"Banquet and Grave." Methods, aims and first results of a recent research project

In February 2009, a three-year research project entitled "Banquet and Grave" was launched. Located in Vienna, a collaboration between the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the project comprises the systematic analysis of all the banqueting and drinking feast scenes connected with funeral purposes in the ancient Mediterranean, between the time span of the eighth to third/second centuries BC, considering both iconographic and hermeneutic questions. The focus lies on Italy (Etruscans, Italian peoples, Greeks, Phoenicians-Carthaginians), Greece (mainland and islands), the northern Balkan regions (Macedonia, Thrace) and Asia Minor with its widespread evidence (especially Lycia and Phrygia). In order to be able to trace the original concepts of the picture theme and possible development lines, the Middle Eastern and Egyptian evidence of the late second and first millennium is also included. The frequency of feasting and drinking motifs in the funerary sphere, its different typological developments and combinations with other picture themes are directly linked to the specific socio-political structure of the particular society or cultural group. Furthermore, the individual client and the statement he wishesd to make play an important role. Based on numerous regional analyses, the main goal of the project is a supra-regional comparison, considering the socio-political and religious backgrounds and including questions concerning the cultural transfer and/or parallel developments. First results emerging from a detailed analysis of Etruscan and Lycian evidence will be presented.This conference paper is not currently available via ORA