This volume investigates the culture of feasting and the rituals of death among elite citizens in Iron Age Stamna, Greece, by studying archaeological finds from a large number of Protogeometric era tombs.
Symposium in Stamna both as a concept and as a process involved the presence of prominent citizens of the social establishment as testified by the large cauldrons, the tripod jars and the tripod vessels present. To Die in Style! The residential lifestyle of feasting and dying in Iron Age Stamna, Greece re-examines the cemeteries studied to date, isolating tombs with unique architecture or peculiar structures with individual features, in order to investigate the complex identity of the elite group ideologies. The finding and studying of such a large number of PRG tombs (c. 500), presents a remarkable representative example for the discussion on the perception of death, confronting it through the mourning ritual, but also examining the creation of an individual and collective memory of the population that operated in this privileged geographic installation, redefining as such the cultural landscape of the Protogeometric era. The pre-existing theoretical framework, the methodology of managing and displaying of grief and their correlation with already studied and exalted geographical parallels, integrate Stamna into the cultural chain of the populations ruled by an overall-systematic design of a particular cultural ideology.
Contents
The Banquet through the Burial Testimony.; A. The tomb evidence.; B. Material evidence of consumption: The ceramic dinner sets.; C. Bronze vessels.; D. Complementary feasting equipment: Spits, Hooks and Knives.; Fare thee well. The Stamna Timeless Farewell.; Feasting and Dying in a lebes; an institutional innovation with an international appeal.; Symposium, Religion and Cult portrayed through successive layers of burials, (semi)circular constructions and pyres.; “Consuming” with the dead.; "In Darkness We Trust"; References
About the Author
GIOULIKA – OLGA CHRISTAKOPOULOU was born in Patras in 1968 . She holds a degree in History and Archaeology from the University of Ioannina, and a PhD in Archaeology from the National Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. For the last twenty five years she has been working as an archaeologist in the Ephorate of Antiquities in Achaia, Greece. She also worked as a Lecturer until 2014, teaching ‘Ancient Monumental Topography’ at the Department of Museology, Museography and Exhibition Planning of the University of Applied Studies, Western Greece. She has dedicated special attention to the study of the Iron Age in Ancient Stamna, Aetolia, and her research and publications focus on the population movement, burial architecture and burial rituals of this period.