Ritual In Early Bronze Age Grave Goods

The exotic and impressive grave goods from burials of the ÔWessex CultureÕ in Early Bronze Age Britain are well known and have inspired influential social and economic hypotheses, invoking the former existence of chiefs, warriors and merchants and high-ranking pastoralists. Alternative theories have sought to explain the how display of such objects was related to religious and ritual activity rather than to economic status, and that groups of artefacts found in certain graves may have belonged to religious specialists. This volume is the result of a major research that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ceremonies. Many items of adornment can be shown to have formed elements of elaborate costumes, probably worn by individuals, both male and female, who held important ritual roles within society. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that various categories of object long interpreted as mundane types of tool were in fact items of bodily adornment or implements used in ritual contexts, or in the special embellishment of the human body. Although never intended to form a complete catalogue of all the relevant artefacts from England the volume provides an extensive, and intensively illustrated, overview of a large proportion of the grave goods from English burial sites.

The exotic and impressive grave goods from burials of the ÔWessex CultureÕ in Early Bronze Age Britain are well known and have inspired influential social and economic hypotheses, invoking the former existence of chiefs, warriors and merchants and high-ranking pastoralists. Alternative theories have sought to explain the how display of such objects was related to religious and ritual activity rather than to economic status, and that groups of artefacts found in certain graves may have belonged to religious specialists. This volume is the result of a major research that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ceremonies. Many items of adornment can be shown to have formed elements of elaborate costumes, probably worn by individuals, both male and female, who held important ritual roles within society. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that various categories of object long interpreted as mundane types of tool were in fact items of bodily adornment or implements used in ritual contexts, or in the special embellishment of the human body. Although never intended to form a complete catalogue of all the relevant artefacts from England the volume provides an extensive, and intensively illustrated, overview of a large proportion of the grave goods from English burial sites.

This book describes and analyses the increasing complexity of later Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age burial in Ireland, using burial complexity as a proxy for increasing social complexity, and as a tool for examining social structure.

The papers in this volume explore how prehistoric Scandinavian burial ritual and religion can be interpreted and understood within contemporary Swedish contract archaeology. In different cases and from varying theoretical perspectives, the authors demonstrate how the material culture in collective burial ritual was used to create and express everything from very functional and distinct religious results, to individual, local and regional cultural identity. Emphasis is placed upon the interpretation of the actual dealings with the dead, the graves, the monuments, and with burial-grounds in the landscape. Examples range from the Neolithic to the conversion to Christianity in the late Viking Age.

The first supplementary volume of the series "Qatna Studien" presents the contributions of an international symposium held at the University of Tubingen in May 2009. This symposium was initiated and organized by the students and scholars of the post-graduate school 'Symbols of the Dead'. The topic of the symposium was to evaluate the possibilities in reconstructing Ancient Near Eastern funerary rituals from available archaeological and textual evidence. Contributors from seven countries discussed many aspects of ritual behaviour linked to death, the after-life and the variations in ritual treatment of the deceased before, during and after the actual burial. Among the many issues raised were questions related to the kinds of rituals linked to death in different cultural surroundings, the intentions of the actors conducting such rituals, their meaning and social importance, the question of ancestors and grave goods, and of grave offerings, the reasons for and the meaning of different burial types, and the theoretical and methodological approaches to ritual. Archaeological case studies were introduced, available textual evidence was presented, and even an ethnographic perspective from Kyrgyzstan is contributed. The archaeological and philological sources presented come from a wide geographical framework including Syria and Northern Mesopotamia, the Syro-Anatolian regions, the Southern Levant, Egypt, and Iran. Their chronological frame spans from the third to the first millennium BC. These contributions will enrich our understanding of the various cultural approaches to death in the Ancient Near East and increase our insight into many aspects of funerary rituals.

Excavations at Cliffs End Farm, Thanet, Kent, undertaken in 2004/5 uncovered a dense area of archaeological remains including Bronze Age barrows and enclosures, and a large prehistoric mortuary feature, as well as a small early 6th to late 7th century Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery. An extraordinary series of human and animal remains were recovered from the Late Bronze Age–Middle Iron Age mortuary feature, revealing a wealth of evidence for mortuary rites including exposure, excarnation and curation. The site seems to have been largely abandoned in the later Iron Age and very little Romano-British activity was identified. In the early 6th century a small inhumation cemetery was established. Very little human bone survived within the 21 graves, where the burial environment differed from that within the prehistoric mortuary feature, but grave goods indicate ‘females’ and ‘males’ were buried here. Richly furnished graves included that of a ‘female’ buried with a necklace, a pair of brooches and a purse, as well as a ‘male’ with a shield covering his face, a knife and spearhead. In the Middle Saxon period lines of pits, possibly delineating boundaries, were dug, some of which contained large deposits of marine shells. English Heritage funded an extensive programme of radiocarbon and isotope analyses, which have produced some surprising results that shed new light on long distance contacts, mobility and mortuary rites during later prehistory. This volume presents the results of the investigations together with the scientific analyses, human bone, artefact and environmental reports.

This volume represents a collection of contributions presented by the authors during the Second Annual University of Chicago Oriental Institute Seminar "Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean," held at the Oriental Institute, February 17-18, 2006. The principal aim of the two-day seminar was to interpret the social relevance resulting from the enactment of funerary rituals within the broad-reaching Mediterranean basin from prehistoric periods to the Roman Age. Efforts were concentrated on creating a panel composed of scholars with diverse backgrounds - anthropologists, historians, archaeologists, art historians, and philologists - and the knowledge and expertise to enrich the discussion through the presentation of case-studies linked to both textual and archaeological evidence from the Mediterranean region. Fundamental to the successful realisation of this research process was the active dialogue between scholars of different backgrounds. These communicative exchanges provided the opportunity to integrate different approaches and interpretations concerning the role played by the performance of ancient funerary rituals within a given society and, as a result, helped in defining a coherent outcome towards the interpretation of ancient communities' behaviours.