Joseph L. Rife

Approaches to Commingling Issues in Archeological Samples: A Case Study from Roman Era Tombs in Greece

Human remains in archeological contexts frequently present the problem of commingling, especially when they are secondary deposits and involve multiple phases of funerary treatment and postdepositional disturbance. These problems are often compounded with incidents of recent looting and the prior undocumented removal of remains. Fortunately, the problems of interpreting such assemblages can be ameliorated with careful excavation and skeletal analysis related to context. As a case in point, this chapter focuses on the interpretation of evidence from chamber tombs of the Roman Empire at the site of Kenchreai in southern Greece. The systematic recovery and analysis of the commingled human remains from these tombs has contributed to a better understanding of local mortuary behavior and paleodemography. The study of this complex evidence presents an effective approach to samples of this kind, which are not uncommon in Mediterranean archaeological contexts.

The burial of Herodes Atticus: élite identity, urban society, and public memory in Roman Greece

This paper discusses the burial of Herodes Atticus as a well-attested case of elite identification through mortuary practices. It gives a close reading of Philostratus� account of Herodes� end in c. 179 (VS 2.1.15) alongside the evidence of architecture, inscriptions, sculpture, and topography at Marathon, Cephisia and Athens. The intended burial of Herodes and the actual burials of his family on theAttic estates expressed wealth and territorial control, while his preference for Marathon fused personal history with civic history. The Athenian intervention in Herodes� private funeral, which led to his magnificent interment at the Panathenaic Stadium, served as a public reception for a leading citizen and benefactor. Herodes� tomb should be identified with a long foundation on the stadium�s east hill that might have formed an eccentric altar-tomb, while an elegant kline sarcophagus found nearby might have been his coffin. His epitaph was a traditional distich that stressed through language and poetic allusion his deep ties toMarathon and Rhamnous, his euergetism and his celebrity. Also found here was an altar dedicated to Herodes �the Marathonian hero�with archaizing features (IG II2 6791). The first and last lines of the text were erased in a deliberate effort to remove his name and probably the name of a relative. A cemetery of ordinary graves developed around Herodes� burial site, but by the 250s these had been disturbed, along with the altar and the sarcophagus. This new synthesis of textual and material sources for the burial of Herodes contributes to a richer understanding of status and antiquarianism in Greek urban society under the Empire. It also examines how the public memory of elites was composite and mutable, shifting through separate phases of activity � funeral, hero-cult, defacement, biography � to generate different images of the dead.

The Archaeology of Death and Burial

The archaeology of death and burial is central to our attempts to understand vanished societies. Through the remains of funerary rituals we can learn not only about the attitudes of prehistoric people to death and the afterlife, but also about their way of life, their social organisation and their view of the world. This ambitious book reviews the latest research in this huge and important field, and describes the sometimes controversial interpretations that have led to rapid advances in our understanding of life and death in the distant past. A unique overview and synthesis of one of the most revealing fields of research into the past, it covers archaeologys most breathtaking discoveries, from Tutankhamen to the Ice Man, and will find a keen market among archaeologists, historians and others who have a professional interest in, or general curiosity about, death and burial.