Burial and Mobility in Classical Athens: An Archaeological Approach

Camille Acosta
Art History
UC Irvine

This grant will be used to conduct research for my book project, “Burial and Mobility in Classical Athens: An Archaeological Approach,” which analyzes four migrant burials in Classical Athens (c. 480-338 BC) in order to examine how intersecting aspects of identity such as status, gender, ethnicity, and occupation influence burial practices alongside the experience of the migrant themself. Each of the book chapters focuses on the burial of a migrant who came to Athens from various parts of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea: Chios and Lesbos off the coast of western Anatolia, Messenia in the southwestern Peloponnese, and Histria on the Black Sea. For each of these case studies I not only contextualize the migrant burial within broader Athenian funerary practices but also consider the traditions of the migrants’ homeland to understand which practices may have been replicated, adapted, or abandoned. Previous discussions of migrants in this period have predominantly focused on the legal restrictions placed on immigrant communities by the Athenian state, and this project aims to center these individuals, families, and communities as active agents through a discussion of the material culture chosen by these migrants for their burials.