Thanatos: dead bodies - live data. A study of funerary data from the Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine town Hierapolis in Phrygia, Turkey

Norwegian scholars, invited by The Italian Archaeological Mission at Hierapolis in Phrygia, investigated in the years 2007-2015 the North-East Necropolis at Hierapolis in Phrygia, in present-day Turkey. The aim of the investigations was to make a full typological documentation of all visible graves and sarcophagi in the necropolis, their topographical extension and organization, followed by excavations of selected tomb buildings and areas, in order to understand their many periods of use. From 2010, financed by the Norwegian Research Council, a research project was established in connection with the investigations: Thanatos. Dead Bodies ? Live Data. A Study of Funerary Data from the Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine town Hierapolis in Phrygia, including two postdoc.-positions, one in archaeology, one in DNA-studies. As objects of excavation were chosen three tomb buildings (C91, C92, C311) and three sarcophagi (C308-C310), all at the top of the necropolis; in additon, spot excavations were executed in more areas within the necropolis. This work laid the basis for further studies within the framework of the Thanatos project; we wanted, in a social context, to investigate a city population over a long period of time through studies of tomb architecture and landscape perception, organization, family circumstances and contractor activities, ritual actions and practice, genetic relations and origin, palaeodemography, health and diseases, diets and movement patterns of individuals. In order to answer some of these questions were put to use bioarchaeological investigations, such as radio carbon dating, osteology, DNA- and isotope analyses. The excavations were finished in 2014; the projects concluded with a study season in 2015. The two projects have answered some of the questions put forward above: ? The history of the necropolis extends from the 1st c. AD till c. AD 1300, with an interruption of the interments 7th-9th c., when the town was abandoned. All tomb buildings and sarcophagi demonstrated a high level of reuse through all periods; c. 240 burials were identified. ? In the 1st c. AD, in accordance with the new Roman villa ideology, in which the free nature was sought and praised, the burials were moved from the main roads into town to the hills behind. At the same time, the tombs, with a view of the city, established a stronger home connection. ? Many graves appeared in chains of 2-5 buildings: Name inscriptions on the tombs suggest that buildings in the same chain did not necessarily all belong the same family, rather that the tomb buildings were built by a contractor who sold them individually. ? Through the Imperial period a strrong continuity in tomb shapes and in inscription contents imply a stable society till the phase of Christianization in the 4th and 5th c. ? During the Christianization process burials changed from being large family tombs to simple one-man graves, placed close to sacred buildings ? or ad sanctos, here meaning close to the tomb of the apostle Philip and the place of his martyrization. ? Pagan deads often carried with them a coin to pay the ferryman Charon, who brought the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades. This folk belief was taken over and given a new Christian meaning, without Charon. ? The Christians practiced inhumation; cremation in the Roman Empire is considered to have died out by the middle of the 3rd c. AD. In tomb C311 many cremations occurred, some radio carbon-dated to the 5th and early 6th c. Was this a sign of pagan opposition to Christian customs? This discovery will need a re-evaluation of old archaeological truths. ? Osteological investigations demonstrated that the standard of life was better for the Romans(before the 7th c.), than for that of the Byzantines (after the 9th c.). ? DNA results were few and fragmentary due to poor conservation of collagen in the bones. ? Isotope-analyses (carbon and nitrogen) demonstrated that the population subsisted on a one-sided terrestrial diet, which caused deficiency diseases, as, e.g., anaemia. ? Isotope-analyses of strontium demonstrated that the Romans in their place, while the byzantines were far more on the move. ? In the new town of the 9th c. and later, interments were made in old, sacred places, like abandoned churches. Only from the 11th c. the town built its own new church, including a graveyard. Three yearly, international workshops (in Rome, Istanbul, and Lecce), and a concluding conference (in Oslo/Fredrikstad) were arranged. The conference acts, Life and Death in Asia Minor in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Times. Studies in Archaeology and Bioarchaeology, are due in January 2017. Mss. for the project publication are being collected ready to be published in 2018/2019. The project has ?participated? in the TV-programs Schrødingers katt and Newton and has been presented twice in half hour TV-programs on NRK 1 and NRK2.

Hierapolis is a Hellenistic-Roman-Byzantine town bordering on the fertile valley where the Lykos and Meander rivers meet, at the western end of the Anatolian plateau, ca. 200 km E of Izmir. Seen in relation to its size Hierapolis, with its three large necropoleis, possesses perhaps the largest concentration of graves known in the Roman world. The necropoleis contain a large concentration of funerary data (in the shape of a great variety of well-preserved funerary monuments, well-preserved skeletons, in scriptions containing names, family names and administrative measures for protection and maintenance of the tombs) seldom available in ancient necropolis-excavations. The project is composed of two interlocking parts, which form the basis for the furth er studies on materiality and body theory seen in a social perspective from both a synchronic (i.e. structural) and a diachronic (i.e. historical) point of view: 1. Study of the dead bodies (i.e. the osteological, genetical and nutrition data); and 2. Stu dy of the context of the dead bodies (i.e. the funerary monuments and organisation). Hierapolis, as all societies, was a many-facetted living organism, as expressed through its many preserved monuments, artefacts, and inscriptions. The tombs add litera lly a human factor to the urban organism. In the interplay between dead bodies and their material contexts we possess an important tool to study social meanings and relationships, not as singular, synchronic, but as constantly changing events in which the meanings are continuously defined and redefined. The aim of the project is to unveil the complexity of the ancient society, not its uniformity. The large variety of funerary data makes Hierapolis a unique case in which to study an urban population ove r time, from its creation in Hellenistic period, through its blossom in the Imperial and early Byzantine periods, to its gradual abandonment and encounter with Turcoman tribes in the late Middel Ages.