From looted tombs to ancient society: a survey of the Southern Necropolis of Cyrene

AbstractThis paper uses the Southern Necropolis of Cyrene as a source of information about Cyrenean society and its evolution through time. The vitality of the aristocratic class produced, already by the sixth century BC, a tradition of monumental tombs using both, conventional, or foreign models according to the identity that each Cyrenean wanted to show. Tombs defined land holdings and the Southern Necropolis is an optimal setting to study their relationships with sanctuaries, roads and quarries. The continuing prosperity of the city increased the number and elaboration of tombs, especially in Classical/Hellenistic times when the Archaic territorial divisions became invisible in a landscape overcrowded by sepulchres. A tradition particularly focused on external façades was developed, possibly underlying a focus on funerary rituals held outside the tombs. After the Ptolemaic and Roman conquests this tradition was challenged by external models and Cyreneans tried to adapt foreign customs into their ancient ritual systems, for example through portrait-busts. With time the foreign models prevailed and the tombs displayed elements shared with a wider Roman cultural elite, nevertheless, already from the third century AD onwards, the regional crises sign the end of the monumental necropolis' phenomenon.