A Cultural History of Death in Antiquity
Buying pre-order items
Ebooks and Audiobook
You will receive an email with a download link for the ebook or audiobook on the publication date.
Payment
You will not be charged for pre-ordered books until they are available to be shipped. Pre-ordered ebooks will not be charged for until they are available for download.
Amending or cancelling your order
For orders that have not been shipped you can usually make changes to pre-orders up to 72 hours before the publishing date.
Payment for this pre-order will be taken when the item becomes available
Description
Ancient Greek and Roman burial, mourning, and commemoration practices may seem irrelevant in the digital age of instant and virtual communications and entertainment. The lives and deaths of ancient peoples comprising Greek and Roman cultures, however, not only inform modern funerary practices through the reception of Classical antiquity, but they provide a contrast to communicating grief and sympathy; political power, and identity, personal and collective, through gesture; performance; literature; art and architecture.
The chapters in this volume focus on a wealth of evidence from all corners of the Roman empire and recent scholarship to examine: how beliefs in the afterlife, rituals of disposal, commemoration, and on-going social relationships with the dead permeated ancient Greek and Roman culture. Chapters also explore how burial practices contributed to changes in urbanization from the 5th century CE, when extramural burials, formerly in roadside tombs and catacombs, moved inside city walls into the decaying monuments of Imperial Rome and close to places of Christian worship. Examinations of the archaeological, artistic, and literary evidence from Homer to the rise of medieval Europe, reveal vibrant, at times elusive, and allusive practices to contemporary rituals.
A Cultural History of Death is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com.
Accessibility Information
Additional accessibility information
- EPUB 3.0
- Conforms with the requirements of EPUB Accessibility Spec v1.1
- WCAG level AA
- WCAG v2.2 compliant
- accessibility@bloomsbury.com
Hazards
The publication contains no hazards
Support for non-visual reading
- No accessibility features offered by the reading system, device or reading software are disabled or otherwise unusable with the product
- Has alternative text descriptions for images
Visual adjustments
Appearance of the text and page layout can be modified according to the capabilities of the reading system (font family and size, spaces, as well as color of background and text)
Navigation
- Page list to go to pages from the print source version
- Elements such as headings, tables, etc for structured navigation
- All or substantially all textual matter is arranged in a single logical reading order
- Content is enhanced with ARIA roles to optimize organization and facilitate navigation
- Purposes of all links are made clear
Rich content
Language tagging provided
Table of Contents
1. Dead and Dying Bodies, Valerie M. Hope (Open University, UK)
2. The Sensory Aesthetics of Death, Robert Garland (Colgate University, USA)
3. Emotions, Mortality and Vitality, Evy Johanne Håland (Government Grant Holder, Norway)
4. Death's Ritual-Symbolic Performance, Emma-Jayne Graham (Open University, UK)
5. Sites, Power and Politics of Death, Penelope J. E. Davies (University of Texas at Austin, USA)
6. Gender, Age and Identity, Maureen Carroll (University of York, UK)
7. Explaining Death: Belief, Law and Ethics, Anton J. L. van Hooff (the Netherlands)
8. The Undead and Eternal, Debbie Felton (University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA)
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 11 Jun 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 224 |
| ISBN | 9781350654600 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 45 bw illus |
| Series | The Cultural Histories Series |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
Related Titles
