Essay: Roman funerary practices – how and why

Introduction

Life and death was a very important part of the ancient Roman society. When one entered, or exited the city, one would be met by the ancestors of the people of Rome, in the form of mausoleums, grave marker, and epitaphs. Burying and honoring the deceased was an important part of ancient Rome, but how did they do so? In this essay, I will attempt to explain how they, in ancient Rome, would bury their dead and what rituals were needed for the soul of the deceased to cross over. While we do not have any direct description of how these burials were executed, we have many sources, such as sarcophagus, reliefs, monuments, etc., that depict the funerary rituals. I will be using the Amiternum tomb and the Haterii tomb as examples of archaeological evidence, and different archaeological viewpoints on the matter.

Chosen Theories

Before I present my case and analysis, I will explain the archaeological theories that I have deemed fit for the case and therefore chosen for this essay. As I will mention later in this essay, the whole debate about how funerary practices and how the Romans buried their dead ones, is highly interpretive, especially due to the lack of written sources from that era, and I will therefore mainly focus on post-processual theorizing.  In this following section I will shortly explain the backstory and main points of post-processualism and its counterpart processualism.

Post-processual archeology, also known as interpretative archeology, is a movement within archeological theories, which emphasizes the subjectivity of archeological interpretations. This movement embraced several different theoretical viewpoints, including structuralism and Neo-Marxism, and had a variety of archeological techniques, such as phenomenology. The post-processual movement originated in the United Kingdom during the late 1970s, and was spearheaded by archeologists such as Ian Hodder and Daniel Miller, who were highly influenced by French Marxist anthropology, postmodernism and other similar trends in sociocultural anthropology. Initially, post-processual archeology was a reaction and critique of processual archeology, which was the dominating archeological theory by the 1970s. The most critical point from post-processual archeologists was that, if a scientific method was applied, all processual archeologists could come to a complete objective conclusion.

Processual archeology, formerly known as New Archeology, is a form of archeological theory first conceived by Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips and expressed in their work titled Method and Theory in American Archeology. In this title, they explore the idea that the goals of archaeology is the same as the goals of anthropology, which is to answer questions about humans and human societies. Supporters of this form of archeological theory claimed that use of the scientific method would allow archeologists to discover more about every artifact, and not just date and catalogue them, as was done when using cultural-history archeology. This new scientific method could help archeologists understand what the people who used these artifacts were like and how they lived. Within the theoretical aspect of processual archeology, many areas of analysis and interpretation existed. The core for the theory was cultural evolutionism, in which one attempted to explain long-term changes in human sociology, were processual archeologists believed they could understand past cultural systems through remains left behind in the forms of artifacts. Processual archeologists adhere to theories presented by Leslie White, where she claims that culture can be defined as the exosomatic means of human adaptation during environmental changes, which results in processual archeologists claiming that cultural changes happen within a predetermined framework and seek to understand these changes through analysis of its components. This idea that artifacts appear within an exosomatic adaptation is also supported by scientific claims. These scientific claims include methodological approaches of logical positivism, the use of quantitative data and the hypothetico-deduction model.

Post-processual archeologists were the complete opposite of the processual archeologists, but can also be seen as a compromise, since many were not happy about the processual scientific method. The processualists believed that a scientific method could and should be applied to archeological investigations, which allowed them to make objective statements about past societies, while the post-processualists believed that no such objective statements could be made, as the archeological record was relative to the viewpoint of the archeologist responsible for unearthing and presenting the data. Because post-processualists believe that archeology is subjective, they also believe that every archeologist imposes their own personal bias into their interpretations of the archeological data.

The Roman funeral

The funerary practices in the Roman empire was a rite of passage that symbolized a person’s transition from life to death. It was of utmost importance that the ceremonial rituals were carried out correctly, as to not evoke the evil spirits of the underworld to walk in the land of the living. There are usually five core points before, during and after the Roman funeral: procession, cremation and/or burial, epitaphs, a feast, and commemoration. The procession (fig 1) was an important part of the funerary practices. They would move the body around all over town, in what could be interpreted as a kind of parade in memory of the deceased. Depending on their social standing this procession could be of a larger scale. The wealthiest would have mimes and musicians following around, as well as mourners. These mourners, were not part of the family but women who were paid to mourn over the deceased. This has also been depicted in Egyptian and Greek culture. If the body was being cremated it was taken to the necropolis, ashes and what was left of bones and teeth would then be put into a funerary urn. Until the mid-2nd century cremation was the most common method, but soon after burial took over and the bodies would be placed in a sarcophagus, richly decorated with reliefs depicting a scene from history, mythology, or everyday life. The top of the sarcophagus was often decorated with a sculpture of the deceased. If the deceased was an important member of society, or if the family deemed it fit, they would be given an epitaph at the funeral. The epitaphs usually stated, what kind of person the deceased had been, what they had accomplished, and most importantly their name and the titles which was been given to them during their lifetime. Some of these epitaphs were chosen by the deceased, while others were chosen by the surviving family. Many of these have survived to present-day.

“Epitaphs therefore tell us how people wanted themselves or those close to them to be remembered and how they hoped to interact with the living in the future.” (Caroll, M. 2009.)

A feast followed the procession and burial, to let the soul know, it could cross over and it is the family was moving on. Commemoration came long after the burial. The Roman empire had specific days to commemorate the deceased, so their memory would not be lost. The families would visit their relatives’ graves and honor them with offerings. In some of the Roman sarcophagus there is an opening in the lid, where one could pour in wine.

“In addition to the burial rites themselves, members of the family were also expected to carry out the annual ceremonies in memory of the dead, which included the Parentalia (in February), the Lemuria (in May) and other observances of the anniversary of the deceased’s birth or death;” (Patterson, J.R. 2001.)

By having a lot of pictorial, and only a few written, sources about the funerary customs in Rome, makes the question of how they buried their dead, a highly interpretive topic. Knowing that the Romans drew a lot of inspiration from the Greeks and the Egyptians, especially when it came to religion. This is something that Edward Herring also mentions in his article ‘Using your religion’, from 1996, that there was “a changing in the native society particularly in terms of the adoption of Greek inspired political, philosophical and religious thoughts.” and that “the native people of Southern Italy had adopted Greek religion as part of a Mediterranean koiné  culture which they had become assimilated to.”.  Based on all of the above and on related findings, it can be argued that the chance of the Romans having similar, if not the same, funerary customs as the Greek, is very plausible.

The inspirations for funerals, can be found in Greek literature and art. E.g. Book 23 of Homer’s Iliad. This book contains a verse dedicated to the funeral of Patroclus, the son of Menoetius and friend of the Greek hero Achilles, in which Achilles and the other soldiers host funerary games in Patroclus’ honor. A feast, a trait also commonly found in Roman culture, then follows these funerary games. Both the Greek and the Romans feast after parting with the deceased, one might say they celebrate the circle of life. Furthermore, the funerary games hosted by the Greek in honor of the deceased, were also said to be a part of the Roman commemorations of life and death.

The Dipylon krater (fig 2) is an example of a Greek grave marker, showing a specific scene from the vase, which can be interpreted as a mourning scene. The figures, standing under and next to the deceased, are shown holding their hands to their heads, in an expression of grief. There are a large number of grieving figures presented on the vase and there is a good chance that some of them are supposed to represent mourners. The scene represented in the Dipylon krater is very like that of the Haterii tomb (fig 3), in which a mourning scene is also depicted. This mourning scene also presents a moment of mourning and depicts the deceased lying in the middle, surrounded by grieving people. Despite being two different art styles, one being a painted krater and the other being part of a bigger relief decoration on the inside of a tomb, the similarities between the Greek and Roman funerary culture are easy to spot.

Analysis and mention of related theories

Douglas

Argument and justify- do I agree with mentioned theory?

Summary and Conclusion

The Amiternum tomb and the Haterii tomb are just some of the many pictorial examples showing the different parts of the Roman funeral customs, from preparation of the body, mourning and procession, to mention some. Throughout this essay, it has effectively demonstrated through the use of evidence, how the Roman funerary rituals closely resembled the Greeks and how they most likely disposed the dead. Cremation was the most popular way of disposing the deceased, in the Roman empire, up until mid-2nd century where there was a change, due to urbanization changing the view of the afterlife, which replaced cremation with burial. I chose to focus on the subjectivity and interpretive ways of the post-processual method, as it is clearly the best method to use, especially when most evidence available for this certain topic is from reliefs and painting.