Mortuary Ritual and Society: Some Theoretical Considerations
Mortuary Ritual and Society in Bronze Age Cyprus - (Volume 9) - Priscilla Keswani
Priscilla Keswani [+ ]
Independent Scholar
Priscilla Keswani received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Michigan in 1989 and has taught at Washington State University and the Borough of Manhattan Community College. She has participated in archaeological field projects in Cyprus for many years and published a number of scholarly papers on Bronze Age burial practices, political organization, exchange systems, and pottery.
Description
This chapter discusses the ethnological foundations of mortuary analysis, the processual approach to mortuary variability as well as the objection raised by post-processualists against processualist mortuary theory. Moreover, it highlights the importance of examining multiple lines of evidence in interpreting the mortuary record, as well as the importance of understanding mortuary ritual as a dynamic cultural system. It also presents an important development in mortuary ritual that may be associated with increasing socioeconomic complexity, the systems of ‘dual obsequies’. It further discusses secondary treatment and collective burial as well as long-term variations in mortuary elaboration.