This subject explores cultural approaches to the single event which will occur to all humankind: death. While concentrating on the archaeology, art and textual evidence from Greco-Roman antiquity, the subject also draws upon case studies from later periods (including the Early Modern and Modern periods) to illustrate the richness and variety of cultural responses to death, employing modern ethnographic parallels to aid the interpretation of past practices. Topics covered will include the role of burial practices in defining living societies, through declarations not only of religion but also social status, age, gender and ethnicity in funerary procedures and monuments constructed to commemorate the dead; ideas, literature and art surrounding the afterlife, ghosts and underworld; and social approaches to ways of death such as war, disease and crime.

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