Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods
- ISBN-10
- 1782976949
- ISBN-13
- 9781782976943
- Category
- Social Science
- Pages
- 616
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2014-10-31
- Publisher
- Oxbow Books
- Authors
- John Hunter, Ann Woodward
Description
The exotic and impressive grave goods from burials of the ÔWessex CultureÕ in Early Bronze Age Britain are well known and have inspired influential social and economic hypotheses, invoking the former existence of chiefs, warriors and merchants and high-ranking pastoralists. Alternative theories have sought to explain the how display of such objects was related to religious and ritual activity rather than to economic status, and that groups of artefacts found in certain graves may have belonged to religious specialists. This volume is the result of a major research that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ceremonies. Many items of adornment can be shown to have formed elements of elaborate costumes, probably worn by individuals, both male and female, who held important ritual roles within society. Furthermore, the analysis has shown that various categories of object long interpreted as mundane types of tool were in fact items of bodily adornment or implements used in ritual contexts, or in the special embellishment of the human body. Although never intended to form a complete catalogue of all the relevant artefacts from England the volume provides an extensive, and intensively illustrated, overview of a large proportion of the grave goods from English burial sites.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Ritual in Early Bronze Age Grave Goods: An Examination of Ritual and Dress Equipment from Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age...
By John Hunter, Ann WoodwardThis volume is the result of a major research that aimed to investigate Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age grave goods in relation to their possible use as special dress accessories or as equipment employed within ritual activities and ...
-
Burials and Society in Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age Ireland
By Cormac McSparronProvenance of Irish gold After a time O'Flaherty suggests they may have ceased to be utilised as weapons, their role being taken by spears, and that they adopted a ceremonial role (O' Flaherty 2002: 356). The majority of halberds have ...
-
Cliffs End Farm Isle of Thanet, Kent: A mortuary and ritual site of the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Anglo-Saxon...
By Peter Marshall, Jacqueline I. McKinley, Matt LeiversSchmorl's nodes result from a rupture in the intervertebral disc and the protrusion of the disc material into the vertebral body surface forming a pressure defect, often of irregular shape (Rogers and Waldron 1995, 27).
-
Dealing with the Dead: Archaeological Perspectives on Prehistoric Scandinavian Burial Ritual
By Tore Artelius, Fredrik SvanbergThe papers in this volume explore how prehistoric Scandinavian burial ritual and religion can be interpreted and understood within contemporary Swedish contract archaeology. In different cases and from varying theoretical...
-
Cemetery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age
By Keith BraniganCemetery and Society in the Aegean Bronze Age
-
Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean
By Nicola LaneriThis volume represents a collection of contributions presented by the authors during the Second Annual University of Chicago Oriental Institute Seminar Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the...
-
Sagaholm: North European Bronze Age Rock Art and Burial Ritual
By Joakim GoldhahnSagaholm contains the largest group of rock engravings discovered in a burial context in northern Europe.
-
Grave Goods: Objects and Death in Later Prehistoric Britain
By Anwen Cooper, Duncan Garrow, Catriona GibsonIn H. Williams and M. Giles (eds), Archaeologists and the Dead: mortuary archaeology in contemporary society. Oxford, Oxford University Press ... In C. Richards and R. Jones (eds), The Development of Neolithic House Societies in Orkney.
-
Fragmenting the Chieftain: A Practice-based Study of Early Iron Age Hallstatt C Elite Burials in the Low Countries
By Sasja van der Vaart-VerschoofFragmenting the Chieftain presents the results of an in-depth and practice-based archaeological analysis of the Dutch and Belgian elite graves and the burial practice through which they were created.
-
Bronze Age Warfare
By Sarah Monks, Richard OsgoodWarfare in the Late Bronze Age of North Europe (British Archaeological Reports International Series 694) Palaima, T. 1999. ... The English Heritage Book of Bronze Age Britain (English Heritage) Patay, P. 1968.