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FUNERARY TRANSFORMATIONS IN AN ETRUSCO-ITALIC COMMUNITY: SOCIAL DISPLAY AND AUSTERITY IN HELLENISTIC CHIUSI

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 July 2017

Alexis Daveloose
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Abstract

From the end of the third century BC on, the funerary culture of the Etruscan city of Chiusi saw the gradual disappearance of the most expensive containers and tombs. At the same time, there was first a dramatic increase in the number of such monuments, followed by an equally sharp decline in the first century BC. The qualitative development has traditionally been explained using sumptuary laws, which should have constrained funerary expenditure. However, a close examination of the local evidence reveals that this is not only unlikely, but also does not explain the quantitative development and why there was a social and cultural need to constrain these funerary objects in the first place. Using the concepts of distinction and habitus developed by Bourdieu, this paper analyses the developments in Chiusine funerary practice by focusing on social interactions within and between élites and non-élites. This gives both groups agency in a complex social, cultural and political process that caused the criteria for distinction to change, ultimately making funerary culture less important for status differentiation in the rapidly changing context of Hellenistic Italy.

A partire dalla fine del III sec. a.C. si può registrare nella cultura funeraria della città etrusca di Chiusi la graduale scomparsa dei cinerari e delle strutture tombali di maggiore impegno economico. Allo stesso tempo si può riconoscere un aumento considerevole nel numero di questi monumenti, seguito poi da un declino, ugualmente netto, nel corso del I sec. a.C. Questo tipo di fenomeno è stato tradizionalmente spiegato con l'introduzione di leggi suntuarie, mirate a contenere il lusso funerario. Tuttavia, un'attenta disamina delle testimonianze locali mostra come questa interpretazione sia non solo improbabile, ma in ultima analisi non contribuisca a chiarire neppure lo sviluppo dal punto di vista quantitativo e i motivi per i quali vi fu una necessità sociale e culturale di limitare l'uso proprio di questi oggetti funerari. Utilizzando i concetti di distinzione e di habitus sviluppati da Bourdieu, il presente articolo analizza gli sviluppi nella pratica funeraria chiusina, mettendo l'accento sulle interazioni sociali all'interno dell’élite e tra quest'ultima e le non-élite. Questo approccio riconosce a entrambi i gruppi la capacità di agency in un processo complesso che ha interessato gli ambiti sociale, culturale e politico e che è stato alla base dei criteri per la distinzione che ha portato al cambiamento, rendendo in ultima analisi la cultura funeraria meno importante in rapporto alla manifestazione della differenziazione di status nel contesto in rapido cambiamento dell'Italia di età ellenistica.

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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 85 , October 2017 , pp. 37 - 69
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Copyright © British School at Rome 2017 

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Footnotes

1

This paper originated from my master's dissertation, completed at Ghent University under the guidance of prof. Dr Koenraad Verboven, to whom I owe many thanks. I am also grateful to Prof. Dr Christian Laes, Dr Saskia Roselaar and Dr Theresa Huntsman for proofreading this paper and for offering many useful suggestions.

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