The Materiality of Death - mikroarkeologi.se

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the burial. 3 The Cena Novendialis, held the ninth day after interment, marked the end of the immediate postburial period and the family’s imminent return to society. Other traditional days for a sojourn to the cemeteries are listed in the epitaph of a Roman who made financial provisions for sacrifices in his memory on four annual occasions: his dies natales, the Rosaria, the Violaria, and the Parentalia. 4 Of these, the Parentalia, also referred to as the dies Parentales or dies Ferales, was the only commemoration listed on the Fasti, the official calendar drawn up by the Rome’s pontiffs. The Parentalia emphasized the role of near relations in honoring the memory of dead kinfolk. The final day of the Parentalia was called the Caristia or Cara Cognati and featured another meal at the tomb held in honor of the “dear kin”. Eating and drinking at the burial site, a tradition whose beginnings in the Roman world dates to between the twelfth and ninth centuries B.C.E., was integral to funerary cult practice (Torelli 1987: 27). Words relating to visits to the tomb included refreshment (refigeratio or refrigerium) and in numerous examples of tomb decoration the theme of refrigerium is represented by one of the most ubiquitous motifs in Roman funerary art, two birds flanking a vessel. There are also representations of banqueting painted on the walls of tombs, and although some of these scenes may refer to the hoped-for pleasures of the afterlife, others seem to represent a meal enjoyed by the living. Funerary inscriptions encouraging the visitors to eat and drink are not uncommon, and the act of communal dining included consideration of the dead as well as the living. Pouring wine, honey, milk or blood into the container holding the remains of the deceased, often by means of a lead or terracotta tube inserted into the cinerary receptacle or sarcophagus, was a ritual act that reconnected the dead to the living in the context of the shared act of feasting. There are examples of chairs in the tomb for the deceased, inscriptions inviting the dead to share the refreshment, and in least one example the deceased is referred to as the host of the banquet who has invited guests to dine at his tomb. 5 Visually, this idea of the ancestral spirit extending an invitation to visitors is charmingly embodied at Tomb 43 at Isola Sacra, which 3 Festus Paulus describes the Silicernium as a kind of sausage, quo fletu familia purgabatur. See H. Lindsay, “Eating with the Dead: the Roman Funerary Banquet,” in Meals in a Social Context: Aspects of the Communal Meal in the Hellenistic and the Roman World, eds. I. Nielsen and H. Nielsen, (Aarhus, 1998), 72. 4 die natalis sui et rosationis et violai et parentalib (ILS 8366). 5 For the deceased as the host of the banquet, R. MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to the Eighth Centuries (New Haven, 1997) 195; A.D. Nock, “Sarcophagi and Symbolism,” AJA 50 (1946), 156. On stone chairs for the deceased in the tomb, see T. Klauser, Die Cathedra im Totenkult der heidnischen und christlichen Antike (Münster in Westfalen, 1927)13ff. An inscription found within a necropolis now within the grounds of the Villa Doria Pamphili in Rome expresses frank skepticism that the dead truly participated in the drinking (ILS 8156). features an inlaid terracotta image of the deceased standing at the open door of his tomb, his hand extended in a gesture of welcome (Fig 5.). A consideration of the tomb furnishings and the nature of the refreshment consumed helps give a sense of the experience of banqueting as funerary cult practice. Within the cemeteries flanking Rome, examples of tombs with biclinia, masonry dining couches, survive at Isola Sacra (tombs 15, 86). Some evidence for dining facilities comes from inscriptions, such as two found near Rome which describe tombs with kitchens, wells and dining benches (CIL 6.8860, 6.29958). For those tombs that did not have benches built as part of the structure, another possibility is portable furniture brought to the tomb site, and in these instances the visitors may have forgone the more aristocratic and festive reclining dining position in favor of sitting at a table on chairs or benches (Hermansen 1989:44). A third-century funerary inscription dedicated to a woman named Secundula is useful for its discussion of the arrangement of a suitable space for dining and conversation. The dedicant, her son, describes creating a place for “passing the evening in pleasant talk” by covering the altar that marks Secundula’s tomb with a stone tabletop to hold food and drink and piling cushions around it (ILCV 1570). Although several ancient sources propose simple food as suitable offerings to the deceased, the living participants of the banquet did not limit themselves to the salted corn or lentils considered sufficient for the shades, and Lucian writes with a certain bemusement of the costly picnics carried to the grave, and questions whether the shades ever get their portion (Charon 22). Petronius lists expensive delicacies prepared for a fictional Cena Novendialis, and like any good satirist, must have drawn his observations from the foibles of contemporaries (Satyricon 65). Besides this literary evidence for fine dining, we have the physical remains of afore-mentioned cooking and preparation areas in or near tombs. The illumination of the site with torches and ceramic lamps is also documented. Practical considerations accepted – banquets typically occurred at night – there is evidence for the importance of lights within the cult of the dead, and candelabra as part of the typical furniture of the tomb. 6 To this environment created for comfortable, torch-lit dining alfresco one must add flowers. Although primarily intended as offerings to the dead, the garlands attached to altars and scatterings of the traditional funerary flowers of roses and violets no doubt gave sensory pleasure to the visitors as well. This consideration of amenities for the living did not alter the essential concerns with ancestral worship and propriation during the graveside visits. Rather, when 6 Ovid’s Fasti, 2.562, describes the torches that light up the grave (habent alias maesta sepulcra faces). There is also a funerary inscription mentioning the importance of light, ut semper viglet lucerna nardo (CIL 6.30102). 64
Figure 5. Isola Sacra, Tomb 56. Photo Regina Gee Romans traveled to the tomb to banquet they brought with them the same social framework of convivial activity that shaped dining within the Roman house. Inscriptional evidence together with early Christian writings on the subject of “inappropriate” behavior sheds light on the more ephemeral qualities of mood or atmosphere during these graveside visits. 7 The spirit of these graveside gatherings seems to have been cheerful, even somewhat boisterous, fueled perhaps by wine and good food. 8 The possibility of overindulgence is addressed as early as the republican period. Cicero in his discussion of Roman law notes with disapproval Romans moving away from the funerary laws of the Twelve Tables, with their prohibition of sumptuous display and drinking to excess (De Legibus 2.24). The fifth-century writings of early Christian leaders such as Augustine and 7 The examination of early Christian funerary cult practice is useful given the continuity in the forms of ritual activity from pagan to early Christian. On the stability of these burial customs, see MacMullen, 110-120; P. Brown, The Cult of the Saints (Chicago, 1981), 24-25. 8 On the atmosphere of hilaritas as opposed to silence and sadness, see P. Testini, Archeologia Christiana, Nozioni Generali dalle Origini alla Fine del Sec. VI (Rome, 1958), 141. Zeno, while not objective records of behavior, are nevertheless valuable sources of information. Their writings reveal a struggle between absorption and rejection of the pagan burial customs that flowed almost seamlessly into Christian funerary ritual in particular activities surrounding martyr cults. Augustine writes of the practice of “banquets and carousing” on saints’ feast days as a continuation of pagan graveside cult practice (Contra Faustis 20.21). Another commentary on the pagan tradition comes in the form of an admonition by Zeno, who found the customary heavy eating and drinking at graveside banquets inappropriate behavior for Christians (Sermones 1.16). After the banquet, some form of entertainment may have prolonged the convivial occasion, indicated by evidence of playing musical instruments, dancing and singing at the tomb (Quasten 1983: 153-60pp). The Tomb as a Site for Spectacle Although family, friends, and dependents were responsible for serving the memory of the deceased, it is a simplification to characterize the cult of the dead as private ritual. To do so does not consider Roman social 65
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The Materiality of Death Bodies, bu
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Contents Chapter 1. The Materiality
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Fig. 1. Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph
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ather one has to emphasise the mate
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dead are often regarded as unfriend
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Fig 3. The old man Tei Tetuna by hi
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The Materiality of Social Change: H
Page 16 and 17:
The Materiality of Eternity - The A
Page 18 and 19: FAHLANDER, F. & OESTIGAARD, T. 2004
Page 20 and 21: Susanne Kuechler-Fogden, Webb Keane
Page 23 and 24: Chapter 2 More than Metaphor: Appro
Page 25 and 26: discuss death and the treatment of
Page 27 and 28: had to deal with. This is not to sa
Page 29 and 30: hide that could be removed to expos
Page 31 and 32: pp111-123. Philadelphia: University
Page 33 and 34: Chapter 3 A Piece of the Mesolithic
Page 35 and 36: The main point is that the division
Page 37 and 38: A Piece of the Mesolithic: Skatehol
Page 39 and 40: question we need to construct some
Page 41 and 42: Fig. 4. Skateholm I (above) and Ska
Page 43 and 44: visible many years after the origin
Page 45 and 46: Phase Area Properties Interpretatio
Page 47 and 48: phase of one site with a contempora
Page 49: MILNER, N. & WOODMAN, P. 2005. Meso
Page 52 and 53: with dead people belonging to other
Page 54 and 55: Fig. 2. Due to the extraordinaire c
Page 56 and 57: As with all cremations in Hinduism,
Page 58 and 59: Based on the amount of scattered bo
Page 60 and 61: To have an ethical approach involve
Page 63 and 64: Chapter 5 From Corpse to Ancestor:
Page 65 and 66: Figure 2. Isola Sacra, Tomb 100. Ph
Page 67: Figure 4. Isola Sacra, Tomb 87. Pho
Page 71 and 72: Figure 6. Isola Sacra, Tomb 15. Pho
Page 73: 69 Burials
Page 76 and 77: through careful recording of the or
Page 78 and 79: Figure 4: Pencraig Hill: Distributi
Page 80 and 81: focussed on use of partial sets of
Page 83 and 84: Chapter 7 Ritual and Remembrance at
Page 85 and 86: urial (tomba a doppio loculo tipo M
Page 87 and 88: ‘original’ walls of the tomb. L
Page 89 and 90: chambers cut into two earlier trenc
Page 91: Madison: Prehistory Press, Monograp
Page 94 and 95: Well-organized cemeteries or messy
Page 96 and 97: influenced who was buried inside th
Page 98 and 99: it was quite short, which could ind
Page 100 and 101: References ARTELIUS, TORE 2004. Min
Page 103 and 104: Chapter 9 Life and Death in the Bro
Page 105 and 106: Fig. 5.1. Cremation necropolis at P
Page 107 and 108: place. These burials were very simp
Page 109 and 110: Chapter 10 Norwegian Face-Urns: Loc
Page 111 and 112: The recurring themes in the debate
Page 113 and 114: The local context of the Norwegian
Page 115 and 116: Death is the inevitable conclusion
Page 117 and 118: OESTIGAARD, T. 1999. Cremations as
Page 119 and 120:
Chapter 11 The Use of Ochre in Ston
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Ochre was used so intensively that
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Fig. 5. Zvejnieki burial ground. Th
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grave has been dated to 5690±45 BP
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Khanty of northern Siberia, the col
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125 Beliefs
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Chapter 12 ”Death Myths”: Perfo
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Variation within the same cist Bø,
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Variation within the same mound Lyd
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Figures 6 and 7. Modvo, Luster muni
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To what extent there have been corr
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when they die, a probable explanati
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fragmented spindles, iron weaving s
Page 145 and 146:
Chapter 13 Reproduction and Relocat
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may be questioned, and analysed mor
Page 149 and 150:
References Andersson, G. 1997: A st
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Chapter 14 A Road for the Viking’
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Figure 2. The Jarlabanke Bridge tha
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Chapter 15 A Road to the Other Side
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Fig. 4. Clearing the bridge on an e
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Chapter 16 Stones and Bones: The My
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Fig. 4. An Iron Age scene at Sylta
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Fig. 7. The resemblance between cru
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