Description
THE DISPLAY OF SOCIAL ROLES IN TOMBS OF ROMAN GREECE: CASE STUDIES FROM PATRAS Around 14 BCE the Greek polis of Patras was colonized by Augustus, and soon it became one of the major port cities of Roman Greece. The ancient literary evidence for the history of the city is scarce, but since the middle of the twentieth century hundreds of rescue excavations have taken place in the center of Patras, greatly adding to our knowledge. Various scholars, most notably Papapostolou, Petropoulos, and Rizakis, have published extensively about the archaeology, the history, and the epigraphic record of the Roman city. In my PhD project, I aim to contribute to the knowledge about the social structure and identity of the community in Patras through the analysis of mortuary practices. The excavations in the areas of the three ancient cemeteries have yielded material from the origins of the polis to the Byzantine period. Most of the material has only been preliminarily published in the Archaiologikon Deltion-series. However, some tombs have been published in more detail by their excavators, including a number of rich Hellenistic graves (Papapostolou 1977, 1978), the well-known Roman Mausoleum (of the Aequani) (Dekoulakou 1980, 2009; Papapostolou 1983), as well as the burials and epitaphs of gladiators (Rizakis 1984, 1990; Papapostolou 1989). The combination of both the preliminarily published material and the published data, including historical and epigraphic material, provides a wealth of information about death and burial in the Classical-Hellenistic polis and the Roman colony. In this paper I focus on a number of tombs from the North cemetery of Patras, and discuss them in the light of the development of the colonial community. With the influx of thousands of immigrants into the area the composition of Patras’ community was significantly altered and people’s social roles had to be renegotiated. I argue that, through a combined analysis of funerary epigraphy and archaeology, we can trace the social debate between the old polis inhabitants and the newcomers, and gain insight into the role funerary practices could play in the development of a colonial society.Period | 1-Dec-2016 → 2-Dec-2016 |
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Event title | Mortuary Variability and Social Diversity in Ancient Greece |
Event type | Conference |
Location | Athens, GreeceShow on map |
Keywords
- Death
- Social identity
- Patras
- Archaeology
- Greece
- Roman period