Tombs and burial customs in the Hellenistic Karia

Preserving of local customs is visible in Karia and neigboring regions, as well as the effort to enforce new ideas and fashion in funerary architecture. The continuity of chosen types of burying and keeping up the local elements continued also in the Hellenistic period, even if Karian language and culture assimilated into the Greek. One of the examples is the appearance of heroa that was unlike the common tombs and burials, situated directly or close to urban structures. Funerary structures of this type are in part given into correlation with ancestor cult and afterlife deification of local rulers. Karia is also characteristic by the presence of representative temple-like tombs and burial precincts that appeared to be separated from the profane country. Above ground tombs and burials may be explained by maintenance of native tradition as well as inspiration of foreign customs, both in a broad geographical and chronological scale. Especially notable appears proximity of Karian and Lykian material culture, becoming increasingly apparent in current scholar works. It is reflected in similar types of funerary buildings, importance of dynastic monuments, long-term tradition of heroa or modification of foreign stimuli according own needs. The common sign of identified heroa in the whole south-western Anatolia in the Hellenistic period was a combination of elements of several building types. Particularly significant seems to be so called temple tombs, which are nowadays understood as implication of older Anatolian tradion in funerary culture. Their origin, as well as the model of their façades, has been long debated, while it seems to be accepted now that they were shaped in order to reflect some kind of monumental, probably dynastic, buildings, rather than Greek temples. However, religious importance should not be omitted.