Life and Death in Asia Minor combines contributions in both archaeology and bioarchaeology in Asia Minor in the period ca. 200 BC – AD 1300 for the first time. The archaeology topics are wide-ranging including death and territory, death and landscape perception, death and urban transformations from pagan to Christian topography, changing tomb typologies, funerary costs, family organization, funerary rights, rituals and practices among pagans, Jews, and Christians, inhumation and Early Byzantine cremations and use and reuse of tombs. The bioarchaeology chapters use DNA, isotope and osteological analyses to discuss, both among children and adults, questions such as demography and death rates, pathology and nutrition, body actions, genetics, osteobiography, and mobility patterns and diet. The areas covered in Asia Minor include the sites of Hierapolis, Laodikeia, Aphrodisias, Tlos, Ephesos, Priene, Kyme, Pergamon, Amorion, Gordion, Boğazkale, and Arslantepe.

The theoretical and methodological approaches used make it highly relevant for people working in other geographical areas and time periods. Many of the articles could be used as case studies in teaching at schools and universities. An important objective of the publication has been to see how the different types of results emerging from archaeological and natural science studies respectively could be integrated with each other and pose new questions on ancient societies, which were far more complex than historical and social studies of the past often manage to transmit.

• Front Cover
• Halftitle page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of Contributors
• Introduction: Dead bodies – Live data: Some reflections from the sideline (J. Rasmus Brandt)
• PART I: FROM LIFE TO DEATH: DEATH AND THE SOCIAL AND FUNERARY SETTING
  • 1. The Sanctuary of St Philip in Hierapolis and the tombs of saints in Anatolian cities
  • 2. Necropoleis from the territory of Hierapolis in Phrygia: New data from archaeological surveys
  • 3. The South-East Necropolis of Hierapolis in Phrygia: Planning, typologies, and construction techniques
  • 4. Tomb 163d in the North Necropolis of Hierapolis in Phrygia: An insight into the funerary gestures and practices of the Jewish Diaspora in Asia Minor in late Antiquity and the proto-Byzantine period
  • 5. Tomb ownership in Lycia: Site selection and burial rights with selected rock tombs and epigraphic material from Tlos
  • 6. The sarcophagus of Alexandros, son of Philippos: An important discovery in the Lycian city of Tlos
  • 7. ‘Til death do them part’: Reconstructing Graeco-Roman family life from funerary inscriptions of Aphrodisias
  • 8. Social status and tomb monuments in Hierapolis and Roman Asia Minor
  • 9. New evidence for non-elite burial patterns in central Turkey
  • 10. Reflections on the mortuary landscape of Ephesus: The archaeology of death in a Roman metropolis
  • 11. Christian burials in a pagan context at Amorium
  • 12. Romans, Christians, and pilgrims at Hierapolis in Phrygia: Changes in funerary practices and mental processes
• PART II: FROM DEATH TO LIFE: DEMOGRAPHY, HEALTH, AND LIVING CONDITIONS
  • 13. Analysis of DNA in human skeletal material from Hierapolis
  • 14. Isotopic investigations of human diet and mobility at the site of Hierapolis, Turkey
  • 15. Diet in Roman Pergamon: Preliminary results using stable isotope (C, N, S), osteoarchaeological and historical data
  • 16. Pergamon – Kyme – Priene: Health and disease from the Roman to the late Byzantine period in different locations of Asia Minor
  • 17. Toothache, back pain, and fatal injuries: What skeletons reveal about life and death at Roman and Byzantine Hierapolis
  • 18. Health and disease of infants and children in Byzantine Anatolia between AD 600 and 1350
  • 19. Infant and child skeletons from the Lower City Church at Byzantine Amorium
  • 20. The wrestler from Ephesus: Osteobiography of a man from the Roman period based on his anthropological and palaeopathological record