The Age of Pericles | Death and Burial (Lecture 12)

Lecture 12: Close to the agora of Athens lies the Ceramicus cemetery, where both private and public burials took place. In this lecture, we will examine not only attitudes toward death but also the practices associated with commemorating the dead. At the Ceramicus, more and more elaborate funerary sculptures were erected to memorialize the dead. Special attention was given to the young, in particular men who had died in battle on behalf of Athens. Eventually, the monuments grew so grand that the Athenians passed legislation limiting the amount of money that could be spent on funerary markers. Before the age of Pericles, burials had been marked by huge amphorae half buried in the ground. On them, we see scenes of the prothesis, or laying out of the body, and the ekphora, or funeral procession, in which the dead person was taken from the house to the burial ground. The expense of these ceremonies, as well as the graves themselves, testified to the status of the dead person’s family. Death itself was regarded as a gloomy affair. Descriptions of the underworld make it sound dreary, and as in many cultures, the Athenians took pains to placate the spirits of the dead, afraid that otherwise, they might be haunted by them.

Suggested Reading:
Garland, R. The Greek Way of Death. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.
Antonaccio, C. An Archaeology of Ancestors. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994.

Lecture 13: https://rumble.com/v5ej478-the-age-of-pericles-aeschylus-and-early-tragedy-lecture-13.html