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Libyan Period Royal Burials in Context

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2015

Sheldon Lee Gosline
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Abstract

This essay will examine to what extent the archaeological evidence from North Africa does or does not reveal an indifference to permanent funereal memorials in the form of monumental superstructures. In particular, comparison will be made with the royal tombs of Tanis from the Libyan Period in Egypt. The validity of the Marxist derived assumption that nomadism is a lifestyle unconcerned with monuments to the dead will also be considered in this context.

In historical times, coastal North Africa has been colonized repeatedly, and each group has provided an additional layer of cultural influence. While this colonial process did not eliminate the influence of the underlying native system, this layered colonization of Cyrenaica and the various indigenous groups of the region had a profound effect on the development of funerary architecture. Hybrid funerary systems and architectural forms developed, and it is perhaps a synthesis of these forms which could truly be labelled as ‘Libyan’, since it is their unifying features which define the characteristic attributes of that culture's approach to the treatment of their dead.

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Libyan Studies , Volume 26 , 1995, pp. 1 - 20
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Copyright © Society for Libyan Studies 1995

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