Ritual Landscapes and Ritual Codes in the Pithekoussai Cemetery

The cemetery of Pithekoussai, in its early phases, was in use for about 150 years. The excavated portion of the burial ground contains more than 600 graves, the majority of which belongs to a period concentrated between 740 and 680 BC. Thanks to Giorgio Buchner’s excavations we have significant information about the funerary practices. Among the most interesting aspects that emerged from a systematic analysis of the stratigraphy was the reinterpretation of the diachronic and demographic evolution of the necropolis. This has provided extremely important data, both about the structure of the funerary groups and the way the ritual landscape was laid out. The analysis here reveals that the community did not discriminate based on categories of age, gender, or social status in the formal disposal of the dead, and possibly also not on the ethnic origin of the deceased. Instead the evidence suggests a degree of integration and cultural hybridization, a point that is particularly interesting considering the historical context. Thanks to the interweaving of stratigraphic data with “sociological” ones, the interpreters have the uncommon opportunity to investigate the burial ground also through its complex web of family, “ethnic” and social relationships. The cemetery in the Valle di San Montano can therefore become the privileged terrain for an accurate reconstruction of the diachronic evolution of a “multi-ethnic” community, whose composition seems to reflect the “natural” demographic canons and whose representativeness, at the same time, it is not excessively altered by the action of those ritual filters that usually distort the funerary sample. In the present paper, we will briefly limit ourselves to analysing the main characteristics of the funeral sample, focusing attention on some components of the ritual landscape and on the possible interpretation of their codes.