Building funerary monuments is the most visible way of channelling pain and grief at the death of a person. Due to their visibility, however, monuments also play a significant role in the construction of shared memory, and thereby in the negotiation of social values and norms. A conference held at Tübingen in November 2017 aimed to understand in how far grave markers could be read as a direct reflection of past realities [what archaeologists sometimes call a mirror of life], or rather represent a picture of the deceased constructed by the survivors. The contributions collected in this volume range from Archaic western Greece, and via Classical Attica, and Hellenistic and Roman central and Northern Greece, to Roman Asia Minor and the west Roman provinces. Alongside sculptures and architectural monuments it also includes epigraphic sources. This diversity of evidence, further extended through a comparative outlook on contemporary cemeteries in Berlin and surroundings, illustrates the central role of social conventions in the design of grave markers in the different periods and areas.

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Die Verarbeitung des Todes ist eine wesentliche kulturhistorische Konstante. Der Band beschäftigt sich besonders mit dem Erinnerungswert von Grabdenkmälern und den sich aus Form und Ikonographie ergebenden Konsequenzen für das jeweilige gesellschaftliche Umfeld. Nach einer Einführung der Herausgeberinnen werden folgende Aspekte untersucht: der Ursprung des griechischen Grabreliefs, die Grabmonumente der westgriechischen Kolonien zwischen Konkurrenz, individueller Erinnerung und Gemeinschaft, attische Gräber im Wechselspiel von Lebenswirklichkeit, gesellschaftlichen Konstruktionen und moderner Eschatologie, Grabmonumente und Familiengedenken am Beispiel der Lekythos des Lysis von Axione in Moschato, Marmorgefäße und die Repräsentation von oikos-Strukturen in attischen Grabbezirken, kommemorative Muster bei Grabstelen aus Ambrakia, [Dis]Kontinuitäten am Beispiel zweier Grabmonumente aus Ostätolien, die Monumentalisierung kilikischer Nekropolen im 2./3. Jh. n.Chr., die Cup[ul]ae von Albano Laziale, die Literalität römischer Frauen im Spiegel der Grabreliefs und Sepulchralkultur als Ausdruck von Wertewandel im Berlin des 19./20. Jh. n.Chr..

Having to cope with death is an essential cultural-historical constant. This volume focusses on the memory-related qualities of grave monuments and the consequences resulting from their shape and iconography in relation to the related social environment. After an introduction by the editors, the following aspects are investigated: The origin of Greek burial reliefs, the grave monuments of Western Greek colonies between competition, individual remembrance, and community, Attic graves in the interplay of social reality, societal constructs, and modern eschatology, grave monuments and family remembrance by the example of the lekythos of Lysis from Axione at Moschato, marble vessels and the representation of oikos structures in Attic grave precincts, commemorative patterns of grave stelae from Ambracia, [dis]continuities by the example of two grave monuments from Eastern Aetolia, the monumentalisation of Cilician necropoleis in the 2nd/3rd cenury. A.D., the Cup[ul]ae at Albano Laziale, the literality of Roman women as reflected by grave monuments, and funeral architecture as an expression of changing values in Berlin in the 19th/20th century A.D..