Staging Death : Funerary Performance, Architecture and Landscape in the Aegean

Anastasia Dakouri-Hild

ISBN 10: 3110475782 / ISBN 13: 9783110475784

Published by De Gruyter, 2016

About this Item

Neuware - Places are social, lived, ideational landscapes constructed by people as they inhabit their natural and built environment. An 'archaeology of place' attempts to move beyond the understanding of the landscape as inert background or static fossil of human behaviour. From a specifically mortuary perspective, this approach entails a focus on the inherently mutable, transient and performative qualities of 'deathscapes': how they are remembered, obliterated, forgotten, reworked, or revisited over time. Despite latent interest in this line of enquiry, few studies have explored the topic explicitly in Aegean archaeology. This book aims to identify ways in which to think about the deathscape as a cross between landscapes, tombs, bodies, and identities, supplementing and expanding upon well explored themes in the field (e.g. tombs as vehicles for the legitimization of power; funerary landscapes as arenas of social and political competition). The volume recasts a wealth of knowledge about Aegean mortuary cultures against a theoretical background, bringing the field up to date with recent developments in the archaeology of place.

Seller Inventory # 9783110475784

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Staging Death : Funerary Performance, Architecture and Landscape in the Aegean
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3110475782
• ISBN 13: 9783110475784
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 245W x 178H x 25D millimeters 245 millimeters width by 178 millimeters height by 25 millimeters depth
• Weight: 915 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Places are social, lived, ideational landscapes constructed by people as they inhabit their natural and built environment. An ‘archaeology of place’ attempts to move beyond the understanding of the landscape as inert background or static fossil of human behaviour. From a specifically mortuary perspective, this approach entails a focus on the inherently mutable, transient and performative qualities of 'deathscapes': how they are remembered, obliterated, forgotten, reworked, or revisited over time. Despite latent interest in this line of enquiry, few studies have explored the topic explicitly in Aegean archaeology. This book aims to identify ways in which to think about the deathscape as a cross between landscapes, tombs, bodies, and identities, supplementing and expanding upon well explored themes in the field (e.g. tombs as vehicles for the legitimization of power; funerary landscapes as arenas of social and political competition). The volume recasts a wealth of knowledge about Aegean mortuary cultures against a theoretical background, bringing the field up to date with recent developments in the archaeology of place.

About the Author

Anastasia Dakouri-Hild, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA; Michael J. Boyd, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.