Please join us on Thursday, November 12 at 6 pm for “The Changing Power of the Past at the Late Bronze Age Cemetery of Aidonia, Greece” by Lynn Kvapil, Professor of Classics at Butler University. Co-sponsored by the AIA’s national lecture program and the University of Richmond Department of Classical Studies, this talk will be held in Jepson Hall 118 on the UR campus and will be free and open to the public.

Abstract: Excavations of chamber tombs at the Mycenaean Greek cemetery at Aidonia by the Tombs of Aidonia Preservation, Heritage, and explOration Synergasia (TAPHOS) have revealed a long history of use spanning the entirely of the Late Bronze Age (c. 16th-12th centuries BCE). Many tombs at Aidonia were reused over centuries. Some earlier burials consisted of curated inhumations of deceased individuals laid out with ornate adornments, vessels, and weapons. Anyone entering the tomb would encounter a spectacle that referenced the glory of the past embodied in the burials of each individual. This paper explores how the living constructed, reconstructed, and communicated ideas about death and the dead each time the tomb was entered. The complexity of the burial practices is illustrated through case studies of two tombs that were subject to careful excavation including bioarchaeological approaches, pXRF analysis of metal finds, and aDNA analysis. The result is an important understanding of Mycenaean Greek burial practices that were constantly negotiating and renegotiating the power of the past.