Supervisors info:
Βασιλική Χρυσανθοπούλου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Λαογραφίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Ταξιάρχης Γ. Κόλιας, Καθηγητής Βυζαντινής Φιλολογίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Μηνάς Αλ. Αλεξιάδης, Ομότιμος Καθηγητής Λαογραφίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Φιλοσοφική Σχολή ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
Λαϊκές αντιλήψεις, τελετουργικές πρακτικές και υλικός πολιτισμός στα πλαίσια του θανάτου: η ταφή κατά τους βυζαντινούς χρόνους. Αναφορά στον ελλαδικό χώρο, τη Μικρά Ασία και την Κωνσταντινούπολη
Translated title:
Folk beliefs, ritual practices and material culture in the context of death: the burial during Byzantine times in Greece, Asia Minor and Constantinople
Summary:
This work represents the encounter of three sciences: history, archaeology, and folkloristics. Having developed the background in all three sciences, I examine how this inter-disciplinary synthesis could actually be done, and how it can bring new insight on material already excavated and collected. The burial as the subject of this dissertation was chosen, for it is considered to be the most important stage of the customs surrounding death and the richest source of archeological findings. This study shows how folklore could contribute to archaeological and historical debates surrounding individual and social behaviour and beliefs during the Byzantine era. The sources come from all three sciences (historical texts, archeological evidence, and contemporary parallel folk customs), but the approach is predominantly folkloristic-ethnographic.
The study begins by defining some important concepts such as burial, ritual practice, and material culture. It proceeds by putting forward some basic theoretical premises, like for example, ritual as the acting out of religious belief, the notion of syncretism, namely the coexistence of pre-Christian and magical elements on one hand, together with religious and ecclesiastic ritual on the other, A. van Gennep’s theory of rites of passage, as well as elements of ritual practice around death that are shared by all human beings across time and space, cells that give birth to all practices (the danger of pollution, the “do ut des” principle, the death-resurrection relation, the human tendency to create rituals and to participate in their theatrical aspect, woman’s role in lamenting, the community’s collective action and solidarity when facing the shock of death in order to heal the trauma, praising and honoring the dead, the affirmation of the community’s identity, etc). Finally, this study focuses on the customs of death in the Christian community during the Byzantine era. The step-by-step examination covers the preparation before the burial, the burial rite itself, and the rituals of forgiveness and remembrance that follow. It is based on written documents from the Byzantine era as well as dated archeological finds, which are seen through folkloristic and anthropological theories that explain the customs’ function. Using evidence from folklore material, including mourning folksongs (moirologia) and symbolisms borrowed from folk tales, the study examines issues like the coexistence of religious and magic practices, superstition and ritual, pollution and taboo, which demonstrate the syncretism of pre-Christian and Christian elements. Through ritual practice, we examine why in an era during which man is invited to live morally as a good, devout Christian according to ecclesiastical teachings, he insists in retaining customs and beliefs which reflect a non-Christian philosophy in the context of death.
Keywords:
burial, Byzantine times, folklore theories, ritual, material culture
