CORPOREAL CONNECTIONS: TOMB DISTURBANCE, REUSE AND VIOLATION IN ROMAN ITALY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Liana Joy Brent May 2019 i © 2019 Liana Joy Brent ii CORPOREAL CONNECTIONS: TOMB DISTURBANCE, REUSE AND VIOLATION IN ROMAN ITALY Liana Joy Brent Cornell University 2019 This dissertation explores non-elite Roman burial practices that involved post- depositional contact with dead bodies, including disturbance, reuse and violation. Roman tomb violation has been explored through a wealth of Latin anecdotal, epigraphic and juridical evidence, although the archaeological aspects have rarely been addressed. What is conspicuously lacking from studies of Roman tomb violation is the human body – the corporeal remains that constitute the tomb as a locus religiosus, and whose presence makes the act of tomb violation both possible and contradictory. Too often reopened and reused graves are glossed over in archaeological site reports, without further attention to the post-depositional and continuing commemorative rituals that dealt with the physical remains of an individual in a mortuary deposit. This study prioritizes body-oriented research and the human remains that were once a corpse and the focus of mortuary treatment, primarily from archaeological contexts, but also with consideration of textual, epigraphic and visual descriptions or representations of dead bodies. I consider the handling of skeletal remains at the time of grave opening in inhumation - as opposed to cremation - burials in non-monumental cemeteries throughout Roman Italy from the late first to the fourth centuries CE. This research integrates published evidence from suburban and semi-rural cemeteries with iii current methods from archaeothanatology (anthropologie de terrain). By investigating human remains in different states of decomposition at the time of grave opening and the time between depositions, my argument centers around the ways in which the addition of individuals and the manipulation of human skeletal elements could create and maintain inter-generational corporeal connections between the deceased and the living. These connections should not be limited to tomb violations, as we might be tempted to understand these phenomena from epigraphic and legal sources. This study is unique for its emphasis on the physicality of the body in the ongoing use and adaptive reuse of funerary structures in the Roman world. iv BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Liana Brent was born in Toronto, Ontario. She attended McMaster University for her BA (2010) and MA (2012) in Classics, before starting a doctoral program at Cornell University in 2012. Since 2008, she has spent her summers in Italy for archaeological fieldwork in Campania, Umbria, and above all, at Vagnari, near Gravina in Puglia. Liana completed her dissertation at the American Academy in Rome, where she was the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation / Samuel H. Kress Foundation two-year pre- doctoral Rome Prize fellow in Ancient Studies. v This work is dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, Bert and Lee Eckmann. vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply indebted to those who have taught, inspired and mentored me, and especially to two individuals. With sincere gratitude, I thank Éric Rebillard for his guidance and constant encouragement at every stage of this project. This work is the product of fruitful conversations that challenged me to think synthetically and to read globally. Thank you to Tracy Prowse for making the bridge between classical and anthropological archaeology so accessible to me and for allowing the Vagnari cemetery excavations to become such a vital part of my graduate study. You are an inspiration, a model for women in academia, a cherished mentor and friend. Thanks are due to my committee members, Sturt Manning and Verity Platt, for helping me to develop this project and for their insightful feedback, and especially to Verity, whose passion for classical art has never failed to inspire me. My time at Cornell University has been enhanced by my many mentors, who include Annetta Alexandridis and Kathy Gleason among others. I also wish to thank Alastair and Carola Small, whose love of southeast Italy has inspired several generations of students and who first introduced me to the joys of excavating in Puglia. Thank you to Maureen Carroll for inspiring my research on funerary practices and for being an excellent colleague in the field. My research has been generously supported by the Department of Classics at Cornell University, for four years by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#752–2012–2023), as well as by grants from Cornell University through the Society for the Humanities, the Mario Einaudi Center for International vii Research, the Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies (CIAMS), the Cornell Institute for European Studies, as well as the Lane Cooper and Sage Graduate Fellowships from the Graduate School. I am also grateful to the staff at the Digital Consulting and Production Services (DCAPS) at Cornell University for digitizing many images. I owe an enormous debt of appreciation to the American Academy in Rome, as well as to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for the immeasurable gift of a two-year Rome Prize in Ancient Studies. I am grateful to the entire Academy community for the conversations that challenged how I think about my own research as well as my relationship with the city of Rome itself. Thank you to Giulia Barra and Sofia Ekman for helping with permissions and to Lisa Fentress and Simonetta Serra for their energy and willingness to visit sites with me. I especially wish to thank Lauren Donovan Ginsberg, Gretchen Meyers and my co- fellows for their support during the final months of writing and revisions. I am deeply grateful to my friends and family for all their love and support. Thank you for reassuring me that the sky was not falling, as I so often believed. Thank you, Mom, for passing on your love of museums and giving me an endless world of possibilities. Thank you, Ross, Roslyn, Daniel and HB, for your constant support and encouragement. Finally, and most importantly, thank you, Asa, for allowing me to dream, even when it kept us on different continents. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE................................................................................................................... XV INTRODUCTION: BODIES, BONES AND BURIALS .............................................. 1 Gregory of Nyssa on the Burial of His Sister ..................................................... 3 The Nature of the Project ................................................................................. 14 The Treatment of the Pre- and Post-Burial Body ................................. 15 Death and Decay ................................................................................... 18 Religion and Ritual ............................................................................... 20 Tomb Violation .................................................................................... 23 The Time Capsule Premise ................................................................... 26 Material, Sensory and Embodied Approaches to the Body .................. 29 The Space of Decomposition and Grave Reuse ................................... 32 Corporeal Connections ......................................................................... 35 An Overview of the Data .................................................................................. 39 Concluding Remarks ........................................................................................ 46 1. CORPOREAL CORRUPTION ................................................................................ 51 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 51 Part 1: Corpses as Cultural Entities .................................................................. 57 Contact with Corpses ............................................................................ 61 Part 2: The Importance of the Corpse in Non-Funerary Contexts.................... 66 a) Dead Bodies for Observation ........................................................... 67 b) The Disappearance of Bodies ........................................................... 71 c) Visual Representations of Dead Bodies ........................................... 75 Part 3: The Science of Death ............................................................................ 79 a) The Processes of Decomposition ..................................................... 80 b) Decomposition in Buried Environments .......................................... 84 c) Understanding Decomposition During Excavation .......................... 88 Conclusions ...................................................................................................... 92 2. DISTURBED, DAMAGED, DISCARDED ............................................................ 96 Introduction ...................................................................................................... 96 Part 1: Problematizing Disturbance ................................................................ 104 a) Disturbance Processes in the Archaeological Record .................... 107 b) Disturbed Human Remains ............................................................ 110