Corps, objets, images en action

Following research in the social sciences on the performativity of texts and actions, that is, on the capacity of words and deeds to produce meaning, to act on and to transform the world, archaeologists and art historians have taken an interest in this concept with a view to analysing the function of material data and the images featuring on it. This question arises particularly when examining sources from contexts in which symbolic and religious dimensions prevail, as is the case in funerary contexts.

This book is the result of conference that gathered researchers specialising in the different funerary practices performed by Etruscan, Italic and Greek societies in pre-Roman Italy between the eighth and the second centuries BC. The aim is to use the idea of performativity to re-examine data discovered in pre-Roman necropolises, such as corpses and how they were manipulated, objects used during funerary rituals and subsequently placed in tombs, the spatial organization of the tombs themselves and their surroundings, and images featuring on the grave goods and funerary monuments. Considering the different components of the ritual, that is, both spaces and objects as well as the various gestures and sensory manifestations (olfactory, auditory), this research proposes to recontextualize all the data within the funerary ritual in order to grasp its symbolic meaning and active function. By addressing this problem on a large scale, i.e. the whole of pre-Roman Italy in the first millennium BC, we can reconsider the cultural mix discernible in specific contexts and through specific practices, and also a number of regional singularities and cultural transfers.