The construction of the space of the dead in the Greek world during the geometric period (from Ca. 900 to 700 B.C.E.)

• Grant number: 14/15265-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2014
• End date: March 07, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Archeology
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Elaine Farias Veloso Hirata
• Grantee: Camila Diogo de Souza
• Host Institution: Museu de Arqueologia e Etnologia (MAE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 09/54583-1 - The organization of the chora: the Greek city and its hinterland, AP.TEM
• Associated scholarship(s): 15/17533-7 - The construction of the space of the dead in the Greek world during the Geometric Period (from ca. 900 to 700 B.C.E.): The contrasting cases of Argos and Eretria., BE.EP.PD

Abstract

The postdoctoral research intends to discuss some aspects and parameters of the organization and the construction of funerary space in the historical process of the rise of the polis, through a comparative analysis of the material culture from burials in different Greek communities of the Geometric period, approximately between the 10th and 8th century B.C. Our aim is to assemble, organize, catalogue, analyze and compare burial data from settlements which flourished as successful city-states, such as Argos, Corinth, Sparta, Eretria and Athens, and from other communities that have never achieved the polis status, for instance, Tiryns, Mycenae and Asine in the Argolid and Volos, Halos, Pherai, Dimini, Marmariani, Homolion and Sesklo in Thessaly.Architecture, grave type and orientation, interment treatment, quantity, composition and disposal of grave offerings and also grave location and distribution within the limits of the settlement area constitute the set of ritual practices and representations of death that is engendered by space settings. The analysis of these characteristics when considered as a whole, mainly towards the end of the Geometric Period (the 8th century B.C.) enables the establishment of a specific "funerary landscape" which is intimately connected to questions about forms of interaction between the space of the living and the space of the dead. Such concerns are intrinsically related to the objectives and proposals of the research project conducted at Labeca (Laboratório de Estudos sobre a Cidade Antiga) which aims at understanding the possible meanings, roles, functions and effects of the different forms of use, management and specialization of space in different communities of the Greek world, mainly during a period of crucial importance in the process of the formation of the polis, namely its origins and rise. (AU)