CONVERTING THE TOMBSTONE: REMEMBERING THE DEAD IN EARLY OTTOMAN BOSNIA
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-01-12

The transition from a predominantly Christian into the Ottoman Islamic cultural system in Bosnia in the 15th century resulted in the confluence of different styles of funerary architecture. The process of conversion to Islam among the local population, which took place in several waves after the fall of Bosnia in 1463, had lasting effects on the local death culture, funerary markers, and commemorative sensibilities. This change in religious landscape paved the way to new social relations not only among the living but also among the dead. How did first-generations of Bosnian Muslims remember their ancestors, Christian and Muslim? Although the fundamental similarity between Christian and Islamic beliefs in the afterlife and an omnipotent Creator who oversees the passage into it meant that the existing funerary forms did not have to undergo a drastic conceptual change, commemorative practices witnessed important shifts in both Muslim and Christian (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) styles and epigraphy. This paper discusses the continuities and discontinuities in funerary culture as marked on Bosnian tombstones in the early Ottoman period. It argues that the convergence between the new imperial standards and vernacular sensibilities gave rise to new funerary forms and texts across the religious divide, but it also allowed for the continuation of social intimacy and shared cultural memory for centuries to come.


Author(s): Buturovic, Amila (York University)