Overview

This volume brings together scholars from archaeology, historical linguistics and comparative mythology to explore how early Indo-European communities imagined death and what lies beyond. From poetic visions of the afterlife to the ritual logic of cremation and the etymology of mourning, Indo-European Afterlives examines how the transition from life to death was conceptualized and ritualized across the Indo-European world. Topics include the eschatological power of poetry, the symbolic role of fire in funerary rites, linguistic reconstructions of underworld deities and rituals and the significance of mythic figures such as the Valkyries, the R̥bhus and Orpheus in navigating the boundary between life and the afterlife. By interweaving philological analysis, archaeological evidence and mythological narratives, the volume offers new perspectives on how notions of death and the beyond were embedded in early Indo-European belief systems. Interdisciplinary in scope, Indo-European Afterlives will appeal to scholars and curious readers alike. This is the third volume in the series Stockholm Studies in Indo-European Language and Culture.

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9789176352847

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Jenny H. Larsson is Professor of Baltic Languages and Director of the Centre for Indo-European Language and Culture at Stockholm University. She is co-PI of the National Centre of Excellence Centre for the Human Past and PI of the research programme Languages and Myths in Prehistory (LAMP). ORCID: 0000-0002-7251-3513 Thomas Olander is Professor of Indo-European Studies at the Roots of Europe centre at the University of Copenhagen. His research interests include linguistic reconstruction and the relationship between reconstructed languages and the archaeological record. He is PI of the research project The Indo-European Dark Ages Illuminated and a member of the research programme Languages and Myths in Prehistory (LAMP). ORCID: 0000-0002-7938-2827 Anders Richardt Jørgensen obtained his PhD in Indo-European linguistics from the University of Copenhagen in 2007. His research focuses on comparative Indo-European and Celtic linguistics, Middle Breton philology and Modern Breton dialectology. He is currently a researcher at Uppsala University in the research programme Languages and Myths in Prehistory (LAMP). ORCID: 0009-0003-5317-9227

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