engleski

Reuse of burial monuments

Burial monuments are one of key sources of archaeological record and as such subjected to all kinds of archaeological investigation and analysis. This research is usually related to one or several basic questions: - WHERE - geographic, local or regional position of the monument - the function of the monument in the landscape - spatial orientation of the monument - relation to other monuments - WHO - raised the monument - for whom it was raised - WHEN - the monument was constructed - the monument was reopened/destroyed - WHAT - were the contents of the grave - HOW - it was constructed - reconstruction of burial ritual - WHY - general meaning of the monument and its relation to the community which made it However, most of research perceive burial monuments as results of activity of specific group of people performed as single event and used in time limited period. All that happened to those monuments after their construction, or after the initial period of use, usually became marginal in interpretation. Sometimes negativistic approach resulted in broad and often oversimplified use of terms such as “robbery”, “destruction”, “devastation”, or in the mildest version, “disturbance”. This implies that any intervention on the burial monuments after their initial use is in some way deconstruction of the original archaeological context. This session will try to explore burial monuments as dynamic archaeological features which are not result of single or limited time activity. Changes that those monuments underwent through time must not be ignored or easily discarded since they are all part of their history and as such crucial for understanding and interpreting of those monuments. Basic thesis is that burial monuments have history. That history can be related to all sorts of physical changes or interventions on the monument itself but the general consequence is they don’t always have single meaning. The change of meaning is visible in whole range from evolutionary modification or shift in meaning to complete reinvention and reinterpretation of the monument, usually related to change in use of that monument by the same population or completely different group of people that initially constructed the monument. The question arises: is there “original” use or we can speak just of initial use of such monuments? The aim of the session is present some out of whole variety of different patterns of reuse of burial monuments and see how that physical intervention relates to conceptual transformation or continuity of the monument itself.

burial mounds; reuse; reinterpretation; conceptual transformation

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