Silent attendants: terracotta statues and death rituals in Canosa

D'Angelo, Tiziana; Muratov, Maya

Abstract

In the Classical world, death rituals were a means of healing for both the family of the deceased and the community that suffered the loss of one of their members, and therefore their correct performance was vital to guarantee private as well as public regeneration of the community. Administering some of these rituals was one of the major responsibilities that women had in antiquity, whether that involved mourning or praying for the deceased, taking care of the corpse, or visiting and bringing offerings to the grave. This chapter discusses a unique corpus of Helle-nistic half-life size terracotta statues of young women from tombs at the Daunian site of Canosa, in south-eastern Italy ( Fig. 4.1 ), in order to elucidate the role that Italic women played within the funerary sphere. 1

Citation

D'Angelo, T., & Muratov, M. (2017). Silent attendants: terracotta statues and death rituals in Canosa. In M. Dillon, E. Eidinow, & L. Maurizio (Eds.), Women's ritual competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean (65-93). Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

• Publication Date: 2017
• Deposit Date: Dec 14, 2018
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Pages: 65-93
• Book Title: Women's ritual competence in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean
• Chapter Number: 4
• ISBN: 9781472478900
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1416844
• Publisher URL: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781134780525/chapters/10.4324%2F9781315546506-13