Death In Late Bronze Age Greece

"Late Bronze Age tombs in Greece and their attendant mortuary practices have been a topic of scholarly debate for over a century, dominated by the idea of a monolithic culture with the same developmental trajectories throughout the region. This book contributes to that body of scholarship by exploring both the level of variety and of similarity that we see in the practices at each site and thereby highlights the differences between communities that otherwise look very similar. By bringing together an international group of scholars working on tombs and cemeteries on mainland Greece, Crete, and in the Dodecanese we are afforded a unique view of the development and diversity of these communities. The papers provide a penetrative analysis of the related issues by discussing tombs connected with sites ranging in size from palaces to towns to villages and in date from the start to the end of the Late Bronze Age. This book contextualizes the mortuary studies in recent debates on diversity at the main palatial and secondary sites and between the economic and political strategies and practices throughout Greece. The papers in the volume illustrate the pervasive connection between the mortuary sphere and society through the creation and expression of cultural narratives, and draw attention to the social tensions played out in the mortuary arena"--

A Silent Place: Death in Mycenaean Lakonia is the first book-length systematic study of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) burial tradition in south-eastern Peloponnese, Greece, and the first to comprehensively present and discuss all Mycenaean tombs and funerary contexts excavated and/or simply reported in the region from the 19th century to present day. The book will discuss and reconstruct the emergence and development of the Mycenaean mortuary tradition in Lakonia by examining the landscape of death, the burial architecture, the funerary and post-funerary customs and rituals, and offering patterns over a longue durée. The author proposes patterns of continuity from the Middle Bronze Age (even the Early Bronze Age in terms of burial architecture) to the LBA and, equally important, from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age,and reconstructs diachronic processes of invention of tradition and identity in Mycenaean communities, on the basis of tomb types and their material culture. The text highlights the social, political and economic history of Late Bronze Age Lakonia from the evolution of the Mycenaean civilisation and the establishment of palatial administration in the Spartan vale, to the demise of Mycenaean culture and the turbulent post–collapse centuries, as reflected by the burial offerings. The book also brings to publication the chamber tombs at Epidavros Limera that remained largely unpublished since their excavation in the 1930s and 1950s. Epidavros Limera was one of the most important prehistoric coastal sites in prehistoric southern Greece (early 3rd–late 4th millennium BC), and one of the main harbour towns of the Mycenaean administrative centres of central Lakonia. It is one of very few Mycenaean sites that flourished uninterruptedly from the emergence of the Mycenaean civilisation until after the collapse of the palatial administration and into the transition to the Early Iron Age. The present study of the funerary architecture and of the pottery from the tombs suggests that the site was responsible for the introduction of the chamber tomb type on the Greek mainland in the latest phase of the Middle Bronze Age (definitely no later than the transitional Middle Bronze Age/Late Bronze Age period), and not in the early phase of the Late Bronze Age (Late Helladic I) as previously assumed.

The ancient Greeks devoted a significant portion of their poetic and artistic energy to exploring themes of death. Vermeule examines the facts and fictions of Greek death, including burial and mourning, visions of the underworld, souls and ghosts, the value of heroic death in battle, the quest for immortality, the linked powers of death, sleep, and love, and more.

This volume brings together early career scholars working on funerary customs in Greece from the Early Iron Age to the Roman period. Papers present various thematic and interdisciplinary analysis in which funerary contexts provide insights on individuals, social groups and communities.

His Majesty being powerful, his heart stout, none could stand before him.. All his territory was ablaze with fire, and he burned every foriegn country with his hot breath. Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II. The bowmen of His Majesty spent six hours of destruction among them. They were delivered to the sword. Egyptian Pharaoh Merneptah. May my father know the enemy ships came. My cities were burned and evil things were done in my country. King of the city of Ugarit to the king of Cyprus. Since there is famine in your house we will starve to death...The living soul of your country you will see no longer. To a Hittite offical stationed in Ugarit. Israel is laid waste, his seed is not. Pharaoh Merneptah. Pharaoh's chariots and his army He cast into the Sea...Book of Exodus. Egypt was adrift and every man was thrown out of his right. There was no leader for years..Pharaoh Ramesses IV. As they (the Sea Peoples) were coming forward toward Egypt, their hearts relying upon their hands, a net was prepared for them....My strong arm has overthrown those who came to exalt themselves. Pharaoh Ramesses III. [of the Greeks] These were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades. Greek writer Hesiod. Returning to Luxor, Egypt, by Nile ship. The author has visited many of the significant archaeological sites mentioned in this book. Front cover, top, Troy VI by Lloyd K. Townsend, bottom, Pharaoh Thotmose IV.