[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
This volume of collected essays brings together contributions originating from an international workshop held at the University of Pisa in December 2022. Its stated goal is to investigate the practices and rituals surrounding the appropriation of abandoned artifacts and places from the Neolithic period to the present day. The volume analyzes how societies counteract the social discontinuity that arises from death or other events. The contributions focus on ritual and performative acts that serve as “languages of legitimation” (ix) to create an “illusion of continuity” (viii), enabling actors to proceed “as if” (ix, xii), thereby creating a fictional reality to legitimize the desired social outcome. These actions aim at justifying the appropriation of abandoned or contested things and spaces.
The volume is divided into three sections, the first of which focuses on the appropriation of places. Bisserka Gaydarska, Brian Buchanan, and John Chapman examine the social practice of the intentional, ritual burning of houses in the Neolithic Trypillia mega-settlements of Ukraine. From the remains of some of these houses, “memory mounds” were erected, serving as visible monuments. Over time, these transformed the settlements into complex landscapes where community life and ancestral commemoration were intertwined.
Chiara Ombretta Tommasi analyzes the Roman evocatio as a deliberate means of taking possession of a city. Through this practice, Rome legitimized its claims to rule and incorporated conquered territories into the empire’s ritual order and the pax deorum. This approach differs from older scholarship, which focused primarily on describing the rite and emphasizing its quasi-magical aspects rather than its function as an instrument of territorial and theological appropriation.
Anna Anguissola examines the legal, social, and architectural strategies employed by the inhabitants of Roman Hierapolis to protect, reuse, and claim tombs within the densely populated and contested necropolises. Using detailed inscriptions, the appropriation of ancient monuments, and architectural modifications, the inhabitants secured their family’s social status, legitimized their ownership, and constructed a prestigious lineage to solidify their dynastic aspirations.
The second section is dedicated to the conceptualization of “abandonment.” The first contribution by Francesca Anichini, Salvatore Basile, Gabriele Gattiglia, and Claudia Sciuto examines landscape changes in the Apuan Alps following depopulation during the twentieth century. The authors redefine “abandonment” as not a loss, but rather a dynamic process that establishes new relationships between humans and the environment. Using historical chestnut cultivation as an example, the study demonstrates how the abandoned infrastructure persists as a “relic” and becomes the focus of new socio-ecological relationships through the revival of community practices.
In his reflection on the Calabrian town of Petrizzi, Joseph J. Viscomi illustrates the inextricable link between the depopulation of landscapes and the destruction and material condition of local archives. These archives themselves become witnesses to historical and ecological change. Through examples of natural disasters, political decisions, and migration, Viscomi demonstrates how studying these material traces reveals the complex interactions between humans and the modern Mediterranean environment, thereby challenging traditional historiography.
Antonio Stopani illustrates how social movements in Italy and Greece have used the concept of “neglect” to justify the occupation of vacant buildings after the 2008 financial crisis. He presents these occupations as instruments of alternative grassroots urban renewal intended to address housing shortages and create communities based on solidarity and social justice.
The third and final section discusses how claims to “forsaken” items were justified. Gianluca Miniaci shows how, in ancient Egypt, rituals were used to justify the acquisition of unclaimed goods after a person died. Conducting a burial served as justification for claiming disputed inheritances, and rituals such as mapping and listing enabled possession of grave goods. The large-scale restoration program known as the “repetition of burials” (whm krs), for example, led to the systematic exploitation and appropriation of objects from royal tombs.
Drawing on Isaeus’s Oration VIII, Angelica Tortorella analyzes how inheritance claims were asserted in fourth-century BC Athens by proving legitimate descent and close family ties. The analysis demonstrates that success in court was contingent on the public performance of funerary care and the establishment of moral superiority over the opponent.
Alessandro Buono examines how performing funerary rites was a crucial method of legally establishing and enforcing inheritance claims in early modern Europe and beyond. These acts of care served as public proof of kinship, legitimizing the status of an heir. This was based on a legal culture in which ritual action creates social reality and ensures the continuity of possession.
In their concluding essay, John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska conceptualize the close, reciprocal relationship between people, places, and objects as an “identity triangle.” Using the concepts of “place-biography” and “place-value,” the authors analyze how places gain or lose significance over time through use, abandonment, and reappropriation. They cite various examples to show that, while abandoning a place entails a loss of value, it also opens up new opportunities for future appropriations and the creation of new meanings.
The volume covers a remarkably wide scope in every respect: chronologically, from the fourth millennium BC to the present; spatially, from Portugal and Egypt to Asia Minor and the Ukraine; and conceptually, with an understanding of “relics” as not only objects and places, but also as archives or traces of ecological and cultural systems. Methodologically, historical-archaeological contributions are presented alongside ethnological-sociological ones. The editors rightly emphasize the importance of performative practices related to “relics,” since relics only become meaningful and create a significant connection between the past and present through these practices. In this context, the volume does not apply a strict definition of how distant this past must be. This expands the subject matter further, linking the ritual of evocatio, inheritance claims constructed through funerary care, and squatting to “relics.” The hermeneutic category of the “relic” is thus kept deliberately broad, encompassing monumental architecture, everyday objects, entire landscapes, and written documents—anything left behind after a disruption of social or legal continuities that becomes the object of new strategies of appropriation.
While this diversity can certainly be seen as stimulating, it also leaves the reader somewhat perplexed as to what conclusions should be drawn from the undoubtedly thought-provoking individual contributions. In their introduction, the editors themselves make no attempt to outline such overarching conclusions or to engage in systematic model-building; instead, they highlight the mosaic-like diversity of the content (xvi). This diversity is due in part to the fact that the contributors were not given a “strong conceptual framework” (ix). While this approach fosters open dialogue, it shifts the demanding task of drawing theoretical connections between the very different case studies to the reader. Readers looking for a cohesive argument or a new theoretical model will be left unsatisfied by the volume. The concluding essay by John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska engages in theoretical reflection, but fails to synthesize all the case studies systematically. Chapters 1, 4, 8, and 9 are not referenced, and the essay essentially limits itself to the concept of place-value. On the other hand, the essay refers to case studies presented at the Pisa workshop that were not included in the volume, so readers cannot follow up on them directly.
This approach is problematic because comparing practices from fundamentally different social, legal, and cultural contexts is a difficult undertaking. The editors themselves speak of “family resemblance” (xi) and “a pattern of analogies” (xvi). Indeed, such analogies exist, such as between the concept of “care” that legitimized inheritance claims in classical Athens and early modern Europe and the “caring for” of occupied houses by urban activists in the twenty-first century. However, these similarities must be carefully weighed against the significant differences in worldviews, legal systems, and social organizations. For example, an “appropriation” within a legal inheritance dispute is structurally different from a politically motivated appropriation by squatters. Similarly, the ritual burning of one’s own house in Trypillia culture—a planned, communal act—differs fundamentally from rituals following an unforeseen death. Finally, despite its enormous breadth, the selection of case studies is limited and omits large regions of the world. The focus is clearly on the ancient Mediterranean (Egypt, Greece, and Rome) and early modern to modern Italy. Thus, the claim to treat a universal phenomenon is supported by an empirical base that must necessarily remain incomplete in terms of geography and culture, so as not to exceed the scope of an anthology.
Thematic consistency is primarily found within the individual sections. In particular, the second and third sections each form coherent units: the second focuses on the process of abandonment, the third on the cross-temporal and cross-cultural treatment of the performative significance of funerary care in establishing inheritance claims. The first section is more heterogeneous because the contribution on evocatio does not focus on material remains or the creation of continuity between the past and present.
If one wishes to discern large patterns in this colorful “mosaic” of case studies, one might note that “abandonment” is not a passive state, but rather, it is often actively and performatively produced to justify an appropriation. A closely related concept is “acting as if,” where ritual actions create a new social or legal reality. Furthermore, it is repeatedly emphasized that places and things are not mere backdrops, but rather elements constructed and instrumentalized by human actors. These elements then shape social relationships and substantiate claims. Readers seeking interdisciplinary food for thought and inspiration for further comparative studies will undoubtedly find this volume to be a valuable contribution.
The book does not have an index. This might seem appropriate for an era where books are increasingly available electronically and thus full-text searchable, and where they may soon be evaluated more often using AI than actually read. Nevertheless, the lack of an index considerably diminishes the utility of the print edition.
Authors and Titles
Preface (Alessandro Buono, Gianluca Miniaci, Anna Anguissola)
Appropriating places
- The biographies of Neolithic burnt houses: Insights from the Trypillia megasites of Ukraine (Bisserka Gaydarska, Brian Buchanan, John Chapman)
- Roman euocatio, or how to get possession of a deserted city (Chiara Ombretta Tommasi)
- Reclaiming the funerary space: The protection and re-use of tombs in the burial grounds of Hierapolis in Phrygia (Anna Anguissola)
Redefining abandonment
- Relic(t) ecologies. Exploring abandonment in the Apuan Alps (Francesca Anichini, Salvatore Basile, Gabriele Gattiglia, and Claudia Sciuto)
- Depopulating landscapes: Methodology and the materiality of archives in Calabria (Joseph J. Viscomi)
- Rehabi(li)tating abandonment. Urban occupations and their regenerative practices (Antonio Stopani)
Claiming things
- After death: Rituality used to legitimise the appropriation of abandoned goods in ancient Egypt (Gianluca Miniaci)
- How to preserve an oikos? The case of Isaeus’s Oration VIII (Angelica Tortorella)
- How to claim things with rites. Care for the dead and inheritance rights in early modern Europe (and beyond) (Alessandro Buono)
Afterword
- Biographies of place and the significance of place-value (John Chapman, Bisserka Gaydarska)