par Alexandridou, Alexandra
Référence Classical Archaeology in Context: Theory and Practice in Excavation in the Greek World, Walter de Gruyter GmbH, page (121-147)
Publication Publié, 2015-05
Partie d'ouvrage collectif
Résumé : The seventh century B.C. saw a number of changes in Attic mortuary practices with the emergence of the offering trenches being one of the most characteristic. The earliest examples came to light in the late nineteenth century in association with a number of tumuli in the Attic countryside, although the cemetery of Kerameikos revealed the richest evidence, which has been thoroughly published and studied. The trenches contained good quantities of Protoattic and early black-figure pottery, which formed the focus of the early scholarship because of its importance for the study of the Attic vase painting. Nevertheless, during the last two decades, offering trenches have been employed by a number of scholars as a medium for approaching early Archaic Attic society during a period of special interest, which coincides with the early development of the polis. The offering trenches serve as a case study for showing the shift in archaeological research on early Attica with scholarly interest moving from the finds to their archaeological context, and focusing on the importance of funerary practices for the study of contemporary society. Moreover, the present contribution reassembles all the known trench-evidence from Attica, while re-examining their funerary and social implications for the contemporary polis.