Hebrew Bible and Semitic Philology Lecture Series, Fall Semester 2024
![[Translate to English:] Portrait Gudme](/fileadmin/_processed_/5/8/csm_Anne_Gudme_9ee48a492d.jpg?1725552527)
The Social Life of the Dead: Traces of Mortuary Ritual Practices in Roman Palestine
Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme, Professor of Hebrew Bible, University of Oslo
The dead play an important part in the world of the living. Not merely as objects of remembrance and loss, but as social agents, around whom practices of care and commemoration are performed. As recent thanatological research shows this is true of the dead in contemporary society, but perhaps even more so in the world of the ancient Mediterranean where habitual visits to the tomb of the family dead appear to have been the cultural norm.
This lecture uses selected tombs from the necropolis at Beth Shearim in the Lower Galilee as a case-study for investigating mortuary ritual in late Roman Palestine. The analysis focuses on social interaction with the dead and on how to interpret ritual practices on the basis of archaeological finds and ancient texts.
Wednesday, 2 October 2024, 6.15 PM | Theologie, Grosser Seminarraum 002, Nadelberg 10, 4051 Basel