Das Sepulkralwesen im Rauen Kilikien am Ende der Antike: Funerärarchäologie und Grabepigraphik einer spätantiken Landschaft by Jon Cubas Díaz (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Das Sepulkralwesen im Rauen Kilikien am Ende der Antike: Funerärarchäologie und Grabepigraphik einer spätantiken Landschaft by Jon Cubas Díaz Philipp Pilhofer Das Sepulkralwesen im Rauen Kilikien am Ende der Antike: Funerärarchäologie und Grabepigraphik einer spätantiken Landschaft Jon Cubas Díaz Asia Minor Studien 98. Bonn: Habelt-Verlag, 2021. Pp. xviii + 226. ISBN: 978-3-7749-4280-6 [Disclosure: in 2022, the author of this review has been cooperating in a workshop series with the author of the book.] The rough Taurus mountains of southern Turkey yield an enormous and often neglected amount of ancient monuments. The book under review investigates the funerary landscape of a small region at the southern Taurus slopes in detail by combining a precise discussion of archaeological remains with its epigraphical context. It is a revision of the author's 2018 PhD thesis at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. It was written under the auspices of Stephan Westphalen, and in the contexts of the DFG-funded Sonderforschungsbereich (SFB) 933 "Materiale Textkulturen." The book's title translates roughly as "The Sepulchral Culture of Rough Cilicia at the End of Antiquity: Funerary Archaeology and Epigraphy of a Late Antique Landscape." Essentially, the author, a Byzantine archaeologist by training, analyzes how the "funerary habit" develops in the imperial period and Late Antiquity (7). "Funerary habit" is defined by the author as the way in which graves were designed, ornamented, placed, and inscribed. Geographically, the study focuses on the eastern part of what is known as Rough Cilicia: the borderlands of the provinces of Cilicia (prima) and Isauria, the so-called Olbian highlands, named after the god Zeus Olbios who was venerated here in his temple for ages. The necropoleis of seven towns and villages are analyzed: the coastal cities (Elaiussa Sebaste, Korykos, also Korasion), smaller villages in between the steep gorges of the hinterland (Kanytelleis, Karakabaklı together with Işıkkale), and a major city in the highlands, Diokaisareia at an altitude of almost 1,200 meters. The book is divided into six main chapters. After some preliminary remarks (and a prepended English summary, xiii–xvii) the aforementioned towns and villages are introduced one by one (chapter 2: "Case studies"). The remarks on each location's history of research, settlement, necropol(e)is, and inscriptions result in the longest chapter of the book. Chapter 3 ("Epigraphical analysis") is based on an unpublished database consisting of all known funerary inscriptions and stemming from the area between the rivers Lamos and Kalykadnos (that is, not only from the mentioned localities; 74). Of the 884 funerary inscriptions, only two were written in Latin. After a short discussion of the palaeographic and linguistic issues, the inscriptions are analyzed in several regards, inter alia onomastic, legal,1 occupational (Appendix 2, 197–214, gives a complete list of [End Page 555] mentioned occupations, sorted by site and inscription), and religious. Chapter 4 ("Funerary monuments and their décor") for the first time presents a typology of funerary monuments based on the evidence of nearly the whole region, not only of one or two cities. Chapter 5 ("Funerary monument and writing in context") analyzes the combination of epigraphical and archaeological evidence under two main aspects. Firstly, the placement of inscriptions on the grave monuments is surveyed, as well as the distribution of (non-)inscribed graves: which types of graves were inscribed? How were these distributed topographically? Some graves were placed prominently along the so-called via sacra of Korykos, guaranteeing maximum visibility and readability. But neither seems to be a criterion for inscriptions in general, as in Diokaisareia many inscribed graves are also oriented along a road but too far away to be readable at all (or even placed in rock chamber graves, precluding any visibility). It is remarkable that in Karakabaklı and Işıkkale graves were placed in the settlements themselves, mostly close to architecturally sophisticated residential buildings, but none of them were inscribed (136). Secondly, the visualization of social status is evaluated, highlighting forms of religious and occupational self-presentation. While women were mostly mentioned as daughters of their fathers or wives of their husbands, they did assume certain positions in religious contexts (as...