26 Nov 2012

November 2012


26 November 2011 at 7:30pm

The Things They Left Behind: Athenian Burial Vases from the Geometric to the Classical Period

Chelsea Gardner
UBC Department of Classical, Near Eastern & Religious Studies.

There is a certain fascination with funerary customs, burial practices, and grave goods from antiquity: not only do they provide valuable information for archaeologists about the material culture of the past, but the treatment of the deceased often reveals as much about living people as it does the occupants of the grave itself. Two areas of ancient Athens, the Kerameikos and the Agora, have been particularly informative with regard to ancient burial customs, due to a long history of excavations and a veritable wealth of funerary deposits. This talk will examine one class of grave goods: vases used for cremation or as votive offerings, and will visually highlight the customs surrounding funerals and burials using examples of extraordinarily well-preserved pottery from the Geometric to the Classical periods. A special focus will be made upon a vessel in our very own University of British Columbia's Museum of Anthropology.