Archaeology of drinking places Research Papers

Focusing on the interpretation of a shared, widespread and particularly perplexing iconographic theme, this book compares explanatory frameworks in different schools of archaeology including Classical, Egyptian and Chinese, and... more

Focusing on the interpretation of a shared, widespread and particularly perplexing iconographic theme, this book compares explanatory frameworks in different schools of archaeology including Classical, Egyptian and Chinese, and importantly challenges a prevailing material skepticism that eschews and even invalidates religious and afterlife beliefs as a part of ancient social identities.

The papers largely concentrate on pictorial depictions of banqueting and/or food offerings and how they might be understood in such settings, although some papers consider tomb deposits and furnishings. Traditionally, three main interpretative paradigms have been employed in 'deciphering' such images: 1) they represent worldly activities, either quotidien or idealised, 2) they represent an imagined pleasant afterlife (and therefore evidence this belief) and 3) they represent funerary or mortuary rites. Such interpretations have been challenged by scholarship that refutes the validity of these strict, divisive categories, but in concentrating on social structures embedded in the images, has tended to eschew potential eschatological aspects of meaning. Collectively, the papers here reconsider this matter, making significant contributions to discussions of ambiguity, agency, interaction, performance, the role of the viewer, the issue of 'meaning', and the various ways in which images can be approached and used.

Contents

Preface
Introduction: what lies beyond? (Draycott)

1. J. Fabricius, ‘Hellenistic Funerary Banquet Reliefs – Thoughts on Problems Old and New’.
2. P. Amann, ‘“Banquet and grave”. The material basis, aims and first results of a recent research project’.
3. G. Robins, ‘Meals for the dead: the image of the deceased seated before a table of offerings in ancient Egyptian art’.
4. N. Harrington, ‘The Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptian banquet: ideals and realities’.
5. D. Bonatz, ‘Syro-Hittite funerary monuments revisited’.
6. E. Baughan, ‘Burial klinai and “Totenmahl”?’
7. C.M. Draycott, ‘Drinking to Death. The ‘Totenmahl’, drinking culture and funerary representation in late Archaic/early Achaemenid Western Anatolia’.
8. S. Lockwood, ‘Family matters: the interpretation of Lycian “funerary banquet” reliefs’.
9. A.M. Carstens, ‘Bridging the boundary: the sacrificial deposit of the Maussolleion of Halikarnassos and its symbolic language’.
10. M. Tsouli, ‘Testimonia on funerary banquets in ancient Sparta’.
11. C. Lawton, ‘The “Totenmahl” motif in votive reliefs of Classical Athens’.
12. M. Stamatopoulou, ‘Banquets in the painted stelai of Demetrias’.
13. M. Kalaitzi, ‘The theme of the banqueter on Hellenistic Macedonian tombstones’.
14. T. Mitterlechner, ‘The banquet in Etruscan funerary art and its underlying meaning’.
15. L. Audley-Miller, ‘The banquet in Palmyrene funerary contexts’.
16. A. Slawisch, ‘Reading the image? Ambiguities in the interpretation of banquet scenes on grave stelai from Roman Thrace’.
17. M. Nylan, ‘At table: reading and misreading funerary images of banquets in early China’.

Envoy (O. Murray)

Review
F. Hobden, JHS 138 (2018), 290-291 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-hellenic-studies/article/abs/cm-draycott-and-m-stamatopoulou-eds-dining-and-death-interdisciplinary-perspectives-on-the-funerary-banquet-in-ancient-art-burial-and-ritual-colloquia-antiqua-16-leuven-peeters-2016-pp-xxxviii-690-110-9789042932417/15C83FDE7C1A0CC3814ACDBD69BF057F

Bookmark
Download
- by Catherine M Draycott and +1
  Maria Stamatopoulou
- •
- 63
  Egyptology, Egyptian Art and Archaeology, Death, Death Studies

This paper reconsiders the emergence of an iconographic formula in the context of Western Anatolia in the sixth and fifth centuries BC, which came later to be termed the 'Funerary Banquet' or 'Totenmahl'. Consisting usually of a single... more

Bookmark
Download
- by Catherine M Draycott
- •
- 66
  Archaeology, Scepticism, Ritual, Aramaic

This work aims to examine the use and social significance of pottery and other vessels found in burials from the early Iron Age (500 BC - 575 AD) in Eastern Norway. In this long-term perspective, one particular and significant change... more

This work aims to examine the use and social significance of pottery and other vessels found in burials from the early Iron Age (500 BC - 575 AD) in Eastern Norway. In this long-term perspective, one particular and significant change stands out: In the first half of the period the pottery found in graves was used as urns, then from the first century AD beakers for food and drink began to be deposited alongside the deceased. The latter tradition is associated with table setting; almost it would appear as at a feast.
The transition from urns to sets of table goods also relates to a change of pottery shapes, temper and ornamentation. The rough, undecorated cooking-/storage vessels that dominate in the graves from the earliest periods were often used as urns. In the later part of the period tableware with finer temper and a polished, often decorated surface are developed. The transition to tableware also coincides with Roman glass and bronze vessels occurring in some graves.
The use of pottery is compared to mythic beliefs, ritual performances and the social development in general. In mythology vessels are linked to ritual meals/sacrifices, feasting and death, probably as a symbol of regeneration and rebirth. The consumption metaphor is closely related to burials in urns, as both a dead body and a meal are transformed through the use of fire. The change from urns to tableware mark a shift from a passive death, where the dead is consumed by fire, to a life aspect where the deceased more or less participate in a feast or drinking party in death. The new focus on food and drink is interpreted as referring to an idealized lifestyle, as it appears in the hall, with a banquet and entertainment of guests. From a high level of standardization in large cemeteries with urns, the graves are increasingly individualized by the use of mounds and a wider variety of grave goods, for instance vessels for food and drink, as a way of standing out. The use of tableware reaches its peak around 400 AD, after which the custom gradually declines and disappears.

http://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english/research/news-and-events/news/rodsrud.html

http://sciencenordic.com/pottery-grave-goods-tell-us-about-life

New England seafarers from small merchant ships visited the natural saltpans of the Venezuelan island of La Tortuga from the late seventeenth century up until 1781. The liminal space of the island set the stage for the creation of an... more

Bookmark
Download
- by Christian Løchsen Rødsrud
- •
- 15
  Archaeology, Pottery (Archaeology), Ritual, Culture

"In Italian scholarship to date, little effort has been devoted to the study of formalized drinking practices in complex prehistoric societies, a crucial moment in social life. In the light of recent discoveries in the archaeobotanical... more

The first comprehensive discussion and survey on the subject for nearly two decades, - this book examines the nature and development of the glass industry in England, from its earliest origins with the arrival of the Roman Army until the... more

An interesting group of material, even if not a particularly in-depth paper.

The recent excavation of four sites on the lower Feneş valley (Stolna – Podurile Domneşti, Băştioara, Şesurile Rele and Luna de Sus – Râpa Dracului) presents a unique opportunity for the research of the Bronze Age in northeastern... more

Bookmark
Download
- by Tibor-Tamás Daróczi and +1
  Ursutiu Adrian
- •
- 25
  Pottery (Archaeology), Ritual, Metallurgy, Human sacrifice (Anthropology Of Religion)

This multidisciplinary book explores the social practice of dining over 2000 years, examining the archaeological, documentary, material culture and art historical evidence for the consumption of food and drink in various historical,... more

"In this paper it is argued that in the thirteenth century, during the Regional Development Period, new social groups emerged from the aggregation of people from smaller scattered communities into new spaces. In the Quebrada de... more

Archaeology of drinking places

Log In