D(is) M(anibus) S(acrum) – AN OVERVIEW OF FUNERARY BEHAVIOURS ON THE TERRITORY OF PRESENT-DAY SWITZERLAND FROM LATE PROTOHISTORY TO EARLY MEDIEVAL TIMES THROUGH THE STUDY OF MATERIAL REMAINS, TEXTUAL SOURCES AND FUNERARY INSCRIPTIONS

Abstract

The present article addresses the subject of funerary behaviours on the territory of present-day Switzerland from the end of the protohistoric period to the beginning of the Middle Ages. In order to explore this topic, a careful analysis of material remains, textual sources and funerary inscriptions was carried out. This approach primarily aimed at developing an up-todate and multidisciplinary vision of the question of funerary behaviours in the defined chronological and geographical range. In this sense, gestures, rites, commemorative modalities, funerary recruitment, as well as legal and religious frameworks and the collective social understanding of death were closely studied. By doing so, this research endeavoured to include any contribution to the clarification of the topic under study provided by various disciplines such as funerary archaeology, biological anthropology, ancient history, geography, social anthropology, religious sciences, law, literature and philology, and ancient funerary epigraphy. Considering these different sources and insights for the case of 6 distinct places in Switzerland (Geneva – Genava, Nyon – Colonia Iulia Equestris, Augst / Kaiseraugst – Augusta Raurica, Valais – Vallis Pœnina, Brugg / Gebenstorf / Windisch – Vindonissa and Avenches – Aventicum) enabled to draw – in a relatively precise manner – the outline of the funerary phenomenon in Switzerland during Antiquity. Thus, several different dynamics in the evolution of funerary behaviours, according to the places under study, were observed. This state of fact probably reflects the way in which the different communities which lived on the territory of presentday Switzerland during Antiquity interacted, made sense of, appropriated or disregarded Roman funerary and/or cultural codes more globally speaking. In the same way, the partial hybridization of local ancestral customs and the diffusion of exogenous ideas throughout the complex geopolitical and sociocultural structure of the Roman provincial world – and more specifically Gaul – could also be highlighted thanks to this novel approach; at least in as much as the territory of present-day Switzerland is concerned..