Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Map of sites in the Roman empire discussed in this book
- 2 Map of sites in Greece discussed in this book
- 1 The anthropology of a dead world
- 2 ‘Mos Romanus’: cremation and inhumation in the Roman empire
- 3 ‘Dem bones’: skeletal remains
- 4 Taking it with you: grave goods and Athenian democracy
- 5 Monuments to the dead: display and wealth in classical Greece
- 6 Famous last words: the inscribed tombstone
- 7 At the bottom of the graves: an example of analysis
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliographical essay
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - ‘Dem bones’: skeletal remains
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 Map of sites in the Roman empire discussed in this book
- 2 Map of sites in Greece discussed in this book
- 1 The anthropology of a dead world
- 2 ‘Mos Romanus’: cremation and inhumation in the Roman empire
- 3 ‘Dem bones’: skeletal remains
- 4 Taking it with you: grave goods and Athenian democracy
- 5 Monuments to the dead: display and wealth in classical Greece
- 6 Famous last words: the inscribed tombstone
- 7 At the bottom of the graves: an example of analysis
- 8 Conclusion
- Bibliographical essay
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For the layman it may seem almost incredible that so full a picture can be built up on so slight a foundation, but modern methods of laboratory research now enable archaeologists to speak with an assurance that would have astonished their predecessors. Lack of space prevents us from describing the complicated and laborious methods of enquiry employed by the Professors and we can only summarise their conclusions. The occupant of the grave was, it appears, a local chieftain, middle-aged, five foot seven in height and markedly dolichocephalic. He was married, but not happy in his home life, suffered from stomach ulcers and an impacted wisdom tooth and died as a result of a sharp blow over the left ear. He had probably fallen on his head as a child and was certainly devoted to his dog, a cross-bred mastiff eight hands in height with a badly damaged tail…
This chieftain of the Draynflete Culture, the Via Hernia and Professors Spiggot and Hackenbacker were all products of Osbert Lancaster's wicked sense of humour, but truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction. On 1 August 1984 the appropriately named Andy Mould pulled from a bog in Cheshire a 2000-year-old foot. The police handed the matter over to the archaeologists. Five days later a complete body, now known as Pete Marsh or Lindow Man, was in their hands. How would Lancaster have reacted to the news that one day in March or April in the first century A.D. this tormented soul was stunned by two blows to the head, stabbed in the chest, garrotted and had his throat cut?
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- Death-Ritual and Social Structure in Classical Antiquity , pp. 70 - 102Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992