Mnemonic Landscapes and Monuments of the Past: Tumuli, Tholos Tombs and Landscape Associations in Late Middle Bronze Age and Early Late Bronze Age Messenia (Greece)

Abstract

The paper explores the landscape associations between tumuli and tholos tombs in the Aegean. In doing so, emphasis is placed on issues of visibility, proximity and placement of the tombs in the landscape. The extent to which tumuli may have influenced the location of tholos tombs is reconsidered by looking at the process of creation of a new funerary tradition which made claims to the monuments of the past. It is argued that location and landscape associations, as opposed to physical prominence, may have played a crucial role in strategies of display and particularly in the construction and/or reconfiguration of mnemonic landscapes.Galanakis Yannis. Mnemonic Landscapes and Monuments of the Past: Tumuli, Tholos Tombs and Landscape Associations in Late Middle Bronze Age and Early Late Bronze Age Messenia (Greece). In: Ancestral Landscape. Burial mounds in the Copper and Bronze Ages (Central and Eastern Europe – Balkans – Adriatic – Aegean, 4th-2nd millennium B.C.) Proceedings of the International Conference held in Udine, May 15th-18th 2008. Lyon : Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, 2012. pp. 219-229. (Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée. Série recherches archéologiques, 58