Commemorating the Dead

Texts and Artifacts in Context. Studies of Roman, Jewish and Christian Burials

Laurie Brink, Deborah Green, Laurie Brink, Deborah Green

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9783110200546
• eBook ISBN: 9783110211573
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

The distinctions and similarities among Roman, Jewish, and Christian burials can provide evidence of social networks, family life, and, perhaps, religious sensibilities. Is the Roman development from columbaria to catacombs the result of evolving religious identities or simply a matter of a change in burial fashions? Do the material remains from Jewish burials evidence an adherence to ancient customs, or the adaptation of rituals from surrounding cultures? What Greco-Roman funerary images were taken over and "baptized" as Christian ones? The answers to these and other questions require that the material culture be viewed, whenever possible, in situ, through multiple disciplinary lenses and in light of ancient texts. Roman historians (John Bodel, Richard Saller, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill), archaeologists (Susan Stevens, Amy Hirschfeld), scholars of rabbinic period Judaism (Deborah Green), Christian history (Robin M. Jensen), and the New Testament (David Balch, Laurie Brink, O.P., Margaret M. Mitchell, Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J.) engaged in a research trip to Rome and Tunisia to investigate imperial period burials first hand. Commemorting the Dead is the result of a three year scholarly conversation on their findings.

Table of contents

• Frontmatter
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. An Overview of the Intellectual History of Catacomb Archaeology
• Chapter 2. Housing the Dead: The Tomb as House in Roman Italy
• Chapter 3. Commemorating the Dead in the Communal Cemeteries of Carthage
• Chapter 4. Dining with the Dead: From the Mensa to the Altar in Christian Late Antiquity
• Chapter 5. Sweet Spices in the Tomb: An Initial Study on the Use of Perfume in Jewish Burials
• Chapter 6. From Columbaria to Catacombs: Collective Burial in Pagan and Christian Rome
• Chapter 7. Roman and Christian Burial Practices and the Patronage of Women
• Chapter 8. From Endymion in Roman Domus to Jonah in Christian Catacombs: From Houses of the Living to Houses for the Dead. Iconography and Religion in Transition
• Chapter 9. Looking for Abercius: Reimagining Contexts of Interpretation of the “Earliest Christian Inscription”
• Backmatter