Burial, Society and Context in the Roman World

Book excerpt: Although a large number of cemeteries have been explored in Roman Britain they have never been seen as central to the study of the province. This collection of twenty-eight papers, from a symposium held at the University of Durham in 1997, explores different approaches to examine the contribution that cemeteries can make to our wider understanding of Roman society. The papers are grouped under five headings: The reconstruction of mortuary rituals; Burial and social status; The dead in the landscape; Burial and ethnicity and society; Religion and Burial in late Roman Britain and Italy.