The archaeology of death in Roman Syria : burial, commemoration, and empire /
In the first centuries of the Common Era, an eclectic collection of plain and embellished underground and above ground 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,...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge ; New York :
Cambridge University Press,
2017.
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| Summary: | In the first centuries of the Common Era, an eclectic collection of plain and embellished underground and above ground 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 men, women and children. Presenting the first all-inclusive overview of the archaeology of death in Roman Syria, the book combines spatial analysis of cemeteries with the study of funerary architecture and decoration, grave goods and information about the deceased provided by sculptural, epigraphic and osteological sources. It also sheds a new light on life and death in Syria and offers a novel way of understanding provincial culture in the Roman Empire. |
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| Physical Description: | xv, 365 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-362) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781107131415 1107131413 |