the bilj cemetery copy

8/10/2019 The Bilj Cemetery Copy

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Problem 12: The Cemetery of BiljS. Daniels and N. David, The Archaeology Workbook (Philadelphia 1982) 98-104.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

The Ruritanian Hac Mountains, sometimes called the cockpit of the Balkans, have throughout historybeen a cultural backwater into which ideas filtered only slowly. Their picturesque inhabitants (see

International Geographical Magazine, No. 769) are the descendants of the many refugee populations

who, in flight before invaders of the lowland plains, have sought sanctuary in the hills. So it was inprehistory. In a little-known fragment of his Ges Periodos (A Voyage Around the World), Hekataios ( fl.500 B.C.), the grandfather of history, described the situation as it must have existed some twogenerations before his time:

The Chroesnes mountains [as they were known to the Greeks] are inhabited by two tribes, theBotachoi and the Iardames, who having been much harried by raids of the riders of the steppesnorth of the Euxine [Black] Sea there live in perfect amity one with another. Alone amongbarbarians these peoples are said to worship the setting Sun and to abhor rosy-fingered Dawn.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA:

Dr. Matlo, an enthusiastic amateur prehistorian and man of letters, discovered and excavated a cemetery

at Bilj, a small village below the provincial town of Foksul. He found a total of 20 graves, 6 of whichcontained cremations in urns. He has published a short paper containing a list of grave furniture (table12.1), drawings of a number of finds (figure 12.1), and a plan (figure 12.2). The plan is semischematicand shows the urns in a cross section with the cremated remains (including artifacts buried with the body)represented inside the urns, and any other grave goods depicted outside as they were found in the pitcontaining the urn. He noted that bones were very poorly preserved; only in a few cases was it possible todetermine the sex or other physical characteristics of the burials.

Dr. Matlo attributes the cemetery to the transition between the Bronze and Iron Ages, which hewas here able to date to the first half of the sixth century B.C. on the evidence of a Cimmerian horsebridle bit of the late seventh century (Grave 7) and a Scythian horse cheek piece of the sixth century B.C.(Grave 20). Although he suggested that the cemetery may have served a village occupied by bothBotachoi and Iardames, Dr. Matlo made no attempt to place the burials in chronological order and did not

assign individuals to one or the other ethnic group. Nor, except on the basis of the fragmentary biologicalevidence, did he try to determine their ages, sexes, craft, or other occupations or social status. His paperends with a quote from Sir Thomas Brownes Hydriotaphia, Urne Buriall :

What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself amongwomen, though puzling Questions are not beyond all conjecture. What time the persons of theOssuaries entred the famous Nations of the dead, and slept with Princes and Counsellours, mightadmit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashesmade up, were a question above Antiquarism.* 1

Do you agree? After all, the contingency table below suggests that there may bemany significant associations requiring interpretation.

NUMBER OF FIBULAEONE MORE THAN ONE

PRESENT 10 2WEAPONS(including dagger, knives) ABSENT 1 6

1 Sir Thomas Browne, Urne Buriall and the Garden of Cyrus , ed. John Carter (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1958), p. 44.


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