SavedAdd your journal

Journals / İstanbul Antropoloji Dergisi / 2025 / Sayı: 5

Frozen Serenity in Stone Wish, Demand, and the Oceanic Feeling in an Ancient Funerary Stele

Emrah Kahraman(İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri)0000-0001-6069-4276
Yusuf Çurku(İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri)0000-0002-5074-4310
Pages
39–50
Publication Date
2026-05-21
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The study therefore reopens the discussion of banquet/symposion scenes not only as representations of ritual practice, but also as cultural and affective representational constructions that make visible an ideal order demanded in the face of death.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:This article examines a banquet/symposion-themed funerary stele registered in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums not merely as an iconographic and typological object, but as a material counterpart to the mental and emotional strategies developed in the face of death.
📊
Key Findings & Data:Within this perspective, the concept of the “oceanic feeling” (das ozeanische Gefühl) as defined by Sigmund Freud in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, (1930) is employed not as a diagnostic instrument in a direct clinical sense, but as an explanatory and interpretive conceptual frame to relate the scene’s timeless serenity to a wish for a carefree, holistic, and uninterrupted mode of existence.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:The study therefore reopens the discussion of banquet/symposion scenes not only as representations of ritual practice, but also as cultural and affective representational constructions that make visible an ideal order demanded in the face of death.
🔬Design:Araştırma Makalesi
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:Ancient Greece · Afterlife Belief · Symposion

Abstract

This article examines a banquet/symposion-themed funerary stele registered in the Istanbul Archaeological Museums not merely as an iconographic and typological object, but as a material counterpart to the mental and emotional strategies developed in the face of death. In the scholarship, such scenes have often been interpreted within the context of a “meal for the dead” or a “funerary banquet.” Without excluding these readings, the present study proposes to understand the depiction not as a direct record of a specific ritual, but as a form of mental architecture that fixes a desire for security, stability, and tension-free continuity. In this framework, the stele’s composition—through its spatial construction, allocation of roles, and placement of objects—can be read as a representational surface that visualizes an ideal state of being in which conflict is suspended and serenity is rendered continuous. Within this perspective, the concept of the “oceanic feeling” (das ozeanische Gefühl) as defined by Sigmund Freud in Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, (1930) is employed not as a diagnostic instrument in a direct clinical sense, but as an explanatory and interpretive conceptual frame to relate the scene’s timeless serenity to a wish for a carefree, holistic, and uninterrupted mode of existence. The study therefore reopens the discussion of banquet/symposion scenes not only as representations of ritual practice, but also as cultural and affective representational constructions that make visible an ideal order demanded in the face of death.

🔖

Cite This Article

Kahraman, E., Çurku, Y. (2026). Frozen Serenity in Stone Wish, Demand, and the Oceanic Feeling in an Ancient Funerary Stele. İstanbul Antropoloji Dergisi, Sayı: 5, 39–50. https://doi.org/10.26650/IAR2025.1873503

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (22)

  1. Alföldi, A. (1949–1950). Die Geschichte des Throntabernakels. Nouvelles Clio, 1–2, 537–566. google scholar
  2. Boardman, J. (1985). Greek sculpture: The classical period. London: Thames and Hudson. google scholar
  3. Dentzer, J. M. (1982). Le motif du banquet couché dans le Proche-Orient et le monde grec. Rome: École Française de Rome. google scholar
  4. Freud, S. (1930). Das Unbehagen in der Kultur. Wien: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag. google scholar
  5. Garland, R. (2005). Burial customs, the afterlife and the pollution of death in ancient Greece. Acta Theologica Supplementum, 7, 44–61. google scholar
  6. Has, A. C. (2019). Mysia Bölgesi mezar stelleri üzerine ikonografik değerlendirme. Atatürk Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 62, 293–303. google scholar
  7. Holtzmann, B. (1992). La sculpture à Thasos: Les reliefs. Revue Archéologique, Nouvelle Série, Fasc. 1, 188–200. google scholar
  8. Korkmaz, M. (2016). Yunan ve Roma mezar stellerinin gelişimi. Atatürk Üniversitesi Güzel Sanatlar Fakültesi Dergisi, 144–160. google scholar
  9. Margariti, K. (2019). Funerary sculpture: Women on Attic grave reliefs. In O. Palagia (Ed.), Handbook of Greek sculpture (Vol. 1, pp. 123–160). Berlin: De Gruyter. google scholar
  10. Mendel, G. (1914). Catalogue des sculptures grecques, romaines et byzantines des Musées Impériaux Ottomans. Tome II. Constantinople: Imprimerie Impériale. google scholar
  11. Metcalf, P., & Huntington, R. (1991). Celebrations of death: The anthropology of mortuary ritual. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
  12. Metzler, D. (1983). Eine neue gräko­persische Grabstele aus Sultaniye Köy und ihre Bedeutung für die Geschichte und Topographie von Daskyleion. Epigraphica Anatolica, 1, 1–23. google scholar
  13. Miller, H. (2022). Visual flexibility: Votive and funerary banquet reliefs in late classical Attica. Archaeological Review from Cambridge, 37(2), 116–136. google scholar
  14. Murray, O. (Ed.). (1990). Sympotica: A symposium on the symposion. Oxford: Clarendon Press. google scholar
  15. Parıltı, U., & Uhri, A. (2018). Geçmişten bugüne ölüm olgusuna ve ritüellere bilimsel yaklaşım. TÜBA-AR: Türkiye Bilimler Akademisi Arkeoloji Dergisi, 1, 13–28. google scholar
  16. Parker Pearson, M. (1999). The archaeology of death and burial. Stroud: Sutton Publishing. google scholar
  17. Pfuhl, E., & Möbius, H. (1977). Die Ostgriechischen Grabreliefs. Text und Tafel Band I. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. google scholar
  18. Pfuhl, E., & Möbius, H. (1979). Die Ostgriechischen Grabreliefs. Text und Tafel Band II. Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern. google scholar
  19. Ridgway, B. S. (1970). The severe style in Greek sculpture. Princeton: Princeton University Press. google scholar
  20. Stewart, A. (1997). Art, desire, and the body in ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. google scholar
  21. Von Gall, H. (1989). Zum Bildgehalt der graeco­persischen Grabstelen. Anadolu, 22, 143–165. google scholar
  22. Węcowski, M. (2014). The rise of the Greek aristocratic banquet. Oxford: Oxford University Press. google scholar