Memorial and oblivion in late antiquity: the testimony of spolia

The life and fate of tombs is perhaps just as significant as their creation and primary use. Some are quickly destroyed, others last for centuries, either passively tolerated or venerated. Often, it seems that tombs and funerary monuments exist in an awkward intermediate position, where they have a degree of protection, but are not actively cared for. The timing of their destruction can be studied via many types of spolia context. The analysis of late city walls seems to be a good place to start, as these are massive, increasingly well-dated, and known to contain significant quantities of funerary spolia. In this paper, I outline the potential and difficulties of undertaking such a study, investigating the nature of tomb spolia in city walls in comparative perspective, by making contrasts between sites and between tomb material and other types of spolia reused at the same time. This work tries to reconstruct something of the history of late antique urban landscapes by documenting different snapshots of spoliation, offered by different spolia contexts. In this, the reuse of funerary monuments seems to represent an obvious indicator of cultural change, although reality is often more complex, as detailed descriptions of city walls demonstrate. Incidentally, new dates and field observations are proposed for a selection of 82 fortifications across the late antique world.