TRADITION OF ETHNIC IDENTITY IN THE FUNERAL RITES DURING THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: THE CASE OF THRACE

Abstract. The tradition of funeral customs in Thrace, which in the Roman times preserves that of previous generations of Thracian aristocracy is not an isolated phenomenon; it has parallels in other parts of the Roman empire, e-g in some parts of Gallia, in Galatian in Asia Minor, in peripheral areas of Syria etc. The paper should investigate the traces of these funeral traditions in archaeological material and the corpus of inscriptions and try to contribute to clear some less known aspects of this particular phenomenon. Historical, cultural and ethnic identities were formed by the individuals who felt themselves part of them and even nowadays the individual people depend on intentional dimensions of human self-definition. Modern nations are basically different form the ancient ethnic groups, which were more dependent on their leaders, on family relations, on the systems of clients etc., but also old nations were expressions of intentional self-classification of their members and their neighbours who contributed to the self-definition of the former. The ethnic entity was a communicative expression of particularity (specificity) of individual groups, as self-representation of the group as different from its neighbours. Ethic identity had its roots in the language, in the oral tradition, in the religion, rituals und in common symbolic codes of the particular nation (cf. Assmann 1999; Assmann – Friesse, eds.1998). The more general identity (and its classification in Classical Antiquity) was mainly based on the language and on particular religious approaches to the reality