The Influence of Paganism on the Formation of the Christian Funerary Tradition, Rituals, and Practices in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean.

In this paper the influence of paganism on the burial traditions, rituals, and practices of Late Antique Christianity from the Eastern Mediterranean is researched. This is achieved through the study of the overall archaeological record which is related to death and burials as well as of other historical sources where the relationship between Christians and pagans becomes apparent. Christians and pagans lived together and peacefully most of the time for more than five hundred years. Christianity emerged in a world full of pagan gods and cults and therefore was inevitable not to remain intact. This unintentional and long communion between Christianity and paganism becomes obvious through the archaeology of death from certain sites in Greece, Syro-Palestine, and Egypt, where grave goods and manifestations of funerary art, inscriptions and epitaphs, bear witness to an immediate contact between the two. The archaeology of death, although vague for the eastern part of the Mediterranean...Show moreIn this paper the influence of paganism on the burial traditions, rituals, and practices of Late Antique Christianity from the Eastern Mediterranean is researched. This is achieved through the study of the overall archaeological record which is related to death and burials as well as of other historical sources where the relationship between Christians and pagans becomes apparent. Christians and pagans lived together and peacefully most of the time for more than five hundred years. Christianity emerged in a world full of pagan gods and cults and therefore was inevitable not to remain intact. This unintentional and long communion between Christianity and paganism becomes obvious through the archaeology of death from certain sites in Greece, Syro-Palestine, and Egypt, where grave goods and manifestations of funerary art, inscriptions and epitaphs, bear witness to an immediate contact between the two. The archaeology of death, although vague for the eastern part of the Mediterranean due to insufficient research, illustrates the influences of paganism on Christianity, giving at the same time an insight on the emerging Christian identity and the Christianization processes that the Roman world faced during the period of Late Antiquity.Show less

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The Influence of Paganism on the Formation of the Christian Funerary Tradition, Rituals, and Practices in the Late Antique Eastern Mediterranean.