| Summary: | <p>Inhumation inside ceramic vessels, conventionally termed “enchytrismos” in modern scholarship, is a long-lasting practice attested in the Aegean world and beyond. The present study examines in detail the evidence relating to enchytrismos burials from the regions of Attica, Euboea and Boeotia during the Late Geometric and Archaic periods (760-480 BC), which it uses as case studies. During this time frame, enchytrismos becomes the prevalent burial rite for young individuals in all three regions, significantly enriching the archaeological record and thus offering plentiful material for a comprehensive study of this funerary ritual. </p>
<p>The decision to provide any distinct mortuary treatment is an active decision of the living when confronted with the death of a particular group of individuals. Based on the above premise, the present study focuses on illuminating three distinct but mutually dependent aspects of the rite of enchytrismos: the acts entailed when practicing an enchytrismos, the individuals chosen to be interred inside these burials, and, finally, how these individuals were treated by the living in the event of their death. </p>
<p>The systematic examination which has been undertaken clearly demonstrates that the rite of enchytrismos was a time-consuming and carefully thought social act that placed particular emphasis on the protection and preservation of the dead body. Since the rite of enchytrismos concerned mainly the biologically youngest members of Attic, Euboean and Boeotian communities, the present study brings this—often largely neglected—age category to the foreground. The choice of affording such an attentive funerary treatment to the young, who have for long been considered as an “insignificant” social category, clearly suggests that their untimely demise did not provoke a minor social reaction. Therefore, in the context of the present study, “non-adults” emerge as a complex social category whose death could initiate a series of social reactions that emphasised the need for protection and connection to their family in perpetuity and which were largely imbued with sentimental value.</p>
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