Uses case studies to examine the social context and cultural and political management of appropriating abandoned objects and assets.

Forsaken Relics is the result of an interdisciplinary dialogue between history, archaeology, and ethnography on the topic of the appropriation of disputed goods and places. Scholars with diverse backgrounds convened to address this common challenge: how different societies in time and space managed to claim and re-appropriate alleged ‘abandoned’ or ‘ownerless’ goods or things ‘in ruin’.

The volume includes a diverse range of case studies – from Neolithic sites in Eastern Europe to ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean, encompassing early modern and present-day Europe – reflecting on the ways in which actions can be used to legitimise appropriation, with a particular focus on ritual actions and practices.

The objective of this book is to stimulate comparative analysis of this topic in both ancient and modern societies, by identifying the actors of appropriation, examining the definition of abandonment, and exploring the ritual aspects intrinsic in actions such as inventorying, dedication and communication to ancestors, and prayers to gods. Ritual actions, in the last instance, were designed to legitimise the reappropriation and resignification of places and goods classified as abandoned or in a state of ruin, and to recreate locality, kinship, and communities.

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• Appropriating places
  • 1. The biographies of Neolithic burnt houses: Insights from the Trypillia megasites of Ukraine
  • 2. Roman euocatio, or how to get possession of a deserted city
  • 3. Reclaiming the funerary space: The protection and re-use of tombs in the burial grounds of Hierapolis in Phrygia
• Redefining abandonment
  • 4. Relic(t) ecologies. Exploring abandonment in the Apuan Alps
  • 5. Depopulating landscapes: Methodology and the materiality of archives in Calabria
  • 6. Rehabi(li)tating abandonment. Urban occupations and their regenerative practices
• Claiming things
  • 7. After death: Rituality used to legitimise the appropriation of abandoned goods in ancient Egypt
  • 8. How to preserve an oikos? The case of Isaeus’s Oration VIII
  • 9. How to claim things with rites. Care for the dead and inheritance rights in early modern Europe (and beyond)
• Afterword
  • 10. Biographies of place and the significance of place-value