The Archaeology of Death in Roman Syria

Burial, Commemoration, and Empire

Lidewijde de Jong

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781107131415
• eBook ISBN: 9781108216128
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Archaeology
• Index: Social Sciences

In the first centuries of the Common Era, an eclectic collection of plain and embellished underground and aboveground tombs filled the cemeteries of the Roman province of Syria. Its inhabitants used rituals of commemoration to express messages about their local identity, family, and social position, while simultaneously ensuring that the deceased was given proper burial rites. In this book, Lidewijde de Jong investigates these customs and the belief systems that governed the choices made in the commemoration of Syrian men, women and children. Presenting the first all-inclusive overview of the archaeology of death in Roman Syria, this book combines spatial analysis of cemeteries with the study of funerary architecture, decoration, and grave goods, as well as information about the deceased provided by sculptural, epigraphic, and osteological sources. It sheds a new light on life and death in Syria and offers a novel way of understanding provincial culture in the Roman Empire.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Frontispiece
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables and Charts
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Locating the Dead: Space, Landscape, and Cemetery Organization
• 2 The Tomb: Architecture and Decoration
• 3 Gifts for the Dead: Function and Distribution of Grave Goods
• 4 The Dead: Bones, Portraits, and Epitaphs
• 5 Funerary Beliefs: Differentiation, Continuity, and Change in Ritual
• 6 The Global and the Local: Romanization, Globalization, and the Syrian Cemetery
• Postscript
• Appendix 1. Sites
• Appendix 2. Tomb Types
• List of Online Appendices
• Bibliography
• Index