Arqueologia ao Sul. Palestra Karina Croucher - Living with the dead: Mortuary practices from the Neolithic Near East

Caros colegas,

O Núcleo de Arqueologia e Paleoecologia da Universidade do Algarve vem anunciar mais uma conferência do ciclo de palestras Arqueologia ao Sul, desta vez por Karina Croucher, com o tema "Living with the dead: Mortuary practices from the Neolithic Near East", que se realizará no dia 2 de Abril de 2014 pelas 17h30 na sala 2.35 do edifício da Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais (Gambelas).

Esta é uma palestra que conta com a colaboração da Associação Arqueológica do Algarve (http://www.arqueoalgarve.org/)

Abstract

This presentaion discusses mortuary evidence from the Neolithic of the Near East (Southwest Asia), a crucial period in the development of civilization, seeing the introduction of farming and the first settled towns. There were multiple ways of treating the dead, including fragmentation of the human body and the reuse of body parts, particularly the skull. Practices included the plastering of the skulls of the dead, where the faces of the deceased were recreated onto the skulls of the deceased using lime, mud and gypsum plasters. This paper discusses recent interpretations of this enigmatic phenomenon, including the connections between the living and the dead, and the tangible role of the dead in the lives of the living.