Magical practices? A non-normative Roman imperial cremation at Sagalassos

Many thousands of burials have been excavated from across the Roman world, documenting a variety of funerary practices and rites. Individual burials, however, sometimes stand out for their atypical characteristics. The authors report the discovery of a cremation burial from ancient Sagalassos that differs from contemporaneous funerary deposits. In this specific context, the cremated human remains were not retrieved but buried in situ, surrounded by a scattering of intentionally bent nails, and carefully sealed beneath a raff of tiles and a layer of lime. For each of these practices, textual and archaeological parallels can be found elsewhere in the ancient Mediterranean world, collectively suggesting that magical beliefs were at work. Keywords: Turkey, Roman, funerary practices, non-normative burial, materiality of magic, nails, plaster burials
Introduction Occasionally, the archaeological record allows us a glimpse beyond the mere material and into the mindset of people in the past. A cremation burial from the eastern necropolis of [...]