Society and Burials from Central-Western Macedon, 550-300 BCE: Intersections of Gender, Age, and Status

Abstract

This dissertation studies Macedonian mortuary behavior between 550 and 300 BCE to learn more about the society that performed it. The topic has rarely been studied using a large dataset, and much can be learned, especially about women, children, and non-elites. This work moves away from a focus on a handful of exceptional graves and also works from the archaeological record outward instead of assuming an athenocentric model that places Macedon as “the Other.” To do this, a feminist, intersectional framework is used to investigate how different facets of identity interacted, both at the level of individuals and groups. In the process, this study questions overarching historical arguments based on textual and ethnographic sources, in many places either nuancing or contradicting narratives about Macedonian society.

The work is divided into three parts. Chapters 1 through 3 introduce the theoretical frameworks and methodology used as well as providing an overview of Macedonian mortuary behavior and the data available. The second part focuses on social personae, with Chapters 4–6 devoted to men, women, and children, respectively. Chapter 4 argues that while weapons and military associations were important for many Macedonian men, they were far less universal than one might expect and, importantly, dwindled in importance just as Late Classical and Hellenistic armies began to expand. Chapter 5 looks at women, concluding that women’s status was possibly related to fertility but that they were also active in religious life and even production or property ownership. There is no unequivocal evidence for female warriors in the archaeological record to support textual sources mentioning them, but elite women were buried with more objects usually associated with men, perhaps speaking of an intersection between gender and wealth where similar symbols were used to indicate status or gender depending on the context. Chapter 6 on children yields some of the most surprising evidence for intersections of the different aspects of identity. While the vast majority of infants and young children were buried in ways or in places that have not been archaeologically recovered, the burials that have been published paint a rich picture of how Macedonians conceived of childhood. Status was clearly ascribed at least in some cases and could be aspirational, but some graves have also yielded evidence for children being seen as in need of special care-taking and looking after. Crucially, the differences between wealthy and poor child burials are dramatic, perhaps reflecting the importance of dynasties and family lineages to the elites, ideologies not shared by those less well off.

The final part, consisting of Chapter 7 to 9, looks at the big picture: hierarchy and change over time and space. While the graves contained differing amounts of grave goods, the distribution is a continuum rather than forming clearly identifiable classes that could be mapped on to groups mentioned in textual sources. Macedon was a profoundly unequal society throughout the period under study, but interestingly the wealth supposedly flooding into the area in the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods seems to have trickled only to a narrow elite, with the majority of burials getting poorer. Variation seems to be driven mainly by diachronic shifts rather than regional differences, although certain local idiosyncrasies can be pointed to. The Hellenistic period seems to have accommodated more individual variation and a broader range of grave goods.