Life and Death in Asia Minor

In the summer of 2007 the Department of Archaeology, Conservation, and History at the University of Oslo, started archaeological investigations of the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis. The investigations, covering a) surveys of the whole necropolis area to achieve a full record of visible tombs and sarcophagi and their typologies as well as the topographical extension and organization, and b) focused excavations of selected tombs and tomb areas to achieve a chronology of use and of changing funerary practices, have continued for 4–6 weeks every year till 2014.

In 2010 the Norwegian Research Council gave considerable financial support to a four-year research project: Thanatos: Dead bodies – Live data. A study of funerary data from the Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine town Hierapolis in Phrygia, Turkey, which emerged from the surveys and excavations of the North-East Necropolis. The primary object of the research project was to investigate, in a social setting, an urban population in detail over a long period of time, including studies on funerary architecture and landscape perception, organization and entrepreneurship, practices and rituals, mortuary behaviour, genetic relationships and origins, palaeodemography, health and disease, behaviour, and diets and individual mobility patterns. The aim of the project was, in addition to the archaeological research, to make a wide use of radiocarbon dates and osteological, ancient and mitochondrial DNA, and isotope analyses. In the present publication this perspective has been widened to include contributions from other sites in Asia Minor.

The most important sites discussed are entered on a map of Asia Minor (Fig. 0.1), but the articles refer to many more than those signalled. This limitation in space is done on purpose. By pulling together funerary information from a rather limited, defined region the aim has been to reduce the presence of many regional differences found in ancient Anatolia (Ousterhout 2010, 87; Moore 2013, 84–5) with the hope that we shall be able to present data that can more easily be compared and transformed into more generic cultural and historical overviews than if we had collected funerary results from larger areas within the Anatolian and/or Mediterranean areas. The reader will quickly discover that Hierapolis plays a central part in many of the contributions in the present publication, a situation difficult to avoid, due to the quantity of data now being generated through just concluded surveys and excavations.

The history of Hierapolis, founded around 200 BC, destroyed and abandoned due to an earthquake in the mid-7th century AD, but reborn to a new and different life some generations later, before its final abandonment in the 14th century AD, also forms the chronological frame for the present publication. It is a recurring habit in historical and archaeological publications to go by defined time periods; from recent years can be mentioned many interesting and well-reviewed books on Roman funerary customs, as, for example, Cormack 2004; Flämig 2007; Brink, Green, and Green (eds.) 2008; Carrol and Rempel (eds.) 2011; Hope and Huskinson (eds.) 2011. By stretching the timeline to cover more periods the intent has been to more easily pick up changes in funerary practices and life conditions, significant and insignificant, not only within periods, but between periods. Therefore, many of the articles cover the important, but at times turbulent, transition from a pagan to a Christian society, and the traumatic change when the Roman urban centres disappeared in the 6th/7th centuries and a new society, both socially, politically, and urbanistic, a few generations later both literally and metaphorically grew out of the ruins of the old ones.

Unfortunately, in all sites discussed in the present volume, there is a clear cultural and historical break with the Turkish gradual take-over of the area, when a completely new communication and settlement infrastructure was built up. In places which show some Turkish activity, like at Hierapolis (Arthur 2012, 297–9) and Pergamon (Schultz and Schmidt-Schultz, this publication), burial grounds have not been detected.

Chapters 14–20 by, respectively, Wong et al., Propstmeier et al., Teegen, Kiesewetter, Schultz and Scmidt-Schultz, Demirel, and Novacek et al., should be read together, since they all contain information on diets and pathologies which both support and overlap each other and give an interesting, rather coherent picture of the life conditions in Asia Minor, both in the Roman/early Byzantine and in the mid-/late Byzantine periods. Some cross-referencing has been done between the articles, including the articles in the archaeological section, but not in a comprehensive way. See also below for some further observations. However, first a few words shall be said about body theory and materiality.

The Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine society at Hierapolis, as all the other contemporary societies in Asia Minor discussed here, was a multifaceted living organism, as expressed through its many preserved monuments, artefacts, and inscriptions. The tombs add literally a human factor to the urban organism. In the interplay between dead bodies and their material contexts we possess an important tool to study social meanings and relationships, not only as singular and synchronic, but also as constantly changing diachronic events in which the meanings are continuously attacked and defended, defined and redefined. The aim of the Thanatos project, the final results of which are under preparation for publication in the Italian series Hierapolis di Frigia, has been to unveil the complexity of the ancient society, not its uniformity. The wide variety of empirical data collected has required the application of, within a social setting, theoretical approaches that are both polysemic and diverse. The studies, as implied by the title of the project, have therefore taken their point of departure in body theory and materiality, two theoretical issues, as already stated, which are also central to the present publication.

Body theory purports the study of both the body as material (i.e. the dead bodies as preserved skeletons, the object of osteological studies, DNA and isotope analyses, and C14 dates) and the body and material (i.e. the dead body in its many-faceted contexts, as, for example, its relation to the urban settlement and the landscape, the shape of the tomb, the grave goods and the inscriptions) (see in particular, Sofaer 2006, 62–88).

Materiality concerns archaeological material in its widest sense, i.e. all kinds of material found in archaeological excavations, including dead bodies. It is not a theory in itself, but an umbrella concept for a wide range of theories placing the archaeological material in a social context (Glørstad and Hedeager 2008, 27–8). Body theory and materiality are thus two approaches which have much in common. The present publication has, for that reason, pulled together data from three different fields of study: genetic, osteological, and archaeological studies, the accessed data of which have been analyzed from different methodological and theoretical standpoints.

Under the concept body as material the more important issues investigated and discussed are, for example, questions like:

•

Demography: mortality rates and life expectancy among age groups, sexes, and social groups (Ahrens, Demirel, Kiesewetter, Schultz and Schmidt-Schultz, Teegen).

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Life standards/living conditions seen both in a synchronic and a diachronic perspective, in short osteobiographies (Demirel, Kiesewetter, Nováček et al., Propstmeier et al., Schultz and Schmidt-Schultz, Teegen).

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Pathology, or various kinds of sicknesses, disease, and nutritional deficiencies, which leave traces in bones and/or teeth (Demirel, Kiesewetter, Nováček et al., Schultz and Schmidt-Schultz, Teegen).

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Body actions, or the study of wear and tear, lesions, and injuries on the bones due to activities connected with crafts or physical expressions of various sorts, including combat (Kiesewetter, Nováček et al., Teegen).

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Genetic variations, related to ethnic populations and families (Hagelberg and Bjørnstad).

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Mobility patterns and diet (Propstmeier et al; Wong et al.).

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Post-mortem life of the skeletons (archaeothanatology) (Laforest et al.) (on the use of this concept, see Duday 2009).

Under the concept body and material, the issues discussed are:

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Necropoleis (urban, rural) and topography (Ahrens, D’Andria, Goldman, Işin and Yıldız, Korkut and Uygun, Lightfoot, Öğüş, Ronchetta, Scardozzi, Steskal, Wenn et al.).

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Death, territory, urban transformations and lines of communication (D’Andria, Scardozzi).

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City border, liminality, pollution and purification (Steskal, Wenn et al.).

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Landscape perception and visibility (Ronchetta, Scardozzi, Steskal, Wenn et al.).

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Funerary architecture (body containers), material, construction techniques, production, and costs (Ahrens, D’Andria, Goldman, Işin and Yıldız, Korkut and Uygun, Lightfoot, Öğüş, Ronchetta, Scardozzi, Steskal).

•

Funerary epigraphy, grave markers: ownership, social and family organizations, gender roles, status, symbols, and craft affiliations (Ahrens, D’Andria, Işin and Yıldız, Korkut and Uygun, Laforest et al., Lightfoot, Öğüş, Ronchetta, Scardozzi, Steskal, Wenn et al.).

•

Grave goods: symbols and significance (Goldman, Korkut and Uygun, Laforest et al., Wenn et al.).

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Funerary rights, rituals, and practices: taboos, orientation, inhumation and cremation, locals and non-locals, pagans, Jews, and Christians (D’Andria, Goldman, Işin and Yıldız, Korkut and Uygun, Laforest et al., Lightfoot, Steskal, Wenn et al.).

•

Use and reuse of tombs/graves (continuity and change) related to practical and/or symbolic conditions/reasons; burials of saints (D’Andria, Goldman, Korkut and Uygun, Laforest et al., Lightfoot, Ronchetta, Steskal, Wenn et al.).

•

Memory, identity, and mental changes (D’Andria, Goldman, Öğüş, Scardozzi, Steskal, Wenn et al.).

Some reflections from the sideline

Being the chief editor and having had the gratifying privilege to read through all the articles more than once, I have made some observations I should like to bring forward, in a meagre attempt in this introduction to open up some discussions I hope will be carried further. Not all contributions will be mentioned here, only a highly personal selection, which must not be read as a priority list with regard to their contents, only as a reflection of some personal research interests. I use the word reflection on purpose in order to underline that the observations and questions asked are not the result of profound studies, but are rather questions of curiosity which may or may not be worth approaching more seriously. And since I am an archaeologist by profession, and myself a contributor to the volume, the articles that have inspired my observations are mainly those in the bioarchaeological section (Part II), which have brought new information to my limited knowledge of the ancient micro-Asian societies, the underlying aim being to approach historical and cultural questions in which the present archaeological and scientific studies can meet and develop further. I have three observations to make: the first on the living conditions and the stability of the Roman societies both in Asia Minor and beyond, the second on nutrition, and the third on health.

Living conditions

Despite the high number of Roman towns, Roman society was basically rural – a large majority of the population lived in the countryside. Their daily work and preoccupations were tied to the fields and their cultivation of agricultural products. They were tightly bound to the rhythms of the nature, the changing seasons, the weather, and the soil fertility. It was a society, to use the concepts of the German historian Reinhart Koselleck (1977; see also 2002, 218–35), built on a large space of experience in agriculture, but with a low future horizon of expectations beyond cultivation, i.e. there was a continuity, but low tension between the two concepts. The same may be said for the artisans in the towns – their occupation was also built on high experience in their crafts, but with low future expectations beyond their professions (Koselleck 1977, 198). It was a stable society held together by a web of strict laws and norms, with low social mobility, and where the prospect for the future was mainly not to have it worse than at the present moment. The ancients certainly had the idea of the future as a temporal space, but this space was not left for social ideologies or the bureaucracy to prognosticate, rather for masters in divination, prophecies, and the reading of signs sent mankind by the gods, and for the examiners of oracles and the Sibylline books to interpret and take appropriate action in order to prevent present and future instability (cf. Santangelo 2013, 4). The future in Antiquity, so to speak, was taken care of by religious institutions and persons whose thinking was rooted in the past and the collective memory, a safe guarantee for stability.

This claim for stability is also reflected in the necropoleis, even if these shifted in their locations and their programmatic exposures over time. At Hierapolis, for example, the Republican tradition of placing the tombs along the roads in a dialogue between the dead and the living was in the Imperial period exchanged for tombs withdrawn from the hectic life along the roads to the peaceful hills behind with a beautiful view of the town and the surrounding landscape (Wenn et al., this volume). At the same time, however, especially in the Roman Imperial period, a high degree of standardization (a sign of social stability) was reached both in the choice of type and size of the tombs and sarcophagi. Even the tomb inscriptions were highly standardized giving the name of the dead and family relations limiting the use of the tomb to family members and imposing heavy fines on those misusing or desecrating it. This standard formula lasted, with small variations, for centuries.

With the Christians some social ideologies of the pagan society were broken and new spaces of experiences introduced, but these were experiences aimed at the expectations of life beyond death, not at the creation of new expectation horizons in the present life. But since the other-worldly expectations raised from worldly experiences could never be controlled, no conflict would arise between experience and expectations (Koselleck 1977, 198–9).

If the society was hit by natural disasters, drought, flooding, fire, earthquakes, or epidemics, the main concern was to bring the society back into balance, and regain the past rhythm of life. With the exception of single, strong earthquakes it is difficult to read such temporary set-backs in the archaeological records, tombs included. However, reading the social archaeological and bioarchaeological data over long periods, some differences in the living conditions may appear also carrying information in what these differences consisted.

The watershed event at Hierapolis, distinguishing between two ways of life, is linked to the earthquake in the middle of the 7th century AD, when the classical Roman city was abandoned and a new one grew out of the ruins of the old some 150–200 years later: smaller, with a completely new urban infrastructure, and without the many public buildings of the classical town. In the 6th and 7th centuries many other pre-Roman and Roman towns were for various reasons abandoned, reduced in size, or moved to a much smaller area nearby due to earthquakes (Laodikeia, Tripolis, and Sagalassos: Kumsar et al. 2015; Sintubin et al. 2003), foreign assaults (Sardis captured by the Persians in AD 616: Foss 1975a; 1975b; 1976, 53–66; Rautman 2011, 24–6), because they simply imploded when the countryside could not produce enough products for the town to which it belonged to survive, and the town became too small to consume and distribute the products produced in the countryside (as I imagine may have been the case with Aphrodisias in the 7th century AD, though see also Ratté 2001, 144–5; Ratté 2012; Ratté and De Staebler 2011, 123–4), or for other combinations of reasons (Ephesos: Ladstätter and Pülz 2007; Pergamon and its harbour town Elaia: Radt 2001, 52–3; Pirson 2010, 197–200).

It was not the first time these cities had been hit by natural disasters or other tragic events, but in the 6th century the Byzantine Empire had lived through a dramatic series of natural disasters, which may have caused a significant demographic reduction and thus reduced human strength and energy to withstand and restore the fragile society. The events in the 6th century AD can be summarized as follows (Brandt 2016). First of all, a severe earthquake storm (i.e. not a single earthquake, but a series of earthquakes within a short period of time; within two generations (AD 513–572) the Empire was hit by 39 registered strong earthquakes, equal to nearly a quarter of all the 169 earthquakes registered in the seven centuries AD 300–1000 (Guidoboni et al. 1994; Ambraseys 2009). Secondly, the outbreak of the Justinian bubonic plague in AD 541, a plague which up till AD 750 returned 17 times with an average of 12 years between each outbreak (Little ed. 2007). And thirdly, in AD 536–537 a dust veil, caused by a volcanic eruption in the northern hemisphere, shaded the sun for 18 months – and which according to the latest research was followed up by another dust veil, but of shorter duration, in AD 540 (Stigl et al. 2015; see also Hodges 2010; Gräslund and Price 2012). These two dust veil events of global extent caused climatic disturbances, which had a strong impact on agriculture and must have caused bad crops for many years thereafter resulting in starvation and deaths. The events necessitated the acquisition of new experiences in short periods of time, but the many tragic moments which hit the Byzantine families may have created doubts and disillusioned expectations for the future adding despair to misery.

Unfortunately, the skeletal material treated in this publication is in many cases too badly dated and too limited to be able to read the effects on the health of individuals living in this period, but it is wise to keep this in mind when bone material from before and after the watershed mark of the 7th century AD is compared. If it had been possible to separate this early Byzantine bone material of the 6th and 7th centuries from the earlier Roman and the immediately succeeding Byzantine one, it would, perhaps, have been possible to see interesting differences between these three data sets, and between these three separately and the bone material from the later mid-Byzantine period. As the data available at present shows, both Kiesewetter and Teegen, supported by Demirel and by Schultz and Schmidt-Schultz (all this volume), conclude in their respective presentations that the living conditions of the mid-Byzantine populations in Asia Minor were noticeably worse than those of the Romans/early Byzantines. This is a picture, as mentioned by the authors, which compares well with that of other analyses outside Asia Minor. Agriculture was still the main occupation of the population, but the community lacked, perhaps in addition to some of the medical and nutritional knowledge of the past, the organized sanitation infrastructure of the Roman towns. When it comes to the living conditions in the mid-Byzantine period it appears that the loss of the past space of experiences (and perhaps also economic means) did not cause views to be revised for the future horizon of life expectations.

This period of physical transition overlaps in Anatolia with a period of spiritual transition (from pagan to Christian) and there is, of course, no causal relation between them. In order to better understand the underlying processes of material culture preservation versus changes, it would, however, be of interest to see if possible changes in the contemporary daily-life material culture were more conditioned by external physical conditions than by individual spiritual transitions, and to see if a change of living conditions can also be detected in the material data, in what sense and to what extent.

Nutrition

Living conditions are, to a great extent, determined by the level of housing and sanitation, nutrition and health. The two articles on isotope analysis on bones from respectively Pergamon (Propstmeier et al.) and Hierapolis (Wong et al.) demonstrate that in both places the main diet was composed of C₃ plants and animal meat and/or milk. The same observation has earlier also been obtained at Sagalassos (Fuller et al. 2012). The result is not surprising for the inland towns of Hierapolis and Sagalassos, but more so for Pergamon (and also according to unpublished preliminary results for Ephesos), two towns lying close to or on the coast. However, the result harmonizes well with other recent studies of regions bordering on Asia Minor as, for example, Greece, where it appears that seafood was never an important element in the diet of the Greeks from the Bronze Age to the Middle Ages (Roberts et al. 2005, 48).

Why is this so? Seafood definitely made up part of the menu for the Romans in Rome and along coastal areas of Italy. Ample evidence for this can be found in ancient literature (cf. Rowan 2014, 61, n. 5), in mosaics, in the so-called asaroton motifs, the unswept floor, where fish-bones appear regularly (see, for example, Perpignani and Fiori 2012), and in the many villas (villae maritimae) with fish farms along the coasts of the Italian peninsula (but also inland) (Lafon 2001)

This has now been confirmed through the analysis of human skeletons (see from Ostia, for example, Prowse 2011). Recent investigations from Herculaneum demonstrate that the basic seafood was coastal (shallow water, estuaries), not deep sea fish (Rowan 2014), the catch being made with line and hook and various types of catching nets. One popular way of fishing was by the use of seine nets for which two teams were needed, one to hold on to the one end of the net, while the other was rowed out in a wide semi-circle back to the shore further along the coast. The catch was made by slowly pulling the net towards the shore. This kind of fishing is dependent on a smooth shoreline, best done along long low-water beaches, which abound on the Italian peninsula. They are much more seldom along the rocky Aegean coasts of Greece and Asia Minor. Could this be one reason for the low presence or even absence of seafood in diets of the people living in this area? For the same reason villas for fish farming in the Aegean area are very rare, if they exist at all, and if none have been discovered, is this due to the fact that they did not exist, or that they have they not been looked for (cf. Lafon 2001, 164, 212–13)? And is there a relation between preserved fishing gear and areas of where fish is eaten and where it is not? Fish, it shall be remembered, in Roman and early Byzantine times, was also a commodity of overseas commerce (see, for example, Arndt et al. 2003; Theodoropoulou 2014; Čechová 2014).

The absence, or low use, of fish in the diet of people bordering on the Aegean Sea has recently, for the period from the Neolithic to Classical times (5th century BC), been questioned (Vika and Theodoropoulou 2012). The two authors have, for the Aegean, demonstrated that freshwater and marine fish are often indistinguishable in their δ¹³C- and δ¹⁵N-values (see also Propstmeier et al., this volume), and that the δ¹⁵N-values are lower than samples reported from the Atlantic. They continue that ‘δ¹³C could be a better indicator of fish consumption, however the enrichment will be moderate and the possibility of C₄ plant consumption needs to be accounted for’. But since ‘up to present research suggests that the ancient Greek terrain was dominated by C₃ plants’, they conclude that ‘fish consumption may have been much more frequent in Greek antiquity than previously thought’ (Vika and Theodoropoulou 2012, 1625).

Here lies a challenge hidden both for the isotope analysts and for archaeologists and historians. Vika and Theodoropoulou (p. 1619) make references, in addition to fish remains, to literary sources, the material culture, and iconography, all of which are abundant in the area. However, a thorough study of the sources may be necessary to analyze the context and reasons for their use: do they all refer to the eating of fish, or were they used as metaphors or pure decoration, and how do these sources compare with similar ones from areas where noticeable fish consumption has been documented through isotope analyses. Another question, already touched upon, is also to better understand to what extent the geological formation of the coastline and coastal waters had an influence on fishing techniques and possibilities.

We should also ask if the lack of (or reduced) intake of seafood in certain areas was connected to social questions, like prices and status, or if the avoidance of fish consumption could be explained by the presence of dietary prohibitions/taboos or ethical ideas. Purcell (1995, 132; cf. also Osborne 1990, 26–28) claims that fish is the only animal consumed by man that eats human flesh and puts this forward as one possible explanation for humans in some areas not eating fish. The fish you eat could have fed on the relative or friend you lost at sea. This is a folk belief, which has existed at all times; a good modern European example is the mackerel, which was not eaten for that reason (Pontoppidan 1752, 219).¹ In late classic medical thought, in the explanatory system of sicknesses, referred to as humoral pathology, seafood is classified as ‘cold and moist’, in contrast to meat being considered ‘warm and dry’ (cf. Prowse 2011, 427–8). Could this system of thoughts have had its roots in much older thinking in which ‘cold and moist’ food was not considered beneficial for the health? This brings us to the last observation to be made.

Health

There is a close connection between nutrition and health – it is not enough to feel full after a meal. The food must be varied and in most Mediterranean areas it would have been possible to have had a balanced diet based on local products, though, perhaps, with some limitations in the winter months. The situation with seafood above, however, may be a good indication that the ancients did not exploit their latent food resources fully. In fact, there is good reason to think that the daily diet of the ancients was rather badly balanced. Health problems connected to malnutrition is a reoccurring discovery in the analysis of ancient human bones.

According to Foxhall and Forbes (1982) 70% of the daily intake of calories in Rome came from wheat. Abrasion of the teeth (the molars) and tooth decay caused by caries suggests that carbohydrates in the form of C₃-plants (as wheat) formed the basis of the diet also in the towns in Asia Minor analyzed in the present volume (see Propstmeier et al.; Wong et al.; Kiesewetter; Teegen; Nováček et al.). This indicates an unbalanced diet with low protein- and calcium-content. With the exception of thiamin and Vitamin E, cereal products are rather lacking in other vitamins – and the lack of Vitamins A, C, and D can result in serious health and injury consequences. Food with starch free of Vitamin D, leads to the development of rickets, or a weakening of the bones, which could be helped by being out in the sun and/or eating egg, milk, fish and meat. (Brothwell 1969, 179–82; Rickman 1980, 7; Garnsey 1998, 246–9). With a diet so highly based on cereals the risk for rickets is strong and even more so if the person is protected from the sun. According to Soranus (Gynaeceia 2.44), this was a sickness in particular occurring in Rome; the analysis made of the skeletons in the present volume demonstrates that rickets was not a serious problem for any of the respective populations at any time period. Only one case at Amurium (Demirel) and one at Arslantepe (Schultz and Schmidt-Schultz), both children, have been registered. On the other hand, scurvy, due to the lack of Vitamin C, seems to have been a more serious problem than perhaps envisaged, but which could be easily cured by, for example, eating fresh fruit.

The lack of Vitamin A afflicts the eyes leading to night-blindness, to xerophthalmia progressing to karatomalacia, and even to blindness (Garnsey 1998, 233). Eye sickness was a recurring phenomenon in Antiquity, not traceable in the skeletons, but appearing repeatedly in inscriptions from sanctuaries of Asklepios, as, for example, from that of Epidauros (Martzavou 2012, 199-203: A4, A9, A11, A18, A20, B2, B12). The strong and bright sunlight of the Mediterranean apparently had a beneficiary effect on potential cases of rickets, but did certainly not have a positive effect on the eyes. Is there any possibility to compare the contrary effects the sun had on people living off a diet with deficiencies of both Vitamins A and D to see if there is any reciprocity between the two deficiency sicknesses and the sun? And archaeologically speaking, did the Greeks and Romans do anything to reduce the effects of blinding sunlight? One way could have been to use paint colours on houses, temples, and marble statues, as was done, but was this a concurrent reason, or only a side-effect?

A problem not unusual in small, isolated communities, is inbreeding between humans, in many cases leading to mental disturbances and physical deformations among individuals, some resembling a pathological situation, like rickets, others being rather genetically conditioned, like teeth with only one root instead of the normal two to three roots (d’Ercole and Pellegrini 1991, 75). In none of the cases presented in this volume does inbreeding appear to have been a problem, even if some of the areas studied for some periods may have been small and isolated. On the contrary, the results of the strontium isotope analyses from mid-Byzantine Hierapolis demonstrates that the small Medieval settlement born out of the abandoned Roman city may have witnessed a strong, if not, perhaps, a relatively stronger presence of foreign people of various origins than its Roman predecessor (see Wong et al.; Wenn et al., both this volume). Is this a situation also experienced by other settlements in mid-Byzantine Asia Minor?

Concluding remarks

Many more reflections could have been presented and some of the observations made and questions asked may not even have answered the over-ruling question as to how to establish a tighter historical and cultural dialogue between the results in the archaeological field of study with those in the scientific fields. Still, the amount of available data is small, but the presentations which follow demonstrate the many potential clue hidden in the data and what they can reveal of both life and death in ancient communities. Each new set of data in both fields of study will open up new questions and bring corrections and new information to former answers, methods, and theories. Everything hangs together with everything, the challenge is to see the funerary data in a wider context, knowing that the ancient society, as well as the present, was far more complex than our sources can reveal.

Note

Erik Pontoppidan the Younger (1698–1764), a Danish-Norwegian bishop; the quoted text, in my own English translation, is as follows: the mackerel ‘readily eats human flesh and seeks the one who swims naked, so that he in all haste is devoured, if he falls into a flock or shoal of mackerels.’

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