Lindsey Nemshick

Tombs of Pompeii: The living Dead

Why Pompeii not Herculaneum?Pre-Roman BurialsBiographies

Marcus PorciusMarcus TulliusArellia Tertulla

Areas of DebateConclusion

Overview

Samnite CemeteryDates: 2nd-4th Centuries BC

Scanty EvidencePottery, coins, and a bronze mirror

Primarily inhumation burialsPlain fossae enclosed with tiles

What can we possibly deduce from this type of burial practice?

Pre-Roman Burials

Samnite Burials, Outside of Stabian Gate, 4th-2nd Centuries BC

Recall: Roman colonization dates?Who defeated Pompeii?

Colonist ContributionsTheaters, baths, temples, town walls, and

funerary customs* Direct connection between Roman arrival in

Pompeii and the shift from inhumation burials to cremation Evidence:

The Epidii family

Shift in Burial Landscape: Roman Colonization

Street of Tombs, Pompeii

http://www.pompeiiinpictures.com/pompeiiinpictures/Plans/plan%20hg%20west.htm

Tomb of Marcus Porcius, Street of Tombs, 1st Cent. BC

Pompeii, Road of TombsJacob Philipp Hackert, 1793

Stabian Gate, Pompeii

Tomb of Marcus Tullius, Outside stabian gate, reign of Augustus

Temple of Fortuna Augusta

Tomb of festius Ampliatus, Street of tombs

Tomb of Arellia Tertulla, Vesuvius Gate

Are the placement of tombs, lining the streets, a sign that tombs were important to the people of Pompeii?

Or is it possible that this location, on the outskirts of town, trivialized tombs, rendering them insignificant?

Areas of Debate

Henrik MouritsenCyclic changes in funerary practice

Decline in elite tombs and rise of tombs of freedmen and freedwomen (same time)

Did the elite shift their burials back on private property for exclusivity?

Theory: Tombs Became Insignificant

Potential Magnitude of Funerary Landscape Graffiti as “community announcements” Feasts

Birthday or anniversary of the death of the deceased

Parentalia (Roman feast of All Souls)Gardens

Meals shared

Theory: Tombs frequented and Significant

Graffiti on Tombs (Porta Nuceria)

“Funerary monuments, created to immortalize the dead, in their turn die; tombstones decay,

inscriptions weather and stone crumbles and falls. Preservation often entails removal and reuse and once isolated from the cemetery the role of the

monument, to mark and protect the last remains of human life, becomes increasingly obscure. The

tombstone is an aid to memory but human memory is all too short and every culture ultimately cannot avoid neglecting and forgetting its mounting dead.”

-Valerie M. Hope

Conclusion

Berry, Joanne. The Complete Pompeii. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Print. Bradley, Pamela. Cities of Vesuvius: Pompeii and Herculaneum. Cambridge:

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Pompeiian Freed Slaves. Thesis. Lund University, 2012. N.p.: Lund University Publications, n.d. Print.

Cooley, Alison, and M. G. L. Cooley. Pompeii: A Sourcebook. London: Routledge, 2004. Print.

Cormack, Sarah. "The Tombs at Pompeii." Ed. Pedar W. Foss. The World of Pompeii. Ed. John J. Dobbins. London; New York: Routledge, 2007. 586-606. Print.

Emmerson, Allison. "Evidence for Junian Latins in the Tombs of Pompeii?" Journal of Roman Archaeology 24 (2011): 161-190. Print.

Emmerson, Allison. "Reconstructing the Funerary Landscape at Pompeii's Porta Stabia." Rivista Di Studi Pompeiani 21 (2010): 77-86. Print.

George, Clarke. Pompeii. Vol. 2. London: C. Knight, 1832. Print. Hope, Valerie M. "Constructing Roman Identity: Funerary Monuments and Social

Structure in the Roman World." Mortality 2.2 (1997): 103-21. Print. Jashemski, Wilhelmina F. "Tomb Gardens at Pompeii." The Classical Journal 66.2

(1971): 97-115. JSTOR. Web. 16 Feb. 2014. Mau, August. Pompeii: Its Life and Art. Trans. Francis W. Kelsey. New Rochelle, NY:

Caratzas Brothers, 1902. Print. Mouritsen, Henrik. "Freedmen and Decurions: Epitaphs and Social History in

Imperial Italy." The Journal of Roman Studies 95 (2005): 38-63. JSTOR. Web. 1 Mar. 2014.

Toynbee, J. M. C. Death and Burial in the Roman World. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1971. Print.

Works Consulted