Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Publication
- Publication Type
Articles 1 - 6 of 6
Full-Text Articles in History
Learning From The Dead: How Burial Practices In Roman Britain Reflect Changes In Belief And Society, Samuel F. Engel
Learning From The Dead: How Burial Practices In Roman Britain Reflect Changes In Belief And Society, Samuel F. Engel
Student Publications
This paper begins by examining the burial traditions of the Iron age Britons and Classical Romans to see how these practices reflect their societal values and belief systems. The funerary methods of both the Britons and Romans are then analyzed following the Roman occupation of Britain in 43 AD to see how these practices changed once the two groups came into contact with each other. The findings show that rather than Romanization, there is a hybridization of burial practices which incorporated and reflect both Roman and British beliefs and values.
Keeping The Dead At Arm's Length, Howard M. R. Williams
Keeping The Dead At Arm's Length, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
Archaeologists have identified two kinds of furnished graves dating to the late fifth and sixth centuries AD from southern and eastern England: inhumation and cremation. While the ‘weapon burial rite’ is a frequent occurrence for inhumation graves, weapons are rarely found in cinerary urns. This article argues that this divergence may relate to the contrasting roles of cremation and inhumation as mortuary technologies of remembrance linked to alternative strategies for managing the powerful mnemonic agency of weapons.
Potted Histories: Cremation, Ceramics And Social Memory In Early Roman Britain,, Howard M. R. Williams
Potted Histories: Cremation, Ceramics And Social Memory In Early Roman Britain,, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
Archaeologists have identified the adoption of new forms of cremation ritual during the early Roman period in south-east Britain. Cremation may have been widely used by communities in the Iron Age, but the distinctive nature of these new rites was their frequent placing of the dead within, and associated with, ceramic vessels. This paper suggests an interpretation for the social meaning of these cremation burial rites that involved the burial of ashes with and within pots as a means of commemoration. In this light, the link between cremation and pottery in early Roman Britain can be seen as a means …
Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams
Death Warmed Up: The Agency Of Bodies And Bones In Early Anglo-Saxon Cremation Rites, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
It is argued that recent archaeological theories of death and burial have tended to overlook the social and mnemonic agency of the dead body. Drawing upon anthropological, ethnographic and forensic analogies for the effects of fire on the human body, together with Gell’s theory of the agency of inanimate objects, the article explores the cremation rites of early Anglo-Saxon England. As a case study in the archaeological study of the mnemonic agency of bodies and bones it is suggested that cremation and postcremation rites in the 5th and 6th centuries AD in eastern England operated as technologies of remembrance. Cremation …
Material Culture As Memory: Combs And Cremation In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Material Culture As Memory: Combs And Cremation In Early Medieval Britain, Howard M. R. Williams
Howard M. R. Williams
This paper argues that mortuary practices can be understood as ‘technologies of remembrance’. The frequent discovery of combs in early medieval cremation burials can be explained by their mnemonic significance in the post-cremation rite. Combs (and other objects used to maintain the body’s surface in life) served to articulate the reconstruction of the deceased’s personhood in death through strategies of remembering and forgetting. This interpretation suggests new perspectives on the elationships between death, material culture and social memory in early medieval Europe.
Ursinus College Bulletin Vol. 9, No. 3, December 1892, J. M. S. Isenberg, W. G. Welsh, John Hunter Watts, Elias Seyler Noll, Sara Hendricks
Ursinus College Bulletin Vol. 9, No. 3, December 1892, J. M. S. Isenberg, W. G. Welsh, John Hunter Watts, Elias Seyler Noll, Sara Hendricks
Ursinus College Bulletin, 1885-1902
A digitized copy of the December 1892 Ursinus College Bulletin.