Remembering the Ancestors. A Grave-Marker from the “Schythian” Cemetery at Sâncrai (Alba County)

Abstract

Mobility, migration, and conquest of endless horizons ... they have all been, since the beginning, essential traits of human existence. That is why the way different identity constructs were transformed or emerged as a consequence of local, regional or long-distance human mobility and migration has been an important research topic for social sciences. The purpose of this article is to see how the memory of the ancestors was reinterpreted and used in the process of reshaping collective identities triggered by the “Celtic” colonisation of Transylvania in the 4th century BC, and to determine the role it played in the interaction with the indigenous “Scythian” populations. Within this framework, the paper also includes a case study about the concrete ways of communicating the memory of the ancestors from one generation to another. In Transylvania, the “Scythian” horizon is represented by cemeteries with flat inhumation burials, and rarely cremations, which were recently dated to the 8th–5th / 4th centuries BC. The evolution of these communities was interrupted after the middle of the 4th century BC by the arrival of “Celtic” groups coming from the west. Their arrival determined a social reconfiguration of many local communities, as well as the appearance of new communities which displayed various degrees of cultural hybridisation. In several cases from the same region, the newcomers reused the funerary grounds which previously belonged to the local communities. Earlier burial grounds more likely became places of memory integrated into the local collective identity as symbolic references to a mythical past, providing a physical connection with the ancestors. Their later reuse reflects the cohabitation of the newcomers with the locals, as well as the will of the former to incorporate identity markers which were relevant in the local environment into the identity constructs of the newly established communities as a means of legitimisation. Grave no. 9/2020 from Sâncrai is one example of the manner in which the memory of the ancestors was passed down over time across generations.