Roman Archaeology - Tombs and burial customs in the Roman world (Ordinario)

Tombs and burial customs are a primary source of information on the societies that shaped them. In Roman history, entire sub-groups of society, especially non-élite like the freedmen but also women and children, many career paths, and a wide range of activities and people’s attitudes towards them would be largely unknown to us without evidence from tombs. It is therefore no coincidence that studies of these remains are very popular. This applies to epitaphs in particular, on which the majority of these studies focuses, but (other) material evidence has been examined in this respect as well. Recent work includes socio-historical and anthropological approaches to the layout of cemeteries and changes in tomb types, exterior and interior decoration, funerary altars, cinerary urns, sarcophagi, and, more recently still, small finds and evidence of the rituals performed at these tombs. Without these studies, we would be ignorant about many aspects of Roman society, be they factual and antiquarian, or ideological. This course will explore tombs and burial customs across the Roman empire with these questions in mind. Most lectures will provide overviews of general themes, others as well as the seminars will zoom in on case studies that illustrate the methodologies appropriate to analysing the evidence.