This book sheds new light on funerary customs in Roman Syria, offering a novel way of understanding its provincial culture

In the first centuries of the Common Era, an eclectic collection of plain and embellished underground and aboveground tombs filled the cemeteries of the Roman province of Syria. Its inhabitants used rituals of commemoration to express messages about their local identity, family, and social position, while simultaneously ensuring that the deceased was given proper burial rites. In this book, Lidewijde de Jong investigates these customs and the belief systems that governed the choices made in the commemoration of Syrian men, women and children. Presenting the first all-inclusive overview of the archaeology of death in Roman Syria, this book combines spatial analysis of cemeteries with the study of funerary architecture, decoration, and grave goods, as well as information about the deceased provided by sculptural, epigraphic, and osteological sources. It sheds a new light on life and death in Syria and offers a novel way of understanding provincial culture in the Roman Empire.

This book sheds new light on funerary customs in Roman Syria, offering a novel way of understanding its provincial culture.

Dem Band liegt ein im September 2013 in Amman veranstaltetes deutsch-arabisches Kolloquium zugrunde, bei dem aktuelle Ausgrabungs- und Forschungsergebnisse zum Thema Tod und Bestattung aus Jordanien, Syrien, dem Libanon und Ägypten vorgestellt wurden. Erstmals konnten sich arabische und im Nahen Osten tätige Wissenschaftler über Grundzüge und Unterschiede in der Entwicklung des Totenrituals in römischer, byzantinischer und islamischer Zeit vorwiegend aufgrund der archäologischen Quellen austauschen. Berichtet wurde auch über die Aufarbeitung von Altgrabungen und zusammenfassende Studien zum lokalen oder regionalen Grabbrauch. Außer zehn im Kolloquium präsentierten Vorträgen wurden fünf weitere Beiträge internationaler Wissenschaftler aufgenommen. Zu den prominenteren Plätzen gehören Palmyra, Beirut, Petra, Gerasa, Alexandria, Hermupolis und das St. Paulos Kloster von Deir el-Bakhît (Theben-West).0Zur Sprache kommen die monumentale Grabarchitektur und -ausstattung, Bestattungsformen sowie Beigabensitten vom späten Hellenismus und der römischen Kaiserzeit bis in die christlich geprägte Spätantike und darüber hinaus bis in das islamisch dominierte Früh- und Hochmittelalter des Nahen Ostens, teilweise sogar bis in die Neuzeit und Gegenwart

An interdisciplinary discussion engaging classics, archaeology, religious studies, and the social sciences The Struggle over Class brings together scholars from the fields of New Testament and early Christianity to examine Christian texts in light of the category of class. Historically rigorous and theoretically sophisticated, this collection presents a range of approaches to, and applications of, class in the study of the epistles, the gospels, Acts, apocalyptic texts, and patristic literature. Contributors Alicia J. Batten, Alan H. Cadwallader, Cavan W. Concannon, Zeba Crook, James Crossley, Lorenzo DiTommaso, Philip F. Esler, Michael Flexsenhar III, Steven J. Friesen, Caroline Johnson Hodge, G. Anthony Keddie, Jaclyn Maxwell, Christina Petterson, Jennifer Quigley, Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Daniëlle Slootjes, and Emma Wasserman challenge both scholars and students to articulate their own positions in the ongoing scholarly struggle over class as an analytical category.

This book accounts for the results of fieldwork in Doliche, located in Gaziantep, South East Turkey. Doliche was an important city of ancient North Syria which continued to thrive into the Middle Ages. For the first time, an international research project started to explore the site in 2015. The chapters collected in this volume discuss the main discoveries of the first seasons. It is divided in two parts. The first part considers the main excavation results, with a particular emphasis on a newly discovered early Christian basilica and its decoration. This section also contains the first comprehensive discussion of a newly discovered Roman Imperial hypogeum from the city necropolis. The chapters of the second part deal with the preliminary findings from an intra-urban intensive survey. Between 2017 and 2019, a significant portion of the city area has been investigated, and the results of the survey offer new insights in the spatial and chronological of the city. The chapters consider methodological questions, but also discuss artefact groups. In general, the results presented in this volume add to the knowledge of urbanism in Roman and Late antique North Syria.

This book examines the poorly understood transformations in rural landscapes and societies that formed the backbone of ancient empires.