Call for Papers

The EABS Research Unit ‘Jews, Christians, and the Materiality of Mortuary Rituals in Late Antiquity’ (2024-2026) is inviting proposals for papers for the EABS Annual Conference June 23-27 2025 (Uppsala University, Sweden). We are pleased to announce that the conference will be held jointly with ISBL.

Overview of the Research Unit

This research unit provides an interdisciplinary forum for biblical scholars and material culture specialists, seeking to understand the mortuary rituals of Mediterranean Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity both in their broader (‘pagan’) contexts and in relation to each other. The term ‘mortuary rituals’ refers to death-related ritual practices, such as the treatment of the body, mourning, commemoration, and continued interaction with the deceased (e.g., visits to the burial place, festivals for the dead). These rituals were facilitated by various forms of material culture, which still leave their traces: inscriptions, burial vessels, grave goods, funerary architecture, feasting accessories, etc. It is now generally acknowledged that the strict division between the mortuary rituals of ‘pagans’, Jews, and Christians is overly simplistic, also in terms of their material features. Since Jews and Christians were integral parts of their communities, their mortuary rituals were part and parcel of their cultural surroundings; at the same time, these started to take on distinctive features, often understood in terms of deliberate demarcation. This is the starting point for considering questions like these ritual practitioners’ attitudes towards death, the identities of the deceased and their relatives, or the boundaries between this world and the next.

Uppsala 2025 CFP: “Beyond Categorization: New Perspectives on the Funerary Monuments for Pagans, Jews, and Christians in Late Antiquity”

Studying material from Late Antiquity, it is nearly impossible to get past the attribution of a “religious identity/category” to artifacts, especially artifacts retrieved from spaces for rituals such as funerary contexts. But, for many reasons, this systematic − but necessary? − use of religious classification can be a bit reductive. Our starting point here is to ask: is there potential for blurred lines?

This session will consider funerary monuments for pagans, Jews, and Christians from multiple perspectives (e.g., epigraphic, iconographic, archaeological). This includes a wide variety of (portable) monuments, such as funerary reliefs (e.g. loculi), sarcophagi, gold glasses, lamps, and grave goods. We invite papers addressing especially, but not exclusively, the following questions:

• On which scholarly grounds do we assign certain types of monuments to pagans, Jews, or Christians, as opposed to their co-religionists?
• In which sense were these monuments embedded in their local cultures; in which sense could these take on distinctive features?
• How were patterns of commemoration inflected by overlapping categories of social organization, such as status, age, gender? In other words: how were epigraphic habits, iconographic codes, and display options appropriated, adapted, or even subverted on monuments for pagans, Jews, and Christians, to create suitable monuments for the diverse members of their communities?
• In which ways were these monuments widely comprehensible in their community, irrespective of one’s background, but potentially open to multiple perspectives, depending on one’s background?

The session will serve as a platform for intellectual exchange and collaboration, allowing participants to present their research, engage in stimulating discussions, and foster links with colleagues. In order to establish an interdisciplinary forum, we would like to invite both theoretical/methodological papers and sample case studies from experts in various fields (e.g., Ancient History, Theology, Hebrew Bible Studies, Jewish Studies, New Testament Studies, Art History, Classical and Late Antique Archaeology). The abstract should clearly indicate the monuments presented and analyzed, the method(s) applied to this material, and how it contributes to our understanding of mortuary rituals in Late Antiquity. We particularly welcome papers on ongoing projects, dealing with multiple religious groups and perspectives. We plan to publish the outcomes of the research unit meetings in a format that suits the number of contributions and themes.

If you have any questions or require further information, please contact:

Caroline Bridel (Co-Chair, University of Bern)

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Arabella Cortese (Co-Chair, University of Regensburg)

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Daniela Coppola  (Co-Chair, University of Munich)

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Sarah Hollaender  (Co-Chair, University of Graz)

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Julian Hollaender (Steering Committee, State Office for Monument Preservation Baden-Württemberg)

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