Mortuary Variability and Social Diversity in Ancient Greece: Studies on Ancient Greek Death and Burial

Even though, at death, identity and social status may undergo major changes, by studying funerary customs we can greatly gain in the understanding of a community’s social structure, distribution of wealth and property, and the degree of flexibility or divisiveness in the apportionment of power. With its great regional diversity and variety of community forms and networks, ancient Greece offers a unique context for exploring, through the burial evidence, how communities developed. Mortuary Variability and Social Diversity in Ancient Greece brings together early career scholars working on funerary customs in Greece from the Early Iron Age to the Roman period. Papers present various thematic and interdisciplinary analysis in which funerary contexts provide insights on individuals, social groups and communities. Themes discussed include issues of territoriality, the reconstruction of social roles of particular groups of people, and the impact that major historical events may have had on the way individuals or specific groups of individuals treated their dead.

Table of Contents:
Mortuary Variability and Social Diversity in Ancient Greece: A Prologue – Nikolas Dimakis and Tamara M. Dijkstra ;  Death Practices and Social Change ;  Protogeometric Thessaly: An Integrated Study of Burial Practices and Isotope Analysis of Human Remains – Eleni Panagiotopoulou ;  Liminal Spaces, Burial Contexts and Funerary Practices in the pre-Classical Marathon (Attica) – Vicky Vlachou ;  Funerary Variability in Late Geometric Attica and its Implications: A Closer Look at the Neglected Late 8th-century Cremations – Alexandra Alexandridou ;  Mortuary Practices in the Ancient Rural Demoi of Southeastern Attica under the Light of Recent Evidence from Five Cemeteries in Mesogaia – Panagiota Galiatsatou ;  Urbanism and its Impact on Human Health and Diet: A Preliminary Study of the Human Remains from Hellenistic to Late Antique Knossos, Crete – Anna Moles ;  Social Identity and Treatment in Death ;  Defining Social Identities at Cemeteries of Late Classical Argos: Age- and Gender-Groups on the Basis of Distinctive Funerary Gifts – Georgia Ivou ;  Pot Burials in Ancient Thera: The Presence of Infants in the Cemeteries of the Ancient City from 8th to 6th Century BC – Olga Kaklamani ;  Premature Death and Burial in Classical and Hellenistic Attica – Nikolas Dimakis ;  Monumental Commemoration and Identity ;  The Creation of a Deathscape: The Monumental Tomb at Agios Milianos in Lindos – Vasiliki Brouma ;  Building for the mos Romanus in the Peloponnese: The Columbaria Monuments – Georgios Doulfis ;  Mortuary Practices at Roman Sparta – Maria Tsouli ;  Burial Monumentality and Funerary Associations in Roman Kos – Nikolas Dimakis and Vassiliki Christopoulou ;  Grave Markers (Semata) of the Koan Necropoleis (3rd century BC-3rd century AD) – Chrysanthi Tsouli

About the Author :
Nikolas Dimakis is a postdoctoral research fellow in Classical Archaeology at the University of Athens. He specialises in the funerary archaeology of Classical to Roman Greece and examines the interplay of emotions, ritual and identity in the burial context. Nikolas has coordinated and participated in international meetings and in many archaeological projects in Attica, the Peloponnese, Thrace and the Dodecanese. Tamara M. Dijkstra is a researcher at the Department of Greek Archaeology at the University of Groningen. She specialises in the funerary archaeology and epigraphy of Classical to Roman Greece and examines the relation between mortuary practices, social structure, and social identities. She also studies Hellenistic domestic archaeology within the Halos Archaeological Project.

Review :
‘The essays differ greatly in length, outlook and scope, but as a whole, the volume provides an engaging study of much of the recent work done on the subject of Greek death und burial, and a contextual analysis of different aspects of mortuary practices. Without doubt, its interdisciplinary approach marks one of the most valuable aspects of the publication, which constitutes a necessary update for many topics in the field and is especially useful for a specialist audience.’ – Annarita Doronzio (2022): sehepunkte 22 (2022), Nr. 4