tombs of pompeii: the living dead
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Tombs of Pompeii: The living Dead. Lindsey Nemshick. Overview. Why Pompeii not Herculaneum? Pre-Roman Burials Biographies Marcus Porcius Marcus Tullius Arellia Tertulla Areas of Debate Conclusion. Pre-Roman Burials. Samnite Cemetery Dates: 2 nd -4 th Centuries BC - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Lindsey Nemshick
Tombs of Pompeii: The living Dead
Why Pompeii not Herculaneum?Pre-Roman BurialsBiographies
Marcus PorciusMarcus TulliusArellia Tertulla
Areas of DebateConclusion
Overview
Samnite CemeteryDates: 2nd-4th Centuries BC
Scanty EvidencePottery, coins, and a bronze mirror
Primarily inhumation burialsPlain fossae enclosed with tiles
What can we possibly deduce from this type of burial practice?
Pre-Roman Burials
Samnite Burials, Outside of Stabian Gate, 4th-2nd Centuries BC
Recall: Roman colonization dates?Who defeated Pompeii?
Colonist ContributionsTheaters, baths, temples, town walls, and
funerary customs* Direct connection between Roman arrival in
Pompeii and the shift from inhumation burials to cremation Evidence:
The Epidii family
Shift in Burial Landscape: Roman Colonization
Street of Tombs, Pompeii
Tomb of Marcus Porcius, Street of Tombs, 1st Cent. BC
Pompeii, Road of TombsJacob Philipp Hackert, 1793
Stabian Gate, Pompeii
Tomb of Marcus Tullius, Outside stabian gate, reign of Augustus
Temple of Fortuna Augusta
Tomb of festius Ampliatus, Street of tombs
Tomb of Arellia Tertulla, Vesuvius Gate
Are the placement of tombs, lining the streets, a sign that tombs were important to the people of Pompeii?
Or is it possible that this location, on the outskirts of town, trivialized tombs, rendering them insignificant?
Areas of Debate
Henrik MouritsenCyclic changes in funerary practice
Decline in elite tombs and rise of tombs of freedmen and freedwomen (same time)
Did the elite shift their burials back on private property for exclusivity?
Theory: Tombs Became Insignificant
Potential Magnitude of Funerary Landscape Graffiti as “community announcements” Feasts
Birthday or anniversary of the death of the deceased
Parentalia (Roman feast of All Souls)Gardens
Meals shared
Theory: Tombs frequented and Significant
Graffiti on Tombs (Porta Nuceria)
“Funerary monuments, created to immortalize the dead, in their turn die; tombstones decay,
inscriptions weather and stone crumbles and falls. Preservation often entails removal and reuse and once isolated from the cemetery the role of the
monument, to mark and protect the last remains of human life, becomes increasingly obscure. The
tombstone is an aid to memory but human memory is all too short and every culture ultimately cannot avoid neglecting and forgetting its mounting dead.”
-Valerie M. Hope
Conclusion
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Works Consulted