He suggested that such ostentation is understandable in contexts where violent, new warrior elites are seizing power and trying to legitimize their authority. Childe did not use the expression "princely tomb", but he clearly had precisely this kind of burial in mind. Gordon Childe (1945) pointed out that in many parts of the world, the richest tombs -par¬ ticularly those commemorating dead men as wealthy warriors -belong to periods when new social systems seem to be taking shape, as in Ur in the time of the Royal Cemetery, Mycenae in the time of the Shaft Graves, or Latium in the Orienta¬ lizing period. This category of burial meant to the people who lived in the Iron Age Mediterranean, and even whether it is legitimate to assume that there was such a category as "princely tomb" at all. ![]() Before we can worry about the kind of collection of artifacts which we should call a "princely tomb" we have to decide what we think Indeed, it has been argued that the princely tomb type was exported as part of an elite lifestyle to Italy by the Greeks who settled Pithekoussai and Cumae in the eighth century, and from there spread to Etruria, Campania, and Latium, and ultimately across the Alps (e.g., d'Agostino 1977 Ridgway 1992, 121-144 Cornell 1994, 89-92).īut looking at the question this way means mak¬ ing a series of assumptions about a second way in which we might pose it. But we can nonetheless define a class of rich burials -usually cremations of men, with the ashes placed in a bronze urn, sometimes standing on a bronze tripod, accompanied by weapons, jewelry, Near Eastern imports, and Bronze Age heirlooms, and marked by elaborate vases or tumuli -which have certain similarities to the West Mediterranean princely tombs. In Iron Age central Greece, which I discuss in this chapter, Greek objects of course occur in most graves, but chariots are virtu¬ ally unheard of. In other parts of the Mediterranean, we need to modify this definition. Parmi ce mobilier, les objets grecs et étrusques constituent un critère indispensable à la reconnaissance du car¬ actère "princier"» (Brun 1987, 96). ![]() The first, and most straightforward, is to treat it as a question about archaeologists' working definitions: that is, what kind of assemblages do we classify as "princely tombs"? Most archaeologists would probably agree with Patrice Bruns summary of the situation in the West Mediterranean: «Dans les tombes dites "prin-cières", le défunt était inhumé accompagné d'un char à quatre roues le plus souvent, d'un service à boisson, de riches parures et parfois d'armes. What are "princely tombs"? The question can be answered in two different ways.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |