This was an unusual burial. A cremation in ancient Sagalassos, a city in southwestern Turkey that virtually disappeared in the 7th century AD. because of an earthquake. The grave was littered with intentionally bent nails. And the whole complex was carefully sealed under a brick wall and a layer of lime.
The archaeologists who have studied the site are clear: it is a “magical” burial intended to prevent the living from having contact with the “restless dead”, a soft way of referring to the “resurrected” (zombies, vampires or whatever). you to be what kind of being), as they explain in an article published in the Antiquity magazine.
Several parts of Sagalassos, located on one of the slopes of the Taurus mountain, in the province of Burdur, were buried under several layers of construction materials. Untouched, sealed under the ruins and vegetation that quickly covered the place. Hence, in 2010 a campaign was launched to analyze this unique context.
In Roman times, between 100 and 150 AD, an adult man was cremated and buried in the same place, in a type of practice that was unusual at the time. Up to 41 bent and twisted nails, 24 meticulously placed bricks, and a thick layer of plaster covering everything were left next to the cremation pyre.
“The burial was not closed with one, nor with two, but even with three different ways, which can be understood as an attempt to protect the living from the dead, or vice versa,” says archaeologist Johan Claeys of the University of Catholic of Leuven and lead author of the study.
The three items in the burial had been observed separately, but their combination had never been found, the researchers reveal. Typically, Roman-era cremations involved collecting the ashes, which were placed in an urn and then buried in a tomb or placed in a mausoleum.
At Sagalassos, however, everything was done in the same place, which allowed experts to deduce from the position of the remaining bones. Even the grave goods were unusual. Because, seen what has been seen, one might think that the deceased was someone little loved. Instead, he was accompanied by all the typical funerary items of the time (a ‘Charon’s mite’, perfume bottles, food containers, and a shroud or clothing), which would indicate that he was a loved one.
Claeys believes that the man in this strange grave was probably buried by his next of kin in a ceremony that would have taken days to prepare. The expert understands that this burial was perhaps carried out in this way to counter an unusual death, although no evidence of trauma or disease has been found in the bones.
The researchers point out that all the ritual that was followed in this burial seems to be linked to ancient magical beliefs. The presence of nails in Roman funerary contexts, for example, is used to seek the protection of the deceased from evil in the afterlife or to prevent the dead from harming the living.
The “restless dead”, explain the authors of the study, would be the result of a premature or violent death, of a corpse that has not been buried or of someone who has had a deviant life. The position of the nails, the experts add, seems to form a magical barrier that surrounds the remains of the funeral pyre.
“It seems that in this case most of the rites associated with a normative burial were followed, while at the same time protecting the community from any possible harm from the ‘unsettled dead’, using nails, bricks and lime. The combination of all these elements implies a fear”, say the archaeologists.
“Regardless of whether the cause of death was traumatic, mysterious, or the result of contagious disease or retribution, it appears to have left this dead with intent to retaliate and the living in fear of the deceased’s return,” they conclude.
