Resurrecting Berytus: A Contextual Analysis of Burials from Roman Beirut

This book examines burial practices in Roman Berytus (modern Beirut) from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD. Using archaeological, osteological and isotopic evidence, it explores identity, migration, social status and cultural change, revealing how Roman colonialism shaped life, death and tradition in the eastern Mediterranean. In the late 1st century BC, the first Roman colony in the Near East was founded in Berytus – modern-day Beirut, Lebanon. The city’s transformation following Roman annexation and colonization marked a pivotal period of administrative, economic, and demographic change. Yet the social and cultural impact of this transition remains largely understudied. This book examines how burial practices in Roman Berytus evolved during this formative phase of colonial rule. Mortuary customs off er a unique window into the cultural norms, identities, and social structures of past communities. In imperial and colonial settings, funerary spaces also served as arenas for expressing power, asserting status, and negotiating social standing within rapidly changing societies. Focusing primarily on the period from the late 1st century BC to the 1st century AD, but also extending through to the 4th century AD, this study investigates different aspects of ancient burial practice and their patterns of change and continuity over time. Drawing on material culture, human osteology, and isotopic data, it applies an interdisciplinary approach to reconstruct life, death, and identity within a shifting provincial landscape. This contextual analysis offers new insights into burial practices linked to age, gender, mobility, kinship, and social differentiation. Addressing a significant gap in the scholarship on Roman colonialism in the eastern Mediterranean, this research explores how broader processes of imperialism, migration, and cultural interaction impacted the lived – and buried – sociocultural realities of Roman Berytus, and whether deeply-rooted traditions were renegotiated in death, as they may have been in life.