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Interpreting household practices Barcelona, 21-24 november 2007 Treballs d’Arqueologia 13 (2007): 175-197

LOYAL OR JUST CONCUBINES..?

Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez

Abstract: The well known Heroon at the Toumba cemetery consist of a shaft housing of two very rich and apparently simultaneous burials, a male cremation and a female inhumation, assumed as the woman being the warrior's consort probably sacrificed during his 's funerals. In this paper I argue is that if we can trust the anthropological identifi- cation and the simultaneity of both depositions, then we can consider these women as concubines better than wives, if we compare this evi- dence with contemporary archaeological funerary sites and the with the ancient Greek oral and literary tradition. Resumen: La famosa tumba del Heroon de Lefkandi consiste en un pozo que alberga dos enterramientos muy ricos y aparentemente simultáneos, una incineración masculina y una inhumación femenina, que ha sido asumida como la correspondiente a la esposa del guerrero incinerado y que había sido probablemente sacrificada en el transcurso de los funerales del marido. El argumento que defiendo es que, si podemos fiarnos de las identificaciones antropológicas de las tumbas y de la simul- taneidad de los enterramientos dobles, entonces no puede tratarse de esposas, sino de concubinas, si los comparamos con otros yacimientos funerarios contemporáneos y con la tradición oral y literaria de la antigua Grecia. Resum: La famosa tomba de l’Heroon de Lefkandi consisteix en un pou que hostatja dos enterraments molt rics i en aparença simultanis: una incineració masculina i una inhumació femenina, assumida aquesta com la corresponent a l’esposa del guerrer incinerat i probablement sacrifica- da durant els funerals del marit. L’argument que es defén aquí és que, si podem finar-nos de les identificacions antropològiques de les tombes i de la simultaneïtat dels enterraments dobles, llavors no pot tractar-se d’es- poses, sinó de concubines, en comparació amb d’altres jaciments funer- aris contemporanis i amb la tradició oral i literària de la Grècia antiga.

171 Loyal wives or just concubines...?

Introduction: Double graves and (Popham et al. 1993; Popham 1994; sacrifices Lemos 2002: 167), assumed that the woman was the warrior’s consort The well known Heroon at the and that she was probably sacri- Toumba cemetery, dated at the ficed during his husband’s funerals MPG (1000-950 B.C.), consists of a (Fig. 1). Thus the archaeological shaft housing two very rich and record suggests a simultaneous apparently simultaneous burials, a burial, that is, both of them were male cremation and a female inhu- buried at the same time. The heroon mation. Four horses were sacri- stood up on a prominent point of ficed during funerary rites and deposited in another shaft close by. Male’s ashes Fig. 1 were placed inside a Cypriot bronze amphora, which was an antique, together with his weapons and accompanied by the inhumed corpse of a female. She was wearing impressive jewels, among them a gold pendant, which was also an antique, at least 900 or 800 hundred years older than her last owner. The double burial was placed inside a monumental build- ing, perhaps the warrior’s household that was deliber- ately destroyed during his exequies. Because the women’s arms were folded, her hands and feet crossed and an iron knife with ivory pommel was laid beside her head, Mervin Popham

172 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez the landscape, and it gave birth to the possibility that pits 200-201 the burial area of a ruling class in were simultaneous cremations. He its neighbourhood. even suggested that the man died first and the two women and the In tune with Popham’s view, baby could have been thrown to Catling (1994: 125; 1996a: 517-537) the male’s pyre during his obse- interpreted the Submicenaean quies. (1075-1025 B.C.) Knossos cemetery cremations 200 to 202, belonging The aforementioned author to a warrior male and to two female (Catling 1994:126) further pro- adults plus a baby respectively, as a posed the same explanation for the single funerary unit (Fig. 2). Pit male/female cremation nº40 at the 200 was the cremation of a young Cypriot cemetery of Kourion non sexed adult, but considered to Kaloriziky, dated to Late Cypriot be probably a woman, in view of IIIB (1125/1100 B.C.) and the the jewels included as grave goods. male/female inhumation tomb Among them one bronze dressing XXVIII of Tiryns, and made the pin with wheel-shaped head of point that all of them were founda- Italian type, so that the cremated tional graves, erected on significant person could have been a foreigner. sites connected both with the past Pit 201 contained a great amount of and the future, and that they were cremated bones, more than 2.3 kg, not reused, but gave way to a that were attributed by the anthro- graveyard widely used afterwards. pologist to two adults -male and female, plus a possible baby. Grave Anyway these two last examples goods consisted of weapons, a seem to be less straightforward to Cypriot wheeled stand, an ivory me. Thus, the Kourion nº40 tomb quiver and a boar’s-tusk helmet, was partially plundered by tomb which was an antique, a probable looters robbers and later on dug up heirloom. Eventually pit 202, con- by McFadden of the Pennsylvania tained nothing apart from some Museum Expedition (McFadden small fragments of cremated bones. 1954). It consisted of a shaft con- Catling (ibidem) interpreted the taining a bronze urn filled with three pits as parts of the same cremated bones, belonging after funerary unit, and speculated with the anthropologist, to a woman

173 Loyal wives or just concubines...? between 50 and 70 years of age. An cremation had been previously urn similar to that of the woman’s confiscated to one of the robbers,

Fig. 2

174 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez together with a magnificent gold and a woman laying at Kourion 40, sceptre, which was an antique (ib. and, due to the lavish grave goods 1954:134), and two bronze tripods. an the exceptional sceptre, they After one of the robbers’ testimony, were surely a king and his queen some cremated bones, apparently (Fig. 3). human were found inside. So, McFadden (ib. 1954:134), assumed Yet, extraordinary as the Kourion that there were two people, a man nº40 tomb is, there is not archaeo-

Fig. 3

175 Loyal wives or just concubines...? logical certainty, either that there Acropolis, i.e. on a prominent were two people of different sex place, and held two inhumed peo- buried together, or that the woman ple, one of them with warrior’s would have been sacrificed during grave goods, and a second corpse her husband’s funerals. without grave goods and laying at a lightly deeper level, that was inter- The last case mentioned by preted as having been buried at an Catling, was that of the tomb earlier time. Although no anthro- XXVIII by Tyrins (Verdelis 1963:10 pological identification of the and followings), dated at the corpses took place, Verdelis Submicenaean/ Protogeometric (1963:55), thought the second transition (ca. 1025-1000 B.C.). It corpse could belong to a woman was a cist grave, excavated close by and the first one, who was buried the main building of the Tyrins with weapons, to a male. Anyway,

Fig. 4

176 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez it should be highlighted that the have been anthropologically identi- two burials were not simultane- fied (Berardinetti & Drago 1997; ously done (Fig. 4). Bartoloni et al. 1997:89-100). Bartoloni (2003:97-98) objects on A further case of a double and the contrary, that there are not simultaneous grave comes from the proofs enough of human sacrifices Erechteion Street, south of the in the course of princely funerals. Athens Acropolis, where fourteen She further suggests that in the burials were discovered. One of case of Grotta Gramiccia tomb 60, them was a double cremation the presence of two different pits, inside the same urn and dated to holding respectively a male and a the EPG. (ca. 1025-1000 B.C.) female cremations inserted in a Anthropological inquiry identified unique shaft grave, could be better the remains as belonging to a cou- explained by the reopening of a ple of male and female teenagers, familiar grave in order to rejoin a around eighteen years of age. couple in the same tomb. There are Although the excavator thought many other cases of graves’ reopen- that they could have been a brother ing, well attested archaeologically and a sister who died together, at the time as L’Osteria del L’Osa nevertheless Lemos (2002:154), in (Bietti-Sestieri 1997), Este view of the Toumba Heroon, consid- (Vanzetti 1992:158), or the Villa ers that a kind of suttee could not be Bruschi Fagari necropolis (Trucco ruled out. 2006:97-98). Anyway, even at Villa Bruschia, there are four cases In Italy, Peroni (1996:485-7) and where after Trucco (ib.:98-99), a Pacciarelli (1998:38), took as well sacrifice could not be ruled out that view. The first author (cited (Fig. 4). They happen to be by Bartoloni 2003:97), mentioned male/female cremations, with their the cases of some double bones mixed and having a similar (male/female) or triple (including a colouring, what means that they baby) tombs dated to the 9th cen- were cremated at the same temper- tury B.C. from the Villanovan ature and, surely on the same pyre. necropolis of Quattro Fontanili Tomb 130 is extremely interesting, and Grotta Gramisccia, where a since the bones were identified as great amount of cremated bones belonging to an old man around

177 Loyal wives or just concubines...?

35/45 of age and to a young woman even higher rank and able of about 18 to 25 years old. to transmit rights to their off- Bartoloni herself admits (ib. spring’s on their familiar property, 2003:98) that some cases as the one including sometimes claims to the of a female cremation superim- ruling office. Therefore it seems to posed to a male one at the excep- me very improbable that such tional Vetulonia’s shaft grave 1, noble women, that sometimes as in could not be excluded as a sacri- Athens exerted as priestesses fice, in view of the sceptre and (Langdon 2005), could ever have other emblems of rule that accom- been sacrificed. panied the deceased man, although it could also be a later, secondary In several books Goody (1973, 1976; deposition. 1984; 1990) has dealt with the dif- ferences between simple and com- Wives and concubines plex agriculture and their relation with either a bridewealth system, My point is that if we can trust the where women neither inherit nor anthropological identification and transmit property rights to their the simultaneity of both deposi- offspring and a system into tions, and if we can exclude from a which, women transmit rights to forensic point of view natural caus- their descendant on the familiar es for the simultaneity of both heritage, or could even inherit it in deaths, as for instance, accidents or absence of a male heir. He (ib.: plagues, then we should consider 1990) maintains that there are these women as concubines better archaeological as well as literary than wives, because from the proofs that, at least since the Bronze Age on, we have funerary Bronze Age, a system of dowry was evidence of high status women at work in Eurasia and, what is compatible with the existence of a more important, that the develop- system of dowry and complex agri- ment of a complex agriculture, culture (Goody 1973, 1976; 1984 including the plough, irrigation and 1990; Ruiz-Gálvez 1994). In and/or specialized livestock rais- such a way, warriors and rulers ing, promoted differences of rich- would have married high status ness and rank and the use of women, belonging to an equal or endowed daughters to sign up

178 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez alliances among rich families and Millennium B.C. Near East to join land properties. Of not less- (Liverani 2003:257-64; 1987). There er importance is the fact that such we learn that royal intermarriages women could inherit and transmit were preceded and, sometimes fol- the right to the ruling office. Such lowed by political agreements, the were the cases of Eleanor, Duchess nature of which varied depending of Aquitaine and Guyènne, on whether both partners were Countess of Poitou and Queen con- equals or not, or whether one of the sort of both and , kingdoms was a vassal or an ally. who transmitted to the English But even if the bride would not Crown rights on her French pos- have a political role in her groom’s sessions; or Maria de Molina, first kingdom and sometimes would Queen consort and then Queen spend her life confined in the royal regent of Castile and León and harem, she in a way was left as a owner of the lordship of Molina de pawn of the brotherhood between Aragón, which through her became her native and her adopting coun- part of the Castilian Crown; or try. So coming back to my point, I , Queen consort can hardly imagine these royal of England and member of the wives being sacrificed at their hus- House of Capet, from whom Henry band pyre. the III of the house Plantagenet derived his claims to the Crown of Suttee and Hecatomb France, which resulted in the so called Hundred Years’ War; or, Regarding to the suttee hypothesis finally Marie Thérèse of Austria, proposed by Popham in the case of Queen consort of France and the Toumba heroon, we do not have grandmother of the first Bourbon written proofs of such a practice King of Spain, Philip the Fifth, neither in the Near East texts nor whom she transmitted the right to later, in the Greek or Roman ones. the Spanish Crown. According to Goody (1990:48-49, 184-187), although the suttee, that is, Unfortunately we do not have the immolation of the faithful written records for that period in in her husband’s pyre, existed in Europe. Nevertheless we do have some parts of China and India, nev- them for the Second and First ertheless, it has always been very

179 Loyal wives or just concubines...? rare, and was eventually abolished the poor ones who, usually married in India by the British in the 19th again. And the reason was quite century. On the contrary, it was a straightforward: while rich women usual practice both in China and were endowed by their , the India, that high status sel- poor ones received an indirect dom would marry again. That was dowry from theirs groom’s . due to the fact that they not only Thus the dowry was linked to the retained their dowry in - female’s rights of property, inheri- hood, but they have a right of being tance and rank, while it was not so economically supported in charge with bridewealth (Tambiah 1973: of the estate. Even in the seldom 64). So it seems to me quite open cases they would marry a second why moral law sanctioned the high time, although they would lose rank wife’s perpetual , their dower, they would still retain thus the dowry which belonged to their dowry (Goody 1990:48-49; the widow and not to her late hus- 202). The aforementioned author band, would be alienated from (ib.: 117, 184,198 and 203) pointed their offspring in case she married out that the female widowhood again. I even wonder whether there was morally sanctioned as well by were not economic reasons behind the Neoconfucianism, that consid- most of the suttee self-immolations. ered a second nearly an Thus, even for certain rich families, adultery, as for the ‘sâstra, the the commitment of perpetual sup- Hindu’s orthodox law. In port from the familiar estate to a Tambiah’s words “in India the gift woman, who will never be preg- of a virgin accompanied by a dowry nant again, but should retain her appears to be associated with the rank and living standards while ideal of monogamy, an ideal that is keeping her dowry, and that could symbolized in the notion of hus- in a future alienate it by getting band and wife being a united and married again, could have been per- inseparable pair which reached it ceived as a risk for the familiar pat- ultimate elaboration in the institu- rimony. So, it might have happened tion of suttee” (Tambiah 1973:65). that some widows were persuaded Very interestingly, Goody (ib.:117 by their own families to join their and 187), wrote that those rules late husband pyre as a proof of loy- concerned the rich widows but not alty and heroism sanctioned by the

180 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez divinity. This is, of course, my commodities are alienable things hypothesis, not Goody’s. So if you exchanged among . That disagree, it is me not him, the one is, and translating Gregory’s ideas, who should be blamed for it. bridegrooms are gifts, inalienable people slaves are commodities, and On the contrary, concubines, even therefore, alienable things who if they descended of a noble linage could be sacrificed in a hecatomb, a enjoyed a lower status. Although public display of power and rich- the children of a concubine could ness even if as Cassandra or inherit and even become Eumaeus, were descendant of royal enthroned, in cases of as families. happened with some Asian kings, wives and concubines were hierar- Warriors and chically ranked and enjoyed differ- entiated rights both on the proper- Let’s have a look to Homer’s texts ty and on the succession (Tambiah in order to strengthen my point. At 1973:65). Some concubines were the Odyssey we come across with slaves or as it were the case both of real women, of blood and flesh, as Homer’s Briseis or Cassandra, Penelope, Eurycleia, Helen or the became concubines as a result of an young Nausicaa, all of them loved arm conflict, were considered war’s and respected by Odysseus. So booty and therefore turned into much so, that in 19th century, a cer- commodities, alienable things, tro- tain Samuel Butler claimed a female phies or objects of display, but authorship for the Poem, and sug- were not seen as human beings. gested that she could have been a Therefore they could have been poetess from Trapani in , who sacrificed in a display of richness might have self-depicted as the and power, i.e. a hecatomb, by the character of Nausicaa. Even the members of an emergent lineage writer Robert Graves took in the who needed to make their claims to 20th century the same view in his succession to the political office. novel “Homer’s daughter” (Olmos 2003:297). As Olmos points out Thus, as Gregory explains (ib.:295-326), women are promi- (1982:71), gifts are inalienable things nent in the book; Calypso and exchanged among relatives, while Circe represent female’ s seductive

181 Loyal wives or just concubines...? powers; Helen and Penelope are not female characters, not female faithful wives and efficient house- human beings, just commodities keepers and weavers. Nausicaa (Vidal-Naquet 2002: 75-82). means the youth and the inno- Excepting for the Goddesses, only cence. Finally, Eurycleia, the old two female characters are Odysseus’ nanny, is a most affec- described by the Achaian side and tionate character. The Poem, for both of them are foreigners, either the good or the bad, is plenty of Trojan or from a Trojan ally king- feminine points of view. dom: Criseis and Briseis. We know very little about the first of them. If we turn now our sight to the Just that her father is a prominent Iliad, we will notice that female Trojan citizen and an Apollo’s characters do exist as well. Yet..., priest, and that Agamemnon, her just by the Trojan side; master and owner, to whom she Andromache, represents the best of was assigned to him as a war’s wives, and is tenderly loved by booty, should bring her back home, Hektor (Iliad, VI.369, 390,440); to prevent God’s anger. And he Hekabe, Hektor’s , is complains about taking that meas- always fearing about her sons’ for- ure, not because he her or at tune in the battlefield (Iliad VI. least likes having her in his bed, 243,263,286,293; XXII.90 and 429); but because he thinks is loosing a Helen, Priam’s beloved daughter in part of his owed booty. And the law... (Iliad III.161), complains same happens to Achilles, who against her husband Paris’ cow- cries bitterly after having been ardice (Iliad III. 421, 423)... There taken his female booty, Briseis, by are other minor female characters, Agamemnon (Iliad II.345), not as for instance, the Trojan women because he missed her, but because (Iliad VI.243), or Teanus, Ciseus’ he has been dishonoured and daughter, and an Athena’s priestess humiliated by having been dispos- (Iliad VI.297), or Etra and Climene, sessed of a part of it was owed to Helen’s ladies in waiting... (Iliad him (Vernant 1982:46). Just once in III.47), étc. the whole Poem we listen to Briseis speaking, and we even know that Nothing similar could be seen by there are other nameless captive the Achaian side, where there are women in the Achaian camp. In

182 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez

Iliad XIX.282-309, Briseis and the Vetulonia’s shaft grave 1, were we other female captives cry Patroclus’ can suspect that a double or triple death and for their own bitter des- and simultaneous burial could have tiny. Briseis cries also due to her taken place, and that it could have own memories about her husband’s included human sacrifices. death, of her family death and of Achilles devastating her land and What similarities could we find out looting her city. Patroclus, in among them? First, that they are Briseis own words, was her only located in prominent points on the comfort. The one who promised landscape; second, they were locat- her that Achilles should wash her ed in family plots or, as it were the outraged honour by marrying her cases of the Toumba heroon and one day,. Yet... nothing let us think Knossos 200-202, they were the that Achilles got any plan of marry- oldest tombs in the necropolis and ing her slave... Because, as I have gave way at its funerary use after- already conveyed, Briseis as well as wards; third, they were usually very Criseis and the other anonymous rich and prominent graves, and in captives were commoditized them males were buried with lavish things... not human beings. And grave goods, including the charac- commodities as the slave were con- teristic insignias of a warrior and a sidered could have been thrown ruler; and four and more important, into their master pyre as Achilles they appeared in a moment -the did with the twelve male Trojan Protogeometric period in Greece captives sacrificed into Patroclus’s and the Villanovan/ early Etruscan pyre (Iliad XXIII.161). Period in Italy, when a new social structure was emerging, one that Heroes tombs and house from an anthropological point of societies view did neither fit with a Chiefdom nor with a State. Summing up, we have revised sev- eral cases -the Toumba Heroon, the González Rubial (2006) has Knossos cemetery tombs 200 to recently used a model taken from 202, the Erechteion Street in the French anthropologist Lévi- Athens, four tombs of the Villa Strauss, to define the political Bruschi Fagari necropolis and, the structure of some Iron Age Iberian

183 Loyal wives or just concubines...? societies. It is the so-called house building, perhaps the household of a societies model, developed by the new divinized ancestor (Fig. 6). French anthropologist to define a Thus not only the couple buried kind of hierarchical society that it under the apsidal building, but is neither patrilineal nor matrilin- most of their rich descendants eal, and therefore defies classical buried close to them, included lav- models of anthropological classifi- ish grave goods as weapons and cation. Thus in them it is not the fine antiques in their burials. It is lineage but the house, or rather, the also the case of some sub- household the basic axis on which Mycenaean Cretan warrior-graves, the social organization is built. It is not only from the Knossos ceme- the focus of ritual and sacrificial tery (Kanta 2003), that emulate activities and the arena for compe- Homeric rituals, have antiques, tition, and is reflected in the either inheritances or products of emphasis on the house monumen- plunders and sometimes were tality and richness, as well as on buried in chamber tombs imitating power symbols or family relics and buildings (Catling 1994, 1996b; inheritances that perpetuate the Coldstream & Catling 1996). symbolic capital of the lineage Lastly identical features are found through the household. And I think in Cypriot graves of the same age that it could have been the case of (Yon 1971; Karageorghis 2000). Toumba, the burial area of a Greek elite of warriors and traders, that It is also the kind of organization emerged around a heroon (Popham that we find in Villanovan and old 1994), which recycled an apsidal Etruscan/Lacial graves (between

Fig. 6

184 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez the 9th/10th and 8th centuries BC), of Villanovan, Early Etruscan and with depositions of prominent Lacial tombs in Italy (Bartoloni individuals’ ashes, sometimes 2003:115-43). Thus, as Lévi- wrapped in rich clothes and Strauss (cited by Gonzalez- accompanied by some graters to Ruibal 2006), pointed out, house mix cheese and wine following societies are neither patrilineal Homeric rituals (Ridgway 1997), nor matrilineal ones, what, in my placed in house-shaped urns with view, matches with a dowry sys- roof-cornices (Bartoloni 2002:188- tem which is bilateral, that is, in 90), or urns covered by pottery mo- which both lineages, mother’s dels of helmets with a house cor- and father’s are equally impor- nice on top instead of crests tant, because both of them trans- (Berardinetti & Drago 1997:40) mit rights on the heritage. (Insert 5), together with weapons and power symbols such as scep- Cremation, hero-cult, heirlooms tres and batons, as well as antiques and sacrifices (Ridgway 1997; Bartoloni 2002:85, 143-44, 190, 214 and next; de Santis Iliad’s Agammenon, is more a 2005:84, 190; V.V.A.A. 2000). All of primus inter pares than a paramount them, Greek, Cretan, Cypriot and king in the sense of the Near East Italian tombs emphasize the link monarchs. Achilles, the leader of between death, houses, power and the Myrmidons, Nestor or the Past. Menelaus... are also petty chiefs, condottiery, soldiers of fortune, I would like also to call attention always arguing about their share in to the fact that these rich graves the war booty (See Iliad I and IX) belonged not only to powerful and always competing among males or to powerful couples, but them. So, Patroclus’ funerals (Iliad, also to rich single female burials. XXIII) are turned by Achilles into For instance some of the most an exhibition of his power and outstanding tombs from the richness and in a challenge to Athens’ Geometric Period (Lord Agamemnon’s paramount authori- Smithson 1968; Coldstream 1995; ty (Fig. 5). Langdon 2005), Salamis’ tomb 1 in Cyprus (Yon 1971) or a handful Many authors have seen similari-

185 Loyal wives or just concubines...? ties between the type of society al from inhumation to cremation, that we come across with the hero- that took place in the Eastern and ic burials of the First Iron Age Central Mediterranean at the Greece, Cyprus and Italy and the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition, one described in Homer (Catling could be related with the emer- 1994; Carter & Morris 1994; gence of a new ruling class, who Ridgway 1997; D’Agostino 2000; needed make claims on their right Karageorghis 2000; Whitley 2002; to leadership. Because the crema- Kanta 2003). On my side I have tion implies a way of divinization, recently suggested (Ruiz-Gálvez thus it prevents the corruption of forthcoming), that the change of ritu- the body, and at the same time it provides to the descendant an arena for exhibiting their power by destroying richness and, in that way, claiming a divine or semi divine ancestry and their own rights to suc- cession.

Fig. 5 It is in such a context, that those conspicuous tombs as the Lefkandi heroon and many others could be, in my view, better understood. And it is also under such a context, that human sacrifices might have taken place and had a meaning. Also under that context it would make sense the frequent presence of antiques among the grave goods of the heroic tombs. Thus antiques might have been considered agalmata, that quoting Grannisi (2004:

186 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez

126): “are objects of value that may with these ideas, I have suggested embody at the same time a mythic somewhere else (Ruiz-Gálvez 2005 and a religious aspect, but also a and forthcoming), that the antiques social inner power”. So these let as grave goods in tombs as the antiques could have been that part of Toumba heroon, were considered as the booty, described by Homer as having genealogy and therefore “geraz” or part of the booty due would help their owners to cast an to a king or chief, as a material heroic, almost divine past for their expression of the warrior’s lineage. This idea would match a “timh” or honour (See also house society model, and the rise of a Vernant opus cit. 46). new leading class based on war and trade, that needs to justify its right Whitley (2002:226-227) suggested to exert the power, inventing a hero- that some personal objects worn by ic past for them. the Homeric characters or stored in their treasure’s rooms were appre- As part of the invention of a past ciated because they had a genealogy. and of claiming succession rights to These are the cases of the political office, could also be Agamemnon’s sceptre (Iliad understood the display of public II.100), the helmet which Meriones funerals, the cremation of the body covered Odysseus’s head with in a pyre, the destruction of wealth (Iliad, X.270), Achilles’ immortal and the sacrifice of precious things horses, (Illiad XXIII.270-287), or as the slaves were. The higher the the silver sewing basket that slaves’ status were -as happened Alcandra gave to Helen in Thebes with the twelve Trojan noblemen (Odyssey IV.112). In every case, sacrificed by Achilles into Homer describes who made the Patroclus’ pyre (Iliad XXIII.161-82)- object or bred the animal (always a the better for the prestige of whom God or a reputed artisan), and the sacrifice were in charge of. whom gods, kings or ancestors had it been passed on to, before being Echoes of Patroclus in Barbarian given to one of his characters. funerals Therefore they are valuable objects since they have their own biography I would like to end my paper by (see also Perea 2003:163). In tune looking at the most distant

187 Loyal wives or just concubines...?

Mediterranean periphery, the red clay imitating a textile pattern. Northern Europe where, notwith- In the centre of it and inside a clay standing, indirect contacts pot was standing a bronze urn con- through the so called Amber route taining the cremated bones of a have been going on since the early thirty to forty years old man, Second Millennium B.C. (Shennan together with rest of a marten or 1982; Beck & Shennan 1991; ermine fur, jewels and weapons. Sherratt 1994). These became more Among his lavish grave goods strengthen anyway, from the 8th stands out a bronze amphora, century B.C., when Greek and because it was an import and was Phoenicians established them- made in an Etruscan workshop of selves in the Tyrrhenian Sea and Veii and therefore it was a rarity in the Etruscan evolved to an urban the area. Other cinerary urns were and State society. A long distance accompanying it and contained the exchange route connected the bones of at least two young women Baltic and the Mediterranean Seas (Kristiansen 1993; Thrane 1998). A through which raw materials -met- second example comes from als, amber, probably wood and Korshøj on South Funen (Thrane furs, and perhaps human beings 1998), where in the funerary came down to the South, and luxu- mound of another local chief, bones ry products as wine and drinking belonging at least to two women sets, textiles and perhaps human and a man were found. Although as beings too, went up. long as I know, there is not anthro- pological data on the possible con- In such a context, some small chief- temporaneousness of males and doms appeared in nodal areas con- females cremations in both necting and distributing goods mounds, anyway both barbarian along the route. One of them was burials seem to have been follow- Seddin on the Elbe river in between ing the Homeric ritual of princely Central Europe and the exequies, and proves than along Scandinavian area. In 1899 a huge the routes, not only certain luxu- tumulus mound of 11 x 90 m was ries but also persons and discovered there. It was covering a Mediterranean ways of conspicu- stone chamber with a false vault ous consumption were arriving to and walls plastered in yellow and the fringes of the Homeric World,

188 Marisa Ruiz-Gálvez and were emulated by local leaders. BARTOLONI, G. 2003. La società In both cases, Seddin and Korshøj, dell’Italia Primitiva. Lo studio delle human beings deposited together necropolo e la nascita delle aristocra- with the main male burial seem to zie. Roma: Carocci. have been part of his grave goods, BARTOLONI, G., BERARDINETI, slaves and concubines, lesser A., DE SANCTIS, A. & DRAGO, human beings than commodities, L. 1997. Veio tra IX e VI secolo but a way of publicly showing the a.C. In B. Bartoloni (ed.) Le necro- strength and power of the dead poli archaiche di Veio:89-100. household. Università degli Studi di Roma, “La Sapienza”. Addenda BECK. C. W. & SHENNAN, S. 1991. Amber in Prehistoric Britain. In his book called The Archaeology of Oxford: Oxbow. death and burial, Mike Parker- BERARDINETTI, A. & DRAGO, L. Pearson describes an outstanding 1997. La necropole di Grotta funeral held in the 10th century Gramisccia, Veio. In B. Bartoloni A.D. at the trading post of Bulgar (ed.) Le necropoli archaiche di on the Middle Volga, as it was Veio:39-61. Università degli described by the Muslim tra-veller Studi di Roma, “La Sapienza”. and writer Ibn Faldan, who wit- BIETTI-SESTIERI, A. M. 1997. Iron nessed it. It happened to be the Age Community of Osteria dell’Osa: exequies of the leader of a group of Study of Socio-political Development Scandinavian merchants and war- in Central Tyrrhenian Italy. rior based at Bulgar. The man was Cambridge University Press. cremated on his boat, animals were CARTER, J.B. & MORRIS, S. sacrificed and one of his girl slaved (eds.) 1994. The Ages of Homer. joined him at death (Parker- Austin: Univ. of Texas Press. Pearson 2000:1-3)1. CATLING, H. 1994. Heroes returned? Subminoan burials References cited from Crete. En J.B. Carter & S. Morris (eds.) The Ages of BARTOLONI, G. 2002. La cultura Homer:126-132. Austin: Univ. of villanoviana all’ inizio della storia Texas Press. etrusca. Roma: Carocci. CATLING, H. 1996a. The objects

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