The conference “Looking at the Dead. Look for the dead”, which will present some reflections on funerary practices from the 4th and 3rd millenniums BC, in southern Portugal, will take place on Thursday, January 18, at 21 pm, at the Museological Nucleus of Rua do Sembrano, in Beja.
Starting from the archaeological record, the funerary practices, gestures, architectures and objects linked to Death, in the 4th and 3rd millenniums BC, in southern Portugal, will be discussed, reflecting on the growing centrality of the funerary universe – in its multiple components – in the process of social organization of Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities.
The effective investment made in the construction, use and transformation of megalithic monuments, the objects that denounce social prominence, the materials that reflect a growing symbolic complexity, the intense manipulation of human remains are some of the elements used in this reflection that allow us to reconstruct the complex role of Death and the active role that the dead have in social dynamics, throughout the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, in southern Portugal.
The conference will be led by Mariana Diniz, archaeologist, PhD in Archeology and Pre-History, professor at the History Department of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon, sub-director of the Archeology Center of the Faculty of Arts of the University of Lisbon – UNIARQ and member of the board of the Association of Portuguese Archaeologists.
This initiative is part of the exhibition cycle “Under the Earth and Waters – Because there are always new stories to tell…”. Thus, on this day, the archeology exhibition “Looking at the world 5000 years ago” will also be inaugurated, organized by EDIA, the Municipality of Beja and the Regional Directorate of Culture of Alentejo, with the support of the Association for the Defense of the Heritage of Beja.
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