Death Rituals and Social Order in the Ancient World

Death Rituals and Social Order in the Ancient World PDF Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107082730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
This volume, with essays by leading archaeologists and prehistorians, considers how prehistoric humans attempted to recognise, understand and conceptualise death.

Death Rituals and Social Order in the Ancient World

Death Rituals and Social Order in the Ancient World PDF Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107082730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 469

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Book Description
This volume, with essays by leading archaeologists and prehistorians, considers how prehistoric humans attempted to recognise, understand and conceptualise death.

Death Rituals, Social Order, and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World

Death Rituals, Social Order, and the Archaeology of Immortality in the Ancient World PDF Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781316374627
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality In the Ancient World

Death Rituals, Social Order and the Archaeology of Immortality In the Ancient World PDF Author: Colin Renfrew
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781316376621
Category : Death
Languages : en
Pages : 443

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Book Description
Modern archaeology has amassed considerable evidence for the disposal of the dead through burials, cemeteries and other monuments. Drawing on this body of evidence, this book offers fresh insight into how early human societies conceived of death and the afterlife. The twenty-seven essays in this volume consider the rituals and responses to death in prehistoric societies across the world, from eastern Asia through Europe to the Americas, and from the very earliest times before developed religious beliefs offered scriptural answers to these questions. Compiled and written by leading prehistorians and archaeologists, this volume traces the emergence of death as a concept in early times, as well as a contributing factor to the formation of communities and social hierarchies, and sometimes the creation of divinities.

Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity

Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity PDF Author: Ian Morris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521376112
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
In this innovative book Dr Morris seeks to show the many ways in which the excavated remains of burials can and should be a major source of evidence for social historians of the ancient Graeco-Roman world. Burials have a far wider geographical and social range than the surviving literary texts, which were mainly written for a small elite. They provide us with unique insights into how Greeks and Romans constituted and interpreted their own communities. In particular, burials enable the historian to study social change. Ian Morris illustrates the great potential of the material in these respects with examples drawn from societies as diverse in time, space and political context as archaic Rhodes, classical Athens, early imperial Rome and the last days of the western Roman empire.

Death and Changing Rituals

Death and Changing Rituals PDF Author: J. Rasmus Brandt
Publisher: Oxbow Books
ISBN: 1782976396
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The forms by which a deceased person may be brought to rest are as many as there are causes of death. In most societies the disposal of the corpse is accompanied by some form of celebration or ritual which may range from a simple act of deportment in solitude to the engagement of large masses of people in laborious and creative festivities. In a funerary context the term ritual may be taken to represent a process that incorporates all the actions performed and thoughts expressed in connection with a dying and dead person, from the preparatory pre-death stages to the final deposition of the corpse and the post-mortem stages of grief and commemoration. The contributions presented here are focused not on the examination of different funerary practices, their function and meaning, but on the changes of such rituals _ how and when they occurred and how they may be explained. Based on case studies from a range of geographical regions and from different prehistoric and historical periods, a range of key themes are examined concerning belief and ritual, body and deposition, place, performance and commemoration, exploring a complex web of practices.

Death rituals, ideology, and the development of early Mesopotamian kingship

Death rituals, ideology, and the development of early Mesopotamian kingship PDF Author: Andrew C. Cohen
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004146350
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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Book Description
At the beginning of Mesopotamia s Early Dynastic period, the political landscape was dominated by temple administrators, but by the end of the period, rulers whose titles we translate as king assumed control. This book argues that the ritual process of mourning, burying, and venerating dead elites contributed to this change. Part one introduces the rationale for seeing rituals as a means of giving material form to ideology and, hence, structuring overall power relations. Part two presents archaeological and textual evidence for the death rituals. Part three interprets symbolic objects found in the Royal Cemetery of Ur, showing they reflect ideological doctrines promoting the office of kingship. This book will be particularly useful for scholars of Mesopotamian archaeology and history.

Death and Burial in the Roman World

Death and Burial in the Roman World PDF Author: J. M. C. Toynbee
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 9780801855078
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
The most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices—now available in paperback Never before available in paperback, J. M. C. Toynbee's study is the most comprehensive book on Roman burial practices. Ranging throughout the Roman world from Rome to Pompeii, Britain to Jerusalem—Toynbee's book examines funeral practices from a wide variety of perspectives. First, Toynbee examines Roman beliefs about death and the afterlife, revealing that few Romans believed in the Elysian Fields of poetic invention. She then describes the rituals associated with burial and mourning: commemorative meals at the gravesite were common, with some tombs having built-in kitchens and rooms where family could stay overnight. Toynbee also includes descriptions of the layout and finances of cemeteries, the tomb types of both the rich and poor, and the types of grave markers and monuments as well as tomb furnishings.

The Death Rituals of Rural Greece

The Death Rituals of Rural Greece PDF Author: Loring M. Danforth
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691218196
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
This compelling text and dramatic photographic essay convey the emotional power of the death rituals of a small Greek village--the funeral, the singing of laments, the distribution of food, the daily visits to the graves, and especially the rite of exhumation. These rituals help Greek villagers face the universal paradox of mourning: how can the living sustain relationships with the dead and at the same time bring them to an end, in order to continue to live meaningfully as members of a community? That is the villagers' dilemma, and our own. Thirty-one moving photographs (reproduced in duotone to do justice to their great beauty) combine with vivid descriptions of the bereaved women of "Potamia" and with the words of the funeral laments to allow the reader an unusual emotional identification with the people of rural Greece as they struggle to integrate the experience of death into their daily lives. Loring M. Danforth's sensitive use of symbolic and structural analysis complements his discussion of the social context in which these rituals occur. He explores important themes in rural Greek life, such as the position of women, patterns of reciprocity and obligation, and the nature of social relations within the family.

Burial and Ancient Society

Burial and Ancient Society PDF Author: Ian Morris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521387385
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
This study of the changing relationships between burial rituals and social structure in Early Iron Age Greece will be required reading for all archaeologists working with burial evidence, in whatever period. This book differs from many topical studies of state formation in that unique and particular developments are given as much weight as those factors which are common to all early states. The ancient literary evidence and the relevant historical and anthropological comparisons are extensively drawn on in an attempt to explain the transition to the city-state, a development which was to have decisive effects for the subsequent development of European society.

Death, Ritual and Belief

Death, Ritual and Belief PDF Author: Douglas Davies
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1474250971
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Death, Ritual and Belief, now in its third edition, explores many important issues related to death and dying, from a religious studies perspective, including anthropology and sociology. Using the motif of 'words against death' it depicts human responses to grief by surveying the many ways in which people have not let death have the last word, not simply in terms of funeral rites but also in memorials, graves, and in ideas of ancestors, souls, gods, reincarnation and resurrection, whether in the great religious traditions of the world or in more local customs. He also examines bereavement and grief, experiences of the presence of dead, near-death experiences, pet-death and the symbolic death played out in religious rites. Updated chapters have taken into account new research and include additional topics in this new edition, notably assisted dying, terrorism, green burial, material culture, death online, and the emergence of Death Studies as a distinctive field. Case studies range from Anders Breivik in Norway, to the Princess of Wales, and to the Rapture in the USA. A new perspective is also brought to his account of grief theories. Providing an introduction to key authors and authorities on death beliefs, bereavement, grief and ritual-symbolism, Death, Ritual and Belief is an authoritative guide to the perspectives of major religious and secular worldviews.