Panel 7.5 – Funerary economy


Organiser/Chair:

  • Eberhard Thomas (University of Cologne)

Paper abstracts

1. Corinna Reinhardt

The value of making and the materiality of funerary monuments in archaic Greece
My paper aims to focus on the visualized and verbalized production process of archaic grave monuments in Attica. It argues that the making of an artefact attributes special value to the monument and supports its ambition to be a permanent sign for the deceased.
Inscriptions, manufacture and decoration are significant for this purpose: First the high amount of the so called artist’s signatures is taken into account. These are not only related to the self-confidence of the craftsmen or to the social status of the commissioner. The artist’s sign is part of a broader phenomenon: Not only the inscription „-- made me“, but also the grave epigrams recalls who made (manufactured and commissioned) it and in some cases also how it was made. This focus on the production process and the makers corresponds with the visual markers that display the materiality of the monument (different treatments of surfaces, colouring etc.). The participation of different craftsmen is also visible in the splendour of various types of decoration (painting / carving / sculpting).
The beholder is directly confronted with the production process of the grave monument while she/he should commemorate the deceased. But why? The paper discusses the manmade status of the monument that refers to the monument’s history and gives legitimation for permanent commemoration of the deceased. Economic expense and skilled craftsmanship are conditions for the monument’s ambition and were therefore communicated to the beholder.

 

2. Andrea Celestino Montanaro (CNR - Italian National Research Council)

Funerary painting and architecture in Daunia between IV and III century AC. Models and cultural influences
Some recent discoveries have allowed to be opened a new meaningful chapter in the study of painting and funerary architecture of preroman Apulia. To the scarce canosinan testimonies, already known for long time, others are flanked that have allowed to expand the geographical and cultural context. In addition, the field of the subjects represented has also been enlarged, proposing a broader case of themes and achievements that are comparable in both Greek and Campanian painting. Such attestations, in addition to Canosa, refer to settlements located north of the Ofanto River, namely Salapia, Arpi and Tiati.
The funerary painting begins in the Daunian world in the first decades of the 4th century BC and refers almost exclusively to funerary structures of emerging social classes. Indeed, at this stage, the use of chamber tombs, constructed (Arpi, Salapia, Tiati), or excavated in the natural counter (Canosa), with the use of decorative, pictorial and sculptural elements spreads. Their adoption was ornamental, but functional to a more complex language that, at least in the design and the original construction, the whole architecture tended to express. The set of the tomb and the deposed objects, and the figurative sphere to these often associated, was functional not only to the commemoration of the religious beliefs of the deceased, but also (including the development of the reference model) to the affirmation of the role played in the community from the family group of the dead.

 

3. Giovanna Pietra and Sebastiana Mele (Soprintendenza Archeologica Cagliari)

Non omnis moriar. Strategie di sopravvivenza alla morte nella necropoli romana di Karalis sul colle di Tuvixeddu
Between the 1st and 2nd century AD in Rome there are significant ideological changes in the funeral sphere in regard to the ways in which individuals choose to represent themselves and their world of values within the community of belonging. The outcomes of this process are evident in the adoption of specific architectural and monumental solutions – together with specific images and texts - and in the composition of the public to which the messages of figurative apparatus are intended.
Belong to this chronological and cultural context some of the funerary monuments of Cagliari, including the well-known sepulchres of Attilia Pomptilla and Rubellio, that were recently restored. making it possible to increase our knowledge of the ways - rituals, architectural models, artistic languages and Epigraphic texts - to preserve the memory of the people whom they were built for.

 

4. Ana Ruiz-Osuna (Universidad de Córdoba)

De sua pecunia. The socio-economic landscape of the funerary world in Hispania
The phenomenon of funerary monumentalization appears in Rome during the 3rd Century BC, but it will not be until the end of the republican stage when it will acquire large scale. Therefore, those belonging to an adequate social sector and had enough economic resources ordered to build, for them and their families, monumental tombs positioned in a distinguished topographical position. But, how much could a funerary monument cost? Or, in the other words, how much would a Roman be willing to pay for it?
According to historical and ephigraphic sources, the price of a tomb could fluctuate between some hundreds of sesterces (the equivalent to a small niche in a columbarium in Rome) and a million; before adding, in many cases, the extra cost of the terrain, the funeral, commemorative rites or regular offerings.
Given the scarcity of available direct sources informing about the costs, and the difficulty to compare them with archaeological reality, only very few researchers have approached these historic-economical matters. Some pioneer scholars must be highlighted, such as R. Duncan Jones (1962; 1974); and N. Purcell (1987).
Given these precedents, and assuming as our basis all those essential aspects for the understanding of the socioeconomic environment of this period and its reflection within the funerary world, we present the preliminary results on the topographic distribution and economic and statistic study of the funerary space in Hispania.

 

5. Tatiana Ivleva (Newcastle University)

The Power of Hands: Decoding Non-verbal Knowledge Transfer on the Roman Provincial Tombstones
In Roman provincial funerary art one can encounter a variety of bodily movements and gestures, showing the interactive nature of these acts: the deceased were depicted with a staged gesture proclaiming a certain meaning to viewers, which added emotional color to the written words of an inscription. The present paper presents the analysis of gestures of hands on ca 500 funerary tombstones found in the Roman provinces of Noricum and Pannonia and dated to the late first-third centuries AD. It decodes hidden meanings behind particular gestures used within the non-verbal medium of stone monuments and proposes that various gestures on tombstones were applied as a form of narration to project messages to the audience. It, thus, challenges the complementary role of hand gestures depicted and exposes their power and impact as meaningful signifiers. The contemporary scholarship often sees these gestures on Norican and Pannonian tombstones as being signs of Roman citizenship, intellectual superiority, or social status and often accredits them with being attention-getting. The present paper suggests, in contrast, that some gestures may not have been Roman in nature but a consequence of previously-established un-Roman gestures, appropriated into the local set of values and norms.