‘Living burials’: reopening actions in kurgans and tombs between Central Europeand the Eurasian Steppe

In recent years increasing attention has been devoted to the re-opening and disturbance actions of several typologies of tombs, especially in monumental burial mounds, amply attested from Eurasia to Europe. It emerged that these funerary monuments were very dynamic areas and represented important places for the societies that built them. Traces of secondary rituals, intentional re-opening actions and other types of activities, and interferences have been often recorded in or around kurgan structures, but also in other typologies of graves. Their interpretations are still rather unclear, but it appears, however, that some of these rituals recur over a very wide geographical and chronological horizon (from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period), within a cross-cultural dimension. The paper presents some case studies, mainly related to the Eurasian Steppes (Scythian culture in particular) showing the typological multiplicity of the phenomenon and their possible interpretations, and stresses the need of a strict methodological approach to the excavation and analysis of these contexts, essential to correctly understand the evidence for re-opening actions and not mistake these with ‘simple’ robbing actions.In recent years increasing attention has been devoted to the re-opening and disturbance actions of several typologies of tombs, especially in monumental burial mounds, amply attested from Eurasia to Europe. It emerged that these funerary monuments were very dynamic areas and represented important places for the societies that built them. Traces of secondary rituals, intentional re-opening actions and other types of activities, and interferences have been often recorded in or around kurgan structures, but also in other typologies of graves. Their interpretations are still rather unclear, but it appears, however, that some of these rituals recur over a very wide geographical and chronological horizon (from the Bronze Age to the Medieval period), within a cross-cultural dimension. The paper presents some case studies, mainly related to the Eurasian Steppes (Scythian culture in particular) showing the typological multiplicity of the phenomenon and their possible interpretations, and stresses the need of a strict methodological approach to the excavation and analysis of these contexts, essential to correctly understand the evidence for re-opening actions and not mistake these with ‘simple’ robbing actions