CONF: ‘Funerary Banquet’ in Ancient Art

Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the folks mentioned in the quoted text, not to rogueclassicism!):

Dining & Death
Interdisciplinary perspectives on the ‘Funerary Banquet’ in art, burial and belief

Conference at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies, Oxford
Saturday 25 – Sunday 26 September 2010

When is a ‘funerary banquet’ a funerary banquet?

Depictions of banquets on tombstones and in tombs are widespread in antiquity, from Ancient Egypt to Roman Britain. The term ‘funerary banquet’ is sometimes used to refer to such images, but what does it mean, and is it useful? The banquets shown differ in format, and their meanings are debated by scholars. Do some images memorialize the dead in terms of the best that life could offer, and would people actually have experienced this in reality? Do others, in contrast, refer to ceremonial events, such as funerary rites, or even the pleasures they can expect in the afterlife? Are these images best used to gain insights into beliefs about death, or to assess cultural differences in banqueting, its manners and accoutrements? And are such aims mutually exclusive?

Answers to these questions can differ within and between disciplines, but these differences are rarely explicitly addressed. This conference will provide a forum for that purpose, bringing together archaeologists specialising in ancient Egypt, China, the Near East, and the Greek and Roman worlds, to compare images and interpretations. Focussing on this particular interpretative problem, conference speakers and audience members can also consider broader issues about the interpretation of images and archaeological evidence more generally.

Confirmed Speakers

Keynote address: Johanna Fabricius (Freie Universität Berlin)
Closing comments: Oswyn Murray (University of Oxford)

Amann, Petra (University of Vienna, Bankett und Grab Projekt): ‘Banquet and Grave.’ Methods, aims and first results of a recent research project.
Baughan, Elizabeth P. (University of Richmond): Burial Klinai and ‘Totenmahl’?
Harrington, Nicola (University of Oxford): The 18th Dynasty Banquet: ideals and realities.
Hartwig, Melinda (Georgia State University): Life and Death in Ancient Egyptian Banqueting.
Kalaitzi, Myrina (KERA, National Hellenic Research Foundation): The Theme of the Banqueter on Hellenistic Macedonian Tombstones.
Lockwood, Sean (Trent University): Family Matters: The interpretation of Lycian “funerary banquet” reliefs.
Mitterlechner, Tina (University of Vienna, Bankett und Grab Projekt): The Banquet in Etruscan Funerary Art and its Underlying Meaning.
Nickel, Lukas (SOAS): Banquets and Tombs in Han Dynasty China: Luoyang as a case study.
Nylan, Michael (Berkeley): Funerary Banquets in Classical-era China.
Rawson, Dame Jessica (University of Oxford): Painting Afterlife Banquets in Han Dynasty Tombs (100 BC – AD 200).
Robins, Gay (Emory University): Meals for the Dead: the image of the deceased seated before a table of offerings.
Stamatopoulou, Maria (University of Oxford): Banquets in the Painted Stelai of Demetrias
Stewart, Peter (Courtauld Institute of Art): Image and Reality in the Roman Totenmahl.
Struble, Eudora, (University of Chicago): Ritual Engraved: Rethinking the Meanings of Syro-Hittite Mortuary Feasts.
Tuck, Antony (University of Massachusetts): Dining with the Dead: Practice and Symbol in Etruscan Funerary Ritual.

Website: http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/dininganddeath.html

Inquiries: dininganddeath.conference AT arch.ox.ac.uk

Organisers:

· Catherine M. Draycott, Katherine and Leonard Woolley Junior Research Fellow, Somerville College, Oxford
· Maria Stamatopoulou, University Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Oxford

Sponsored by: the John Fell Fund, Somerville College, the Craven Fund, the Faculty of Classics, the School of Archaeology and the Griffith Egyptological Fund, Oxford.