The type of monumental tomb that developed in Macedonia in the late Classical period was undoubtedly the most impressive of all the Greek funerary complexes. It was a burial chamber with a vestibule, ...built of stone blocks, vaulted and furnished with an architectural facade, concealed under a large tumulus rising above the ground. The concept of the Macedonian sepulcher, which the Macedonians and Greeks settling in Alexandria ad Aegyptum, the city founded by Alexander the Great on the Egyptian coast, brought with them, influenced the structural form of the underground tombs that were developed in the new city. ‘Macedonia–Alexandria’ explores the scope of this influence, comparing in synthetic form the structural elements of the cist graves, chamber and rock-cut tombs of Macedonia with the Alexandrian hypogea, while taking into account the different geographical factors that conditioned them. This is followed by a presentation of the facade and interior decoration, and a discussion of the themes of wall painting inside the tombs and a characteristic of the surviving tomb furnishings. The Macedonian tomb reflects in its form Greek eschatological beliefs ingrained in the mystery religions and the social ideology of the Macedonian kingdom. The assimilation of these beliefs is seen in the architectural arrangements, the vestibule and chamber plan, the facade (in Macedonia) or courtyard (in Alexandria), the structural and architectural interior decoration, and the furniture found in the chamber. These elements refer to palace architecture and determine the symbolic function of the tomb. The cult of the dead aspect is emphasized by wall painting iconography, the form of burial and the nature of the grave goods accompanying the deceased. In Alexandria, the role of rituals celebrated in the family tombs is attested by the declining size of burial chambers in favour of the vestibules and by the introduction of an open courtyard as well as the presence of altars. With regard to the ideology behind the Alexandrian complexes, the author explores the issue of the coexistence and the popularity of Egyptian beliefs adopted into Alexandrian sepulchral art, emphasizing the differences in the perception of the role of the tomb in the Macedonian and Egyptian consciousness.
In The Privileges of Death: Images of Immortality in Verse Inscriptions of the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman Periods Andrzej Wypustek provides a study of various forms of poetic heroization that became ...increasingly widespread in Greek funerary epigram in the 1st-3rd centuries AD.
This collective work reports on the studies and archaeological work carried out at the megalithic ruined necropolis of Wanar, Senegal, between 2008 and 2017. Along with Sine Ngayene in Senegal, and ...Wassu and Ker Batch in Gambia, the Wanar sanctuary is one of four sites classified as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 2006. The first part sets out the general framework for the study of paleoenvironments as well as historical and archaeological data, and concludes with a brief summary of megaliths in Africa.
The second part reports on all the observations made, starting with a presentation of the Wanar site in the context of human settlements along the Bao Bolon valley, followed by an account of the main study methods used. This is followed by a detailed presentation of the six monuments studied, three to the north of the necropolis with short, squat monoliths, and three to the south with narrow, elongated monoliths, built between the 11th and 13th centuries AD. The sanctuary then took the form of a village with stone houses, dedicated to the dead and, in the context of deferred funerals, in three stages as in many traditional funeral rites still practiced today in West Africa.
Paradigm shifts in the state of knowledge about the megaliths of Senegal and Gambia call for a careful re-reading of previous work, which is the subject of the third and final section. The monograph on the work at the Wanar site is therefore an important milestone in the advancement of our knowledge of protohistoric societies and megalith builders in West Africa.
This book explores the influence of Macedonians and Greeks settling in Alexandria ad Aegyptum on the structural form of underground tombs, comparing in synthetic form the structural elements of the ...cist graves, chamber and rock-cut tombs of Macedonia with the Alexandrian hypogea, while taking into account geographical factors that conditioned them.
Where more poignantly than in a small country graveyard can a traveler fathom the flow of history and tradition? During the past twenty years, Terry G. Jordan has traveled the back roads and hidden ...trails of rural Texas in search of such cemeteries. With camera in hand, he has visited more than one thousand cemeteries created and maintained by the Anglo-American, black, Indian, Mexican, and German settlers of Texas. His discoveries of sculptured stones and mounds, hex signs and epitaphs, intricate landscapes and unusual decorations represent a previously unstudied and unappreciated wealth of Texas folk art and tradition. Texas Graveyards not only marks the distinct ethnic and racial traditions in burial practices but also preserves a Texas legacy endangered by changing customs, rural depopulation, vandalism, and the erosion of time.
This innovative study examines and analyses the wealth of evidence provided by the monumental effigies of Yorkshire, from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, including some of very high ...sculptural merit. More than 200 examples survive from the historic county in varying states of preservation. Together, they present a picture of the people able to afford them, at a time when the county was frequently at the forefront of national politics and administration, during the Scottish wars. Many monuments display remarkable realism, depicting people as they themselves wished to be remembered, and are accompanied by a great volume of contemporary sculptural and architectural detail. Stylistic analysis of the effigies themselves has been employed, better to understand how they relate to one another and give a firmer basis for their dating and production patterns. They are considered in relation to the history and material culture of the area at the time they were produced. A more soundly based appreciation of the sculptor's intentions and the aspirations of patrons is sought through close attention to the full extent of the visible evidence afforded by the monuments and their surroundings. The corpus is of sufficient size to permit meaningful analysis to shed light on aspects such as personal aspiration, social networks, patterns of supply and production, piety and wealth. It demonstrates the value of funerary monuments to the wider understanding of medieval society. The text will be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, making available a substantial body of research for the first time. The study considers the relationship between the monuments and related sculpture, architecture, painting, glass etc, together with contemporary documentary evidence, where it is available. This material and the underlying methodology are now available to illuminate monuments of the medieval period across the whole country. Its methods and messages extend understanding of all monuments, broadening its potential audience from the purely local to everyone concerned with medieval sculpture and church archaeology.
Pious Memories Brine, Douglas
2015, 2015-04-13, Letnik:
13
eBook
In Pious Memories Douglas Brine examines the context, function, and meaning of early Netherlandish memorials (in the form of sculptures, paintings, and brasses), and the role they played in ...commemorating the dead in the Low Countries during the fifteenth century.
The bleak steppe and rolling highlands of inner Anatolia were one of the most remote and underdeveloped parts of the Roman empire. Still today, for most historians of the Roman world, ancient Phrygia ...largely remains terra incognita. Yet thanks to a startling abundance of Greek and Latin inscriptions on stone, the cultural history of the villages and small towns of Roman Phrygia is known to us in vivid and unexpected detail. Few parts of the Mediterranean world offer so rich a body of evidence for rural society in the Roman Imperial and late antique periods, and for the flourishing of ancient Christianity within this landscape. The eleven essays in this book offer new perspectives on the remarkable culture, lifestyles, art and institutions of the Anatolian uplands in antiquity.
Tomb - Memory - Space Giese, Francine; Pawlak, Anna; Thome, Markus
2018, 2018-06-25
eBook
From an intercultural perspective, this book focuses on aesthetic strategies and forms of representation in premodern Christian and Islamic sepulchral art. Seeing the tomb as an interface for ...eschatological, political, and artistic debate, the contributions analyze the diversity of memorial space configurations. The subjects range from the complex interaction between architecture and tomb topography through to questions relating to the funereal expression of power and identity, and to practices of ritual realization in the context of individual and collective memory.