Abstract
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Highlights
Whilst working on my doctoral thesis on ancient Greek waste management, news of a human body that was discovered by police after it had been thrown away like a piece of rubbish, and the well-known photo of a Bosnian corpse surrounded by garbage, which was taken by Fullone (Vergine 1997, 195, fig. 214), drew my attention to the fact that objects and materials were thrown away like, or together with, rubbish, and the physical remains of humans
Since I was exploring the practices of disposal and recycling in ancient Greece, I was not so much interested in the casual disposal of the physical remains of modern people, but rather in those of ancient Greeks
A synthetic study based on the critical discussion of both the relevant literary sources, which tend to shed light on the public and male-dominated domain of archaic and classical Athens, and archaeological sources, which tend to illuminate a much longer time-span and a much broader topographical area, has not been presented
Summary
The literary and archaeological evidence for burial practices that can be associated with the English expression ‘to be disposed of like rubbish’ are discussed. These disposal methods (átaphon rhíptesthai) include the exposure of corpses to carrion animals, to the elements, as well as the disposal of corpses into the sea, pits or natural fissures without burial rites. They include cases in which graves were dug up in order to throw their contents out.
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