Death in Three Acts: Conference on Practices of Dealing with Body and Death

The 2023 annual conference of the DAI research cluster “Body and Death” takes place online and at the German Archaeological Institute in Athens from October 17 to 19. It will be dedicated to practices of dealing with body and death. One way to approach body-related practices is to divide them into phases, especially the three acts of premortal, perimortal, and postmortal practices, which deal with the necessity of coping with the deteriorating body.

Another way of accessing the topic is to ask to what extent control over the physical transformation of the body also sought control over the transformation of social identity and social relations. The focus can also be on age, gender, social affiliation, etc. as potential parameters for differentiation in dealing with death and the body.

The contributions will be held in English and German. They span regions and periods from the Central European Mesolithic to Early Christian Egypt and from collective graves in prehistoric Arabia via Mycenaean, Etruscan, and Roman burial rites to rural Albania and modern times.

The full programme and abstracts are available here:

https://www.dainst.org/forschung/netzwerke/forschungscluster/cluster-3/veranstaltungen.

For registration for digital or on-site participation please contact franziska.lehmann@dainst.de.