Protohistoric metal-urn cremation burials (1400–100 BC): a pan-European phenomenon

Abstract

Archaeologists have long looked to Homeric epic, which describes the collection of heroes’ ashes in metal vessels for interment, as a comparison to high-status burials found in the Greek world and, beyond, in temperate Europe. Rarely, however, has the phenomenon of aristocratic metal-urn cremation burials across Bronze and Iron Age Europe and the Mediterranean been analysed as a single phenomenon. The author presents a continental-scale study based on a corpus of nearly 600 burials, identifying chronological and geographical patterns. The results emphasise how this elite funerary custom drew on and extended a set of shared aristocratic values and practices across Europe and the Mediterranean in the first millennium BC.