Forging a link with the past: the evidence from Thessalian cemeteries in the archaic and classical periods

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This paper focuses on a diagnostic trait of Thessalian funerary archaeology, namely the combined use of the earthen mound with a corbel-vaulted tomb equipped with a round (tholos) or rectilinear chamber during the Archaic and Classical periods. The date of the construction of the corbel-vaulted tholoi and chambers in the late 6th and 5th centuries BC, and their concentration at Krannon and Pharsalos are significant. The tombs make a deliberate but not systematic reference to the past, not so much to the LBA large tholos tombs but rather to the smaller LBA and EIA tholoi and, perhaps, built chamber tombs. The appropriation of certain aspects of past display by some aristocratic families, and ultimately the use of this archaizing funerary architecture occurred at a period when elite competition was very strong in the region at both civic and Panhellenic level, and family, civic and ethnic identity were created by vari- ous means. During this period there were alternative modes of burial available to elite groups even at Krannon and Pharsalos (for example tumuli covering carefully built cist graves or monolithic sarcoph- agi). I hope to show that this variability might be indicative of an attempt by competing aristocrats to broadcast different (constructed) traditions in order to fabricate/create their identity.

Authors: Stamatopoulou, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Reviewed (other)
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Host title: Tumulus as Sema: Space, Politics, Culture and Religion in the First Millennium BC
• Volume: 27
• Pages: 181-204
• Series: TOPOI: Berlin Studies of the Ancient World
• Publication date: 2016-02-22
• ISBN: 9783110267501
• Keywords: SBTMR; Thessaly; funerary archaeology