Books by Simona Dalsoglio
BAR Publishing, 2020
The amphorae dating from the Submycenaean to the end of the Protogeometric period, brought to lig... more The amphorae dating from the Submycenaean to the end of the Protogeometric period, brought to light in the Kerameikos cemetery, represent a high quality sample of Athenian output of the shape; this is due to their belonging to intact, archaeologically significant contexts. These vessels, usually employed as cinerary urns in the ‘trench-and-hole’ tombs, can be found also as grave goods or among the debris of the pyre offerings. The amphorae in this volume are re-examined with the help of new drawings and by adopting the ‘envelope’ method for their comparison. It has thus proven possible to recognise several typological groups, and to collect information about the process of standardisation of the vases and the organisation of the production process. Moreover, analytical reviews of the burials containing the amphorae and of the physical placing of the grave and pyre goods within the tomb shed new light on the cremation rite performed and on the connections between Athens and other sites employing a similar ritual. Undertaken with the assistance of the Institute for Aegean Prehistory.
BAR International Series 3014, 2020
The amphorae dating from the Submycenaean to the end of the Protogeometric period, brought to lig... more The amphorae dating from the Submycenaean to the end of the Protogeometric period, brought to light in the Kerameikos cemetery, represent a high quality sample of Athenian output of the shape; this is due to their belonging to intact, archaeologically significant contexts. These vessels, usually employed as cinerary urns in the "trench-and-hole" tombs, can be found also as grave goods or among the debris of the pyre offerings.
The amphorae here researched are re-examined with the help of new drawings and by adopting the “envelope” method for their comparison. It has thus proven possible to recognize several typological groups, to collect information about the process of standardization of the vases and on the organization of the production process. Moreover, analytical reviews of the burials containing the amphorae and of the physical placing of the grave and pyre goods within the tomb shed new light on the cremation rite performed and on the connections between Athens and other sites employing a similar ritual.
Papers by Simona Dalsoglio
Preistoria del cibo. L’alimentazione nella preistoria e nella protostoria. Studi di Preistoria e Protostoria, volume 6 (a cura di I. Damiani, A. Cazzella, V. Copat), 839-848, 2021
The aim of this work is to analyze traces of food and drink found in the Early Iron Age Athenian ... more The aim of this work is to analyze traces of food and drink found in the Early Iron Age Athenian burials. I first took into account the organic remains that, in almost all the cases, consist of animal bones, mainly goats or sheep but also cattle, pigs and birds; vegetal remains are rarer. When the organic rests are absent, the morphological characteristics of the vases used as grave goods have been taken into account in order to speculate about the substances that they could contain: skyphoi, for example, could be used for drink as well as food and in several graves the animal bones were found inside these vessels.
The organic remains were found among the pyre debris and the ashes of the dead; moreover they have been identified among the grave goods inside the tomb, and in one case under a monumental krater used as sema. In my opinion they could be interpreted as offers to the dead, that ideally participated to the funerary feast, the existence of which is already attested by Homer; in the Iron Age it could have been also influenced by the Near East rite called marzēaḥ.
The Archaeology of Inequality. Tracing the Archaeological Record, IEMA Proceedings, Volume 10. The Institute for European and Mediterranean Archaeology Distinguished Monograph Series (edited by O. Cerasuolo), 115-124, 2021
According to I. Morris’s theory of “formal burial,” in Attica during the Dark Age the “access to ... more According to I. Morris’s theory of “formal burial,” in Attica during the Dark Age the “access to the formal cemeteries was limited on the basis of rank.” The aim of this work is to analyze the Transitional and Protogeometric graves (c. 1050–900 BC) of the Kerameikos necropolis at Athens using a quantitative approach and integrating it with the qualitative data, in order to find traces of inequalities among the burials.
The tombs have been divided according to the number of their grave gifts from the grave equipment and the pyre refuse. The majority of the burials contain fewer than five items, while only a few graves contain more than ten objects; moreover, there is a positive correlation between the “wealth” of the burial and the presence of metals. The number of items in the graves has been also analyzed in relation to the gender of the dead and to the chronology. The analysis confirms that the female burials are richer than the male ones in terms of number and variety of objects; in the case of the male graves sometimes the presence of few distinctive objects, such as weapons, was enough to state a high status.
In conclusion, there are several levels of differentiation in the selection of the grave‑goods, related, for example, to the status, the gender, the age of the deceased: the material evidence shows us some tombs standing out for their burial rite and reflecting an inequality among the restricted group of people who had access to the formal burial stated by Morris.
Rethinking Athens Before the Persian Wars, Proceedings of the International Workshop at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, 23rd – 24th February 2017 (edited by C. Graml, A. Doronzio, V. Capozzoli), 51-63, 2019
Archeologia e Antropologia della morte, Atti del 3° Incontro Internazionale di Studi di Archeologia e Antropologia a confronto, Roma 20 - 22 maggio 2015 (a cura di V. Nizzo), 677-686, 2018
ARCHEOTIPICO: L’ARCHEOLOGIA COME STRUMENTO PER LA RICOSTRUZIONE DEL PAESAGGIO E DELL’ALIMENTAZIONE ANTICA, Atti del Convegno a cura di Gian Maria Di Nocera, Alessandro Guidi, Andrea Zifferero, 2016
Newsletter di Archeologia CISA, Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale", Volume 5, 2014, pp. 39-57, 2014
Book Reviews by Simona Dalsoglio
Archaeology and Anthropology of Death by Simona Dalsoglio
by matteo venturini, Giovanna Montevecchi, Anamarija Kurilic, Donato Labate, FEDERICA MARIA RISO, Giulia Pedrucci, Marco Baldi, Valentino Nizzo, Titien Bartette, Gaëlle Granier, Romina Mosticone, Giandomenico Ponticelli, Simona Dalsoglio, Clara Stevanato, Elena Castillo Ramírez, Francesca Lai, Angela Bellia, Clelia Petracca, and Luigi Quattrocchi Forthcoming in V. Nizzo (ed.), Archaeology and Anthropology of Death, Rome 2016
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Books by Simona Dalsoglio
The amphorae here researched are re-examined with the help of new drawings and by adopting the “envelope” method for their comparison. It has thus proven possible to recognize several typological groups, to collect information about the process of standardization of the vases and on the organization of the production process. Moreover, analytical reviews of the burials containing the amphorae and of the physical placing of the grave and pyre goods within the tomb shed new light on the cremation rite performed and on the connections between Athens and other sites employing a similar ritual.
Papers by Simona Dalsoglio
The organic remains were found among the pyre debris and the ashes of the dead; moreover they have been identified among the grave goods inside the tomb, and in one case under a monumental krater used as sema. In my opinion they could be interpreted as offers to the dead, that ideally participated to the funerary feast, the existence of which is already attested by Homer; in the Iron Age it could have been also influenced by the Near East rite called marzēaḥ.
The tombs have been divided according to the number of their grave gifts from the grave equipment and the pyre refuse. The majority of the burials contain fewer than five items, while only a few graves contain more than ten objects; moreover, there is a positive correlation between the “wealth” of the burial and the presence of metals. The number of items in the graves has been also analyzed in relation to the gender of the dead and to the chronology. The analysis confirms that the female burials are richer than the male ones in terms of number and variety of objects; in the case of the male graves sometimes the presence of few distinctive objects, such as weapons, was enough to state a high status.
In conclusion, there are several levels of differentiation in the selection of the grave‑goods, related, for example, to the status, the gender, the age of the deceased: the material evidence shows us some tombs standing out for their burial rite and reflecting an inequality among the restricted group of people who had access to the formal burial stated by Morris.
Book Reviews by Simona Dalsoglio
Archaeology and Anthropology of Death by Simona Dalsoglio
The amphorae here researched are re-examined with the help of new drawings and by adopting the “envelope” method for their comparison. It has thus proven possible to recognize several typological groups, to collect information about the process of standardization of the vases and on the organization of the production process. Moreover, analytical reviews of the burials containing the amphorae and of the physical placing of the grave and pyre goods within the tomb shed new light on the cremation rite performed and on the connections between Athens and other sites employing a similar ritual.
The organic remains were found among the pyre debris and the ashes of the dead; moreover they have been identified among the grave goods inside the tomb, and in one case under a monumental krater used as sema. In my opinion they could be interpreted as offers to the dead, that ideally participated to the funerary feast, the existence of which is already attested by Homer; in the Iron Age it could have been also influenced by the Near East rite called marzēaḥ.
The tombs have been divided according to the number of their grave gifts from the grave equipment and the pyre refuse. The majority of the burials contain fewer than five items, while only a few graves contain more than ten objects; moreover, there is a positive correlation between the “wealth” of the burial and the presence of metals. The number of items in the graves has been also analyzed in relation to the gender of the dead and to the chronology. The analysis confirms that the female burials are richer than the male ones in terms of number and variety of objects; in the case of the male graves sometimes the presence of few distinctive objects, such as weapons, was enough to state a high status.
In conclusion, there are several levels of differentiation in the selection of the grave‑goods, related, for example, to the status, the gender, the age of the deceased: the material evidence shows us some tombs standing out for their burial rite and reflecting an inequality among the restricted group of people who had access to the formal burial stated by Morris.