on interaction between the different communities on the island, including indigenous slaves.

Regional identities Angles and Saxons?

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Rippon
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
The West ◽  
East Anglia ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
Burial Rites

Writing in the early eighth century, Bede described how three separate peoples— the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—had settled in Britain some three hundred years earlier, and ever since the genesis of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ scholarship in the nineteenth century archaeologists have sought to identify discrete areas of Anglian, Saxon, and Jutish settlement (e.g. Leeds 1912; 1936; 1945; Fox 1923, 284–95). The identification of these peoples was based upon different artefact styles and burial rites, with most attention being paid to brooches. The degree of variation in the composition of brooch assemblages across eastern England is shown in Table 9.1. Cruciform brooches with cast side knobs, for example, were thought to have been ‘Anglian’, and saucer brooches ‘Saxon’ (although even in the early twentieth century Leeds (1912) had started to doubt the attribution of applied brooches to the West Saxons). In recent years, however, this traditional ‘culturehistorical’ approach towards interpreting the archaeological record has been questioned, as it is now recognized that, rather than being imported from mainland Europe during the early to mid fifth century, regional differences in artefact assemblages emerged over the course of the late fifth to late sixth centuries (e.g. Hines 1984; 1999; Hilund Nielsen 1995; Lucy 2000; Owen- Crocker 2004; 2011; Penn and Brugmann 2007; Walton Rogers 2007; Brugmann 2011; Dickinson 2011; Hills 2011). In early to mid fifth-century England, in contrast, it now appears that Germanic material culture was in fact relatively homogeneous, with objects typical of ‘Saxon’ areas on the continent being found in so-called ‘Anglian’ areas of England, and vice versa. The earliest material from East Anglia, for example—equal-arm, supporting-arm, and early cruciform brooches—are most closely paralleled in the Lower Elbe region of Saxony, with the distinctive ‘Anglian’ identity of EastAnglia onlyemerging through later contact with southern Scandinavia (Hines 1984; Carver 1989, 147, 152; Hills and Lucy 2013, 38–9). Indeed, many elements of the classic suite of early Anglo-Saxon material culture actually developed within Britain as opposed to having been created on the continent (Hills 2003, 104–7; Owen-Crocker 2004, 13), with new identities beingmade in Britain rather than being imported frommainland Europe (Hills 2011, 10).

Towards a Written Text

2019 ◽  
pp. 171-212
Author(s):  
Theodora A. Hadjimichael
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Lyric Poetry ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Public Availability ◽  
Book Collections ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Book Markets

Chapter 5 considers the materiality of lyric poems, and discusses the coexistence of lyric song with the availability and circulation of lyric texts both within and outside Athens. The analysis presents the fifth-century literary and archaeological evidence on the existence of various kinds of books in everyday life, and distinguishes between public availability of (lyric) texts in Athenian book markets and copies owned by individuals in private book collections. No reference is ever made to book-rolls with lyric poetry in the market in our sources, and it is difficult to argue that lyric texts circulated widely in Athens. It is, however, possible that they were part of Athenian private collections. The discussion also concentrates on the sociology of lyric reception and transmission in democratic Athens. Our sources suggest that canonical sixth- and fifth-century lyric remained a favourite of the ‘elite’ and intellectuals, who would have preserved these poems as both text and song.

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.

Martyria

2019 ◽  
pp. 88-104
Author(s):  
David L. Eastman
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Christian Practices

Martyria served as spatial focal points for numerous practices associated with the early Christian cult of the saints. However, the archaeological study of these martyr shrines is limited by the lack of evidence prior to the fourth century, forcing scholars in many cases to rely on textual evidence for their reconstructions of spaces. This chapter studies the earliest evidence for martyr shrines in Smyrna and Rome, which is textual, in order to establish primitive Christian practices surrounding martyria. It then examines the archaeological evidence from martyria in Rome and Philippi of the fourth century or later. These sites demonstrate the continuing expansion of martyria as cultic centers. The chapter concludes with a caveat concerning the popularity of small, even private, shrines that are invisible to the archaeological record.

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