Page 48 - Studia Universitatis Hereditati, vol 12(1) (2024)

the second half of the first century BC onward was already in full swing or was even slowly con-
(Petru 1966; 1971). His thoughts and conclusions cluding. House urns are, for the most part, un-
have largely been summarized in the publica- known in Late La Tène and early Roman bur-
tions of Zoran Gregl (Gregl 1997; 2007; 2009). ial sites in Dolenjska. At several Roman period
Borut Križ, in the exhibition catalogue for Dra- burial sites in Dolenjska, an area inhabited by
ga near Bela Cerkev, contemplated how urns rep- the Latobici, house urns do not even appear in
resent a particular form of final resting place in a graves (for example, at the Praetorium Latobico-
spiritual-religious sense and indicate a strong be- rum – Trebnje). The emphasized elements of the
lief in the afterlife (Križ 2003, 24). A more recent indigenous Celtic communities, as reflected in
study by Phil Mason attempted to connect the the epigraphic and onomastic materials during
occurrence of house urns spatially and ideolog- the first century, significantly declined and near-
ically to the settlement patterns of the younger ly disappeared by the second century, and only
48 Iron Age and the contemporary Celtic commu- exceptionally are they present in the third centu-
4
nities (Mason 2012). Phil Mason and Bernarda ry, as evidenced by the case of Celeia (Šašel Kos
Županek, in their article from 2018, link house 1984). In contrast, house urns remain in graves
studia universitatis hereditati, letnik 12 (2024), številka 1 / volume 12 (2024), number 1
urns to the elements of the Norico-Pannonian until the end of the third century.
tradition and highlight the mixing of local cul- So, are house urns genuinely connected
tural identities with new ones brought by Ro- with the tradition of Latobici, the indigenous
manization (Mason and Županek 2018). How- community in this area? Do house urns really
ever, they all agree that house urns played an highlight the complexities of how different cul-
important role in burial rituals. tures approached death and commemoration, by
The current state of newly discovered ne- blending traditional customs with the influenc-
cropolises and their material culture, temporal es of Roman ideology? What direction does the
occurrence, spatial distribution, and, last but not current state of research and the presented facts
least, the stylistic and technological diversity of indicate? Perhaps it would be worthwhile to con-
house urns suggest that we could examine their sider different aspects and beliefs of individual
role in the context of burial practices from a dif- groups of inhabitants who marked the unique-
ferent perspective, not necessarily in connection ness of their beliefs or attitudes towards burial
with prehistoric tradition. practice with the use of house urns, in which the
The following facts and observations sup- souls of the deceased found a characteristic and
port this. The oldest contexts in which house familiar residence.
urns appear date back to the mid-first century New and in-depth research may help an-
when the Romanization of present-day Slovenia swer or dismiss this provocative suggestion.

4 The possibility of origins of Roman house urns in pre-
historic contexts of Dolenjska, specifically from the late
Bronze Age, has also been investigated by Ana Kovačič,
Bine Kramberger, and Kaja Stemberger Flegar (2023, 17).