Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002
Includes bibliographical references (p. [341]-378) and index
An overview of the intellectual history of catacomb archaeology / Amy K. Hirschfeld -- Housing the dead / Andrew Wallace-Hadrill -- Commemorating the dead in the communal cemeteries of Carthage / Susan T. Stevens -- Dining with the dead / Robin M. Jensen -- Sweet spices in the tomb / Deborah Green -- From Columbaria to catacombs / John Bodel -- Roman and Christian burial practices and the patronage of women / Carolyn Osiek -- From Endymion in Roman domus to Jonah in Christian catacombs / David Balch -- Looking for Abericus / Margaret M. Mitchell
The distinctions and similarities among Roman, Jewish, and Christian burials can provide evidence of social networks, family life, and, perhaps, religious sensibilities. Is the Roman development from columbaria to catacombs the result of evolving religious identities or simply a matter of a change in burial fashions? Do the material remains from Jewish burials evidence an adherence to ancient customs, or the adaptation of rituals from surrounding cultures? What Greco-Roman funerary images were taken over and "baptized" as Christian ones? The answers to these and other questions require that the material culture be viewed, whenever possible, in situ, through multiple disciplinary lenses and in light of ancient texts. Roman historians (John Bodel, Richard Saller, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill), archaeologists (Susan Stevens, Amy Hirschfeld), scholars of rabbinic period Judaism (Deborah Green), Christian history (Robin M. Jensen), and the New Testament (David Balch, Laurie Brink, O.P., Margaret M. Mitchell, Carolyn Osiek, R.S.C.J.) engaged in a research trip to Rome and Tunisia to investigate imperial period burials first hand. Commemorting the Dead is the result of a three year scholarly conversation on their findings
