1. The creation of social memory

2. > Social memory is a concept used by historians and others to explore the connection between social identity and historical memory Social memory (after Halbwachs 1950 [1925]) > It asks how and why diverse peoples come to think of themselves as members of a group with a shared (though not necessarily agreed upon) past > The construction of a collective notion (not an individual belief) about the way things were in the past Halbwachs describes the social nature of memory: “This kind of memory belongs in the intermediary realm between individuals; it grows out of intercourse between people, and the emotions play the crucial role in its process. This memory conditions the inner lives of individuals, helping them catalogue experience and relating that experience to the social world.”

3. Connerton differentiates three types of memory: Memory (after Connerton 1989) Our experience of the present very largely depends upon our knowledge of the past. We experience our present world in a context which is connected with past events and objects All beginnings contain an element of recollection. Images of the past and recollected knowledge of the past are conveyed and sustained by (more or less ritual) performances Social memory can be found in commemorative ceremonies. But commemorative ceremonies prove to be commemorative only in so far as they are performative 1) personal memories based on one’s life history 2) cognitive memories based on remembering certain facts and context based on experience (remembering) 3) habit-memories based on remembering performance (acting out)

4. Ritual behavior is materially visible through evidence for activities such as processions, mortuary treatments, abandonments, feasting, and votive deposition Representations and objects include such items as paintings, masks, figurines, rock art, and other representational media that often possess commemorative functions Places are spaces that have been inscribed with meaning, usually as a result of some past event or attachment Narratives, stories or other forms of information about the past, may be transmitted onwards either in oral traditions or as more fixed textual accounts Categories of materially accessible media through which social memories are commonly constructed and observed: Archaeology and social memory > inscribed memory, involving monuments, texts and representations (intentional acts) > incorporated memory, encompassing bodily rituals and behavior (habitual practices)

5. Multidimensionality of monumental places > spatial experience (architecture, the material) > perception (movement, symbols, representations) > imagination (emotions, ideologies, memory) Monumental architecture is both inscriptive and incorporative!

6. Funeral, monument, and social memory Spatial representations of death develop over time as historical narratives of social memory Residential burial: personal memory of the dead, limited to the household group Cemeteries and neighborhood chapels: social memory, visible and meaningful to a larger community While initially tombs are primarily symbols of the power of individuals and clan groups, the monuments’ significance in terms of the social memory of clan groups grows through time as they become not only symbols of power but also testimonials to prominent ancestors and the long-term continuity of groups