Under the supervision of Dr. Janet Richards, Tom Landvatter will conduct a season of excavation at the site of Abydos, Egypt, a major cult center and cemetery for over 3500 years (c. 3000 BCE to c. 600 CE). This excavation will document patterns in mortuary behavior at Abydos during the Greco-Roman period (323 BCE to c. 300 CE), and will be incorporated into a broader study of Greco-Roman period burial practices drawing on material from four other sites. The Greco-Roman period in Egypt has traditionally been understudied archaeologically, and the mortuary remains of the Greco-Roman period at Abydos have never been properly excavated and described. This research represents the first attempt to build a comprehensive, systematic picture of Greco-Roman period mortuary behavior.
The systematic study of burial practices is important because it provides a means of reconstructing social distinctions and identities, and hence a basis for the study of more generalized anthropological processes of social change. Because a burial is the result of choices made and performed by the survivors of the deceased within a certain set socially sanctioned behaviors, a given burial treatment is consistent with the relationship between the deceased and society. By observing the patterning of associations between variables such as body treatment, burial assemblage, and spatial organization across a large number of burials, it is possible to identify socially recognized distinctions and identities.
Through an analysis of regional and diachronic variation in funerary patterns, this project will address how, in the context of a complex urban society, the expression of social identities and distinctions, and the very concept of identity change and react in response to sustained cross-cultural interaction, where a non-indigenous cultural group is politically dominant. Greco-Roman period Egypt is one of the best examples from antiquity of this phenomenon: at this time Egypt was ruled by a small, non-indigenous elite, first as an independent polity and later externally as a province of the Roman Empire.
The results from this study will be relevant not only to the study of Egypt and the Mediterranean, but in general to studies of cross-cultural interaction in complex, multi-cultural states and empires both ancient and modern. In addition, state-level societies, particularly in the Mediterranean region, are often omitted from anthropological discussion with respect to mortuary analysis and otherwise: this research will bring a complex and valuable case study that is Greco-Roman Egypt into broader anthropological debates on how cross-cultural interaction ultimately affects social processes, facilitating anthropological discussion of the states of the Mediterranean of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. The data from this excavation season will be published both as part of Tom Landvatter's dissertation and in various refereed journals; it will also be the subject of several professional and public lectures. This work will also provide both the author and several graduate students training in cemetery excavation and analysis.
The 2011 and 2012 seasons of the Abydos Middle Cemetery project focused on the Graeco-Roman period (332 BCE to c. 300 CE) portions of the major cemetery site of Abydos, Egypt. During the Graeco-Roman period, the indigenous population of Egypt was ruled by both Greek and Roman outsiders, and so offers an opportunity to study life in a multi-cultural society in the ancient world. The intellectual merit of this research lies in its development and application of current theories of archaeological mortuary analysis. Archaeological mortuary analysis entails the detailed study of patterns present in cemeteries, including human burials and the material remains associated with them. In addition, this research advanced the cultural-historical scholarship of Egypt, as the Greco-Roman period in Egypt has traditionally been understudied. More narrowly, mortuary remains of the Greco-Roman period at Abydos have never been properly excavated to present. Our immediate goals for this project were to investigate the spatial development of the Abydos cemetery landscape in the Greco-Roman period, gain an understanding of elite burial practice during this period, and to excavate a sample of human burials. Through this research, we produced one of the best excavated Graeco-Roman funerary contexts at Abydos, and which can be used for further analysis and anthropological comparison. A significant funerary preference among the area’s elite seems to have been communal burial. Our excavations revealed a complex of mud-brick buildings focused on a large, subterranean structure. Elite burial activity in this part of the cemetery focused on this structure, which was constructed from the outset with the intention of being used by multiple individuals. There were more than 25 burials in this tomb. The excavations yielded evidence on two priests who were the initial occupants of the tomb. While the other individuals may have been related to the two priests, the structure may also have been appropriated later by non-family members. Though the structure had been disturbed by later robbing, the remains of an extensive and elaborate burial assemblage were found, and represent the most complete assemblage of this period found at Abydos. Later people used the areas around this structure to bury their dead, and so the initial structure became the spatial focus of mortuary activity. Larger and more important burial structures were constructed nearer to the main subterranean building, while smaller ones were distant. This is a continuation of patterns in burial at Abydos which have been observed from the late Old Kingdom (c. 2600 BCE) onward: smaller structures tended to be built up against larger earlier structures. This demonstrates both a desire of individuals to be associated with members of higher socio-economic classes and a potential reverence for earlier burials at the site. Over the course of two excavation seasons, a total of 38 human burials were identified. Some general patterns emerged even from such a small and disturbed sample. Most important, the original dominant orientation was with reference to the Nile, based on the orientation of both in situ burials and limestone sarcophagi. At some point, this switched: two abutting burials from outside the main structure are oriented almost due north and south, one facing north and the other south. This research also has broader impacts. The data produced during these two excavation seasons is relevant not only to the study of Egypt and the Mediterranean, but in general to studies of cross-cultural interaction in complex, multi-cultural states and empires. State-level societies, particularly in the Mediterranean region, are often omitted from anthropological discussion with respect to mortuary analysis. The data generated from this research will bring the incredibly complex and valuable case study that is Greco-Roman Egypt into broader anthropological debates on how cross-cultural interaction ultimately affects social processes, facilitating anthropological discussion of the states of the Mediterranean of the Hellenistic and Roman periods.
