Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T06:48:07.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Death and Disease

from Part II - Inhabitants

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2021

By
Maria A. Liston
Edited by
Jenifer Neils  and
Dylan K. Rogers
Jenifer Neils
Affiliation:
American School of Classical Studies, Athens
Dylan K. Rogers
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Get access

Summary

The history of Athens was influenced by the health of her citizens; from birth to old age, disease, injury, and warfare threatened the lives of citizens, or made them unable to participate in the life of the city. The study of skeletal remains from burials in Athens reveals the effect of these threats, and offers new information on historical plagues, attacks on the city, and ordinary events in the lives of Athenians.

Keywords

osteologychildrenanemiazoonosescancertraumalifespan
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Ancient Athens , pp. 188 - 198
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Further Reading

A recent exhibition at the Museum of Cycladic Art on ancient health practices and cults has summary essays on various aspects of health and disease (Stampolidis and Tassoulas 2014). Two collections of papers on ancient health provide a wide range of perspectives on the topic (Hope and Marshall 2000; King 2005). The Phaleron Archaeological Project being conducted at the Malcolm Weiner Laboratory for Archaeological Science of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens has, as of this writing, begun to move from cleaning and preparation to publication of 1,200 skeletons. This enormous cemetery of the early port of Athens will provide an unparalleled view of the lives of ordinary Athenians, slaves, and convicted criminals. Updates are available on the project website: http://phaleron.digital-ascsa.org/.

Bibliography

Additional resources to accompany this chapter can be found at: www.cambridge.org/NeilsRogers

Bourbou, C. 2003. “A Survey of Neoplastic Disease in Ancient and Medieval Greek Populations.” Eulimine 4: 181–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hope, V.M., and Marshall, E., eds. 2000. Death and Disease in the Ancient City. London.Google Scholar
King, H., ed. 2005. Health in Antiquity. London.Google Scholar
Lagia, A. 2007. “Notions of Childhood in the Classical Polis: Evidence from the Bioarchaeological Record.” In Constructions of Childhood in Ancient Greece and Italy, eds. Cohen, A. and Rutter, J.B., Princeton, 293–306.Google Scholar
Liston, M.A. 2012. “Reading the Bones: Interpreting the Skeletal Evidence for Women’s Lives in Ancient Greece.” In A Companion to Women in the Ancient Mediterranean, eds. James, S.A. and Dillon, S., Malden, MA, 125–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liston, M.A., and Papadopoulos, J.K. 2004. “The Rich Athenian Lady Was Pregnant: The Anthropology of a Geometric Tomb Reconsidered.” Hesperia 73.1: 7–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liston, M.A., Rotroff, S.I., and Snyder, L.M.. 2018. The Agora Bone Well. Princeton.Google Scholar
Littman, R.J. 2009. “The Plague of Athens: Epidemiology and Paleopathology.” Mount Sinai Journal of Medicine 76: 456–467.Google Scholar
Mitchell-Boyask, R. 2008. Plague and the Athenian Imagination: Drama, History, and the Cult of Asclepius. Cambridge.Google Scholar
Papagrigorakis, M.J., Yapijakis, C., Synodinos, P.N., and Baziotopoulou-Valavani, E.. 2006. “DNA Examination of Ancient Dental Pulp Incriminates Typhoid Fever as a Probable Cause of the Plague of Athens.” International Journal of Infectious Diseases 10: 206–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Papadopoulos, J.K., and Smithson, E.L., eds., with Liston, M.A., Ruscillo, D., Strack, S., and Dimitriadou, E.. 2018. The Early Iron Age: The Cemeteries. Agora 36. Princeton.Google Scholar
Prevedorou, E.-A., and Buikstra, J.E.. 2019. “Bioarchaeological Practice and the Curation of Human Skeletal Remains in a Greek Context: The Phaleron Cemetery.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 7: 60–67.Google Scholar
Siek, T. 2019. “Reconsidering Palaeoepidemiological Investigations in Palaeo-Oncology.” PhD dissertation, University College London.Google Scholar
Smith, S.K. 2009. “Skeletal Evidence for Militarism in Mycenaean Athens.” In New Directions in the Skeletal Biology of Greece, eds. Schepartz, L.A., Fox, S.C., and Bourbou, C., Princeton, 99–110.Google Scholar
Smith, S.K. 2010. “Differential Diagnosis and Discussion of a Large Nasal Neoplasm from a Late Bronze Age Athenian Male.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 20: 731–736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stampolidis, N.C., and Tassoulas, Y.. 2014. Hygeia: Health, Illness, Treatment from Homer to Galen. Athens.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×