Keswani/Mortuary Ritual, 3. The Archaeological Record of Mortuary Practice in Cyprus

This chapter begins with an examination of some of the intermediating screens or filters that have affected the representation of mortuary practices in Bronze Age Cyprus. Problems of preservation associated with collective burial units in general and with the chamber and pit tombs typically found on the island are considered first. Then the limitations of past and present approaches to tomb excavation and mortuary analysis are reviewed, followed by a discussion of sampling problems in regional, chronological, and local perspective. Lastly, the chapter provides an outline of the basic principles of an analytical methodology that may be helpful in eliciting aspects of ritual systems and social structure from the complex and sometimes problematic mortuary record of the Cypriot Bronze Age.