No.70 Seminar ： Greek Thanatology in Epigraphy
- Takashi Fujii (The Hakubi Center for Advanced Research)
- 2013/12/17 4:00pm
- The Hakubi Center for advanced research (iCeMS West Wing 2F, Seminar Room)
- English
Summary
My Hakubi project aims to examine the circumstances of death amongst ancient Greeks in Asia Minor and their social, religious and emotional responses to them. Ancient Greeks here mean Greek-speaking people who lived in the territory of modern Turkey roughly from the Archaic period to Late Antiquity (ca. 6th century BCE – 5th century CE). Materials considered are mainly epitaphs, public decrees and other kinds of texts inscribed in stone in the Greek language. We know everyone must die one day, which would suggest to us that the phenomenon of dying would be the same all over the world. But, is it true? Death is a cultural matter; the ways people die and how the family and friends react are changeable according to their background. Take an example: one Greek father, lamenting his son’s death, describes in detail his son’s disease and the operations this poor son had to endure. Inscribing of such an emotional history on an epitaph is not seen in modern cultures. This project conducts an original and thorough survey of such cultural diversity in the processes of dying and varying reactions to them in the Greek world. In the Hakubi Seminar, after showing the nuts and bolts of my project, I will talk about some impressive funerary inscriptions from Roman Phrygia.