Due to the elite perspective of the literary sources on ancient Macedonia under the Argeads, the focus of Macedonian studies has usually been on the leading circles: the Argead family clan and the influential Macedonian families. In the realm of archaeology, the excavations of the elite burials of Aigai-Vergina in particular have reinforced this special focus. Major themes in scholarly discussion concern Argead relations with the elite, the army, the court, and neighboring political powers, Argead dynastic representation, warfare, and royal women. Elina M. Salminen’s study offers insights into Macedonian society on a broader scale, including non-elite social groups; it is thus a highly promising contribution to the current debate about the social history of non-elite Macedonians, their burial practices and belief in an existence after death, and the expression of hierarchical and status differences between elite and non-elite Macedonians as mirrored by the mortuary practices.
Drawing on a database of 1,146 published burials from Central and Western Macedonia in the era between 550 to 300 BC (not excavated by herself), synthesized to date, Salminen explores Macedonian mortuary behavior and material culture with a specific focus on aspects of gender, childhood, and social status by applying intersectionality. The first part of the book is a thorough, careful, and profound introduction to theoretical and methodological approaches to the mortuary record and archaeological material, an overview of approaches to gender in archaeology in general and to gender in Macedonian burials specifically, and to the current state of research on Macedonian non-elite mortuary practices (pp. 3–79). This introductory part provides also non-expert audiences with useful guidelines and insight into the characteristics of the author’s field of research. For example, pointing out that a broad range of burial types were used in Macedonia, Salminen explains the types of burial mentioned (pp. 56–62) and dedicates a separate chapter to the ideas of afterlife in Macedonia (pp. 67–70). The second part analyzes the characteristics of children’s, women’s and men’s burials based on the osteological remains and the spatial features (in the sense of (a) organization of skeletal remains in the tombs and (b) spatial patterns in the cemeteries). Thereby, gender and age are determined by osteological remains. The determinations of the osteological remains leads to the conclusions about the associated artefacts found in the graves: Salminen explores which artefacts were mostly associated with children, with women, or with men (pp. 114–206). This part offers numerous interesting details such as the fact that the author did not find any evidence for the common suggestion that Macedonian society was deeply influenced by the Homeric example (p. 177).[1] The third part addresses questions of regional variation of Macedonian mortuary habits and change of social organization during the period under consideration (pp. 209–262).
As for the major results, while stressing that there is great variation within the groups of children, women, and men in Macedonian mortuary behavior, Salminen points out that there seems to have been some awareness that children were different from adults, gendering began early, family and religion were expressed most emphatically in adult burials, weapons were the purview of men and jewelry reserved for women, elite men were often presented in death as warriors (though not as Homeric ones), female burials point to the importance of marriage, fertility and motherhood, and the modest nature of symposiastic pottery contradicts the Greek and Roman cliché of alleged immoderate Macedonian drinking habits. In addition, according to the results, elite women “might have been more ‘masculine’ in having access to symposiastic paraphernalia as well as elite symbols such as miniature farmcarts possibly evoking control over agricultural production.” (p. 265) However, there was little evidence for references to women’s participation in war because weapons were not usually found in female burials, thus emphasizing the exceptional character of the female burial of the antechamber of Vergina’s Tomb II.[2] Salminen stresses the application of an intersectional focus on gender but her search for traces of a third or a non-binary gender in Macedonian burials was unsuccessful (p. 265). However, it is probably unlikely that such gender would be empressed in an ancient Macedonian burial.
In sum, this book is intended to be a “conversation opener” regarding the question of what the mortuary record can tell about the living in general and regarding research on the Macedonian non-elite society of Argead times in particular (p. 268). Richly equipped with tables and images, it is a thought-provoking, fascinating, and inspiring contribution to the current scholarly archaeological and historical debate about Macedonian society, burial practices, and belief in the afterlife, while providing an important approach and a fresh look on non-elite Macedonian society. While clearly written for a scholarly audience, it may also attract the attention of anyone deeply interested in the history of Macedonia.
Notes
[1] Cf. e.g., W.S. Greenwalt, “Thracian and Macedonian Kingship,” in: J. Valeva et al. (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Thrace (Oxford, 2015), 337–351, esp. 338. Also critical of the idea of Homeric influence: E. Moloney, “Neither Agamemnon nor Thersites, Achilles nor Margites: The Heraclid Kings of Ancient Macedon,” Antichthon 49 (2015), 50–72.
[2] Cf. E.D. Carney, “The Female Burial in the Antechamber of Tomb II at Vergina,” AncW 22 (1991), 17–26; E.D. Carney, “Commemoration of a Royal Woman as a Warrior,” SyllClass 27 (2016), 109–149. On the tombs of Aigai see O. Palagia, “The Argeads: Archaeological Evidence,” in: S. Müller et al. (eds.), The History of the Argeads — New Perspectives (Wiesbaden, 2017), 151–161; O. Palagia, “The Royal Court in Ancient Macedonia: The Evidence from Tombs,” in: A. Erskine et al. (ed.), The Hellenistic Court: Monarchic Power and Elite Society from Alexander to Cleopatra (Swansea, 2017), 409–417; O. Palagia, “Aigai,” in: W. Heckel et al. (eds.), Lexicon of Argead Macedonia (Berlin, 2020), 42–44.