(Forthcoming) Associations and death: funerary activities of the Hellenistic associations, to be published in: Associations in context Rethinking associations and religion in the post-classical polis, International Symposium University of Copenhagen 2012 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Well-Ordered Corpse: An Investigation Into the Motives Behind Greek Funerary Legislation
Bulletin of The Institute of Classical Studies, 1989
We learn much about the character of Greek funerals in antiquity from the fact that a number of Greek city-states are known to have found it necessary to introduce legislation aimed at curtailing expense, duration of mourning and extravagant manifestations of grief. While the maintenance of public order was clearly a consideration behind a number of the regulations which have survived in our sources, this alone does not account for all the laws which were in various places and from time to time enacted. On the contrary we may state at the outset that Greek funerary legislation addressed itself, sometimes within the same lawcode, to a diverse multiplicity of problems arising from the care and commemoration of the dead. These problems were of a religious as well as secular nature, prompted chiefly by the following concerns: (a) (b) (c) that the corpse was a cause of pollution; that the transfer of the dead from this world to the next required expert cooperation from the bereaved kin; that funerary and post-funerary rituals tended to promote divisiveness and factionalism among the citizen body, by providing rival aristocratic kin-groups or gmC^ with an opportunity to further their sectarian interests to the detriment of society as. i whole; I An early draft of this paper was delivered in a seminar series on death in antiquity held at Corpus Christi College. Oxford. in November 1984. I would like to express my warm thanks to all those who participated in the discussion which followed. in particular to Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood and Simon Price. I am grateful to Mark Toher for permitting me to read an (as yet) unpublished article entitled 'Funerary legislation and mortuary ritual in the Archaic age'. Within the term 'funerary legislation' I include laws which (a) regulated conduct at funerals and post-funerary rituals. and (b) limited the scale and magnificence of tomb monuments. 1 do not include laws passed hy cults banning from their temple precincts those who have been polluted by the dead (e.g. LSG 124.2-3: Eresos. fourth cent. B.C.). laws concerning the staging of state funerals (e.g. LSGS 64: Thasos. end of fifthlbeginning of fourth cent. B.C.), or laws regarding funerary foundations established on behalf of celebrated individuals (e.g. F. Sokolowski. BCH 94 (1970). 1 13-6: Pautalia. Bulgaria). The following is a list of non-standard abbreviations of epigraphical publications cited in [hi\ article: Buck = C. D. Buck. Tlrc Grcd Ditrlc~ts (Chicago. 1952) DHR = R. Dareste. B. Haussouillier and Th. Reinach. Rwrcc~i/ t l c~ imc~rrptio/is , j r i / itlic/rcc~.s.
A large body of evidence and important historical questions exist for the study of burial in the late antique Greek world. This slowly evolving field has long been influenced by trends in classical archaeology, the archaeology of Early Christianity, and folklore studies. The physical remains of funerary ritual, which have been unevenly studied and published, attest to the forms of interment, tombstones, the treatment of bodies and objects, and the topographic settings of burial. Variation in these remains reflects the expression of different identities, including status, family, profession, ethnicity, and the new Christian perspective on death. Mortuary variability can also be traced across space, both between and especially within regions, and over time from the Roman to Byzantine eras, which reveals a paradigm shift in the concepts and uses of burial in Late Antiquity.
2021
The principle aim of this thesis is to develop a better understanding of social organisation in Greece after the collapse of the palace system c.1190 BCE. This is achieved through a multi-level analysis of burial practices, focussing specifically on the post-palatial cemetery at Perati, burial practices before and after the collapse in the Argolid, and the custom of burial with weapons, from the Shaft Grave period to the post-palatial period in Greece. The main theoretical basis for focussing on burial practices is the argument that social change is reflected and enacted in burial practices, so studying changes in burial practices (including the shift from chamber tombs to simple graves, the change from collective to single burials, the introduction of cremation, and the use of high status grave goods) has the potential to inform us about the nature of social change. This basic premise is challenged in the course of the thesis, when it is shown that burial practices in Attica change...
Archaeopress Publishing LTD, 2020
A rescue excavation at Psalidi in Kos revealed a late Hellenistic-Roman cemetery and a proto-byzantine building. The cemetery is located extra muros, close to a recently explored archaic sanctuary and near the early Christian Basilica of St. Gabriel. A Roman (1st-3rd century AD) burial monument with multiple burials furnished mainly by clay lamps stands out from the cemetery. The burial monument, rectangular in plan, was separated by an internal wall in two compartments (North, South) each accessible by four openings/entrances. Clay tubes and small inscribed stelai were placed in front of the entrances while a large deposit of approximately 450 lamps was found outside the southeast opening. In this paper the preliminary results of the monument’s on-going archaeological and anthropological study are being presented supplemented by a discussion of Roman burial customs, rituals, and funerary associations.
20. Associations in the Ancient World
The Historical Jesus in Context. Edited by Amy Jill Levine, Dale C. Allison, and John Dominic Crossan. Princeton Readings in Religion. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press., 2006
Life in Greek and Roman cities and towns was organized around two centers, the family and the Polis (city). Each had its own structure, each had cultic aspects and religious observances, and each provided its members with senses of identity, honor, and self-determination. But there were restrictions: even during the period of Greek democracy, participation in the civic assembly was restricted to the adult male population. Women, noncitizens, slaves, and former slaves could not participate. Between the family and Polis there existed a large number of more or less permanent associations or clubs, organized around an extended family, a specific cult, an ethnic group, or a common profession (Poland; Kloppenborg, Collegia). Most of these associations had religious dimensions, and most served broadly social goals. Some were extensions of the family, such as the "brotherhoods" (phratriai) of many Greek cities, consisting of groups of related families, all worshiping a common ancestor and usually dwelling in the same district. Phratriai could own property, including cemeteries, and functioned as corporations, deriving rents from corporate property and disbursing monies to members. While membership in phratriai was restricted to the legitimate male descendants of members, in the Roman period we find other family-based (domestic) associations that included most or all of the dependants (slave and free, men and women) of a Roman family. An example of the latter type of Dionysiac association is the 402member association of Pompeia Agripinnilla, priestess of Dionysos and wife of a Roman senator and ex-consul, M. Gavius Squilla Gallicanus (see McLean). A second type of association (partly overlapping family-based groups) was formed around a common cult. Religious clubs had been attested in Athens since the time of Solon (early sixth century BCE), who allowed their existence, provided that they did not act against the interests of the state (Gaius, Digest 47.22.4). Cultic associations were extremely popular throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods, with groups dedicated not only to Zeus, Dionysos, Apollo, and other deities of classical Greece but also to a large number of Anatolian, Syrian, and Egyptian gods. In fact, the latter type of associations provided one of the main vehicles by which cults from the East spread into Greece, Macedonia, and Italy.
DEATH AND THE SOCIETIES OF LATE ANTIQUITY New methods, new questions ? International Conference
Call for paper - Death in Late Antiquity - International conference 2021
The aim of this meeting is to cross old and new questions and methodologies on Late Antiquity funerary practices, by questioning the plurality of situations that mark out the territories of the Roman Empire and its margins. This colloquium, which is intended to be highly interdisciplinary and on a large geographical and thematic scale, aims to bring together the approaches of different disciplinary backgrounds (biological anthropology, archaeothanatology, history, archaeology, environmental sciences, molecular biology). Our wish is to initiate a multidisciplinary reflection that will allow us to take complementary views on funerary practices.