Alleviating death: Consolatory expressions in the Greek mummy labels from Roman Egypt

Abstract

In this paper, I pursue to study the Greek version of the bilingual (Greek and Demotic) mummy labels from Roman Egypt. I detect expressions of salutation and condolence, which the writers of the tags addressed to the dead. The aim of the study is to place the consolatory devices among the other kinds of the ancient Greek consolatory literature, and reveal any links between the phrases of condolence and the social and religious status of the deceased and the writers of the mummy tags.