How did inscriptions, bodies and objects interact during funerary rituals in Late Antiquity? This question, posed by the editors of this rich volume, stems from a 2019 Heidelberg conference that brought together 25 international scholars. The editors’ goal is ambitious: to provide a contextualised view of late antique funerary epigraphy and archaeology and present diverse regional and local developments in funerary practices. Given the fragmented nature of studies on late antique burials, this is a monumental challenge. However, the volume does not seek to resolve debates, but rather foster interdisciplinary dialogue, reflecting the complexity of funerary practices. They make significant efforts to integrate evidence from various regions, including Spain, North Africa, Egypt, Palestine, Arabia, Asia Minor, Cilicia, Thracia and Illyricum, Rome, Venetia and Histria and the Rhine frontiers, offering a broad comparative perspective. A recurring theme is the rise of Christianity and whether certain funerary elements can be distinctly identified as Christian.
The introduction sets the stage by engaging with current debates while resisting oversimplifications. One key example is the theme of grave re-openings (36), which the authors contextualise within the rivalry for burial plots near saints’ graves that was diffused during Late Antiquity, on top of alternative reasons that are better known from earlier periods (e.g. ancestry, family). They also advocate for materiality-based approaches to epitaphs (42), encouraging epigraphists and archaeologists to collaborate on shared investigative frameworks. Ultimately, they succeed in assembling a community of scholars committed to integrating multi-material perspectives from Late Antiquity with the ambition to contribute to the broader conceptualisation of death and burial.
Chronologically, while the chapters cover the third to eighth centuries c.e., most material evidence concentrates between the fifth and sixth centuries. Thematically, each chapter detects changes in funerary practices and investigates their social implications. When approached with theoretical awareness, these analyses yield compelling results. Ardeleanu challenges long-held assumptions by demonstrating that North African epitaphs were not exclusive to urban areas (111), underlining the role of rural communities in making heterogeneous regional — or even local — identities. Similarly, Osnabrügge's study of the Rhine Valley draws attention to often overlooked assemblages of material evidence such as the lateral surfaces — not visible because used to embed the inscription into buildings — of epitaphs, offering new insights into the construction of the broader funerary landscape.
Several papers share common threads. Christianity's influence on burial practices is a major focus: some authors (Destephen, Bianchi, Merten) maintain that it was a crucial factor in reshaping attitudes towards death, while others (Ardeleanu, Prien) caution against over-reliance on Christianisation as an all-encompassing model, advocating for broader interpretive frameworks — akin to the shift away from other ‘-isations’ for earlier periods.
A closer examination of individual contributions highlights diverse methodologies. Bianchi's study of ossuaries and primary tombs in late antique Palestine and Arabia employs bioarchaeological and isotopic analyses alongside epigraphic data to reveal the prolonged use of ossuaries and the diverse geographic origins from across Arabia of those interred. In the same region, Gatier observes a decrease in funerary epigraphy in Provincia Arabia compared to Palestina Tertia, alongside emerging trends like anepigraphic stelae and the increase of elite family tombs within churches.
Destephen explores Asia Minor's conversion to Christianity through subtle epigraphic changes, arguing that late antique standardisation reflects the increasing influence of religious elites — e.g. inscriptions with poetic quotations. Cubas Díaz examines Rough Cilicia's spatial organisation of necropoleis, detecting micro-regional variations underpinning family bonds and professional affiliations. Ott's work on Corinth identifies distributional patterns of grave goods, reinforcing correlations between epitaph ownership and tomb location.
Valeva's investigation of elite funerary monuments in Thracia and eastern Illyricum highlights the region's intermediary position between western and eastern traditions, inviting scholars to give attention to the epigraphic evidence of the Balkan provinces, reinforced by its impressive visual record pertaining to both the pagan and Christian worlds. Nuzzo contrasts urban and rural epigraphic practices in Apulia and Calabria, noting a stark discrepancy between well-documented urban epitaphs and largely anepigraphic rural burials — in opposition to the North African picture.
Zimmermann and Felle's chapters scrutinise Rome's catacombs. The former addresses ownership of the overall spaces and of graves, highlighting differences between Christian and Jewish catacombs. The latter demonstrates the existence of controlled management of the graves from Domitilla's catacomb. Mainardi's study of eastern Venetia underscores the challenges posed by fragmentary evidence, calling for greater attention to inscriptions lacking explicit Christian markers, to help visualise human groups that are ‘other’. By criticising the tradition of studies that interpret the Rhine frontier predominantly in terms of chronology and ethnicity, at the expense of the reconstruction of funerary practices as a set of intentional gestures, Prien advocates for comparative analyses of burial customs across different regions. Merten attributes Trier's wealth of funerary inscriptions to its substantial Christian community. Uberti's study of south-western Gaul successfully shows how inscriptions shape funerary spaces and social dynamics.
The book provides a clear state-of-the-field assessment and sets the stage for future research. However, some gaps remain: the lack of stratigraphic information and the insufficient quantity of bioarchaeological studies, making it hard to understand the impact of crucial elements like gender, age or ethnicity in practices like associating epitaphs with specific buried individuals. The omission of the Mediterranean islands is noticeable given their similarities with North Africa, Italy, Spain and Palestine. This can be addressed in future research, showing how ideas and people moved between those regions through power relationships, migrations and enslavement.
Another crucial area for development, perhaps more challenging, is the discrepancy between elite and non-elite burials: as Valeva notes, ‘the absolute majority of burials in Late Antiquity, as in previous periods, was modest, if not poor’ (327). This is acknowledged by several other authors. Yet most contributions here focus exclusively on high-status burials. This raises an important methodological and ethical question that leaves us at a crossroads: if we consistently prioritise elite burials while recognising that most people in antiquity were far removed from power, what kind of historical narratives are we constructing, and what power structures are we implicitly reinforcing and projecting to our own days? The integration of theoretically robust bioarchaeological analysis is another pressing need. Given the field's rapid advancements, future studies must make a greater effort to incorporate these methodologies not only to accumulate more data — which often results in tokenising the human body and bioarchaeology — but rather to shape different interdisciplinary research questions on funerary practices and identities.
Despite these shortcomings — inevitable with such a challenging project — the volume succeeds in its central aim. The wealth of high-quality illustrations enhances the reader's engagement. The diverse range of authors, while leading to some stylistic heterogeneity, ultimately enriches the volume by reflecting different scholarly traditions and varied levels of accessibility of the evidence across modern national systems. A key strength of the collection is its commitment to reintegrating neglected evidence into broader archeological discourse. Whether by revisiting overlooked material culture, epigraphic forms or entire provinces, the contributions advocate for more inclusive approaches to the evidence.
Although the many tasks of a reviewer of a more than one-thousand-page book certainly do not include predicting the future, I feel that many scholars and students of both funerary archaeology and epigraphy of Late Antiquity and beyond will find this book valuable, and a precious reference for their work. Through its multi-layered perspectives, the volume succeeds in underscoring the complexity of funerary spaces — sites of memory, negotiation and transformation. It is our collective responsibility to guide future research in directions that further illuminate these dynamics.
