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.
