Superstitious Beliefs in the Necropolises of the Huelva Coast: Peculiarities of the Premature Death of Children, Outcasts and Women

Abstract

All societies throughout time have shown a greater or lesser degree of superstition when facing the traumatic event of death. Roman society was no exception, especially when numerous religious currents participated in the funerary rituals, sharing their own conception and beliefs. The following lines present a brief overview of children’s death, especially premature ones, from the early Imperial to the late Imperial period, when they became more highly regarded. It is followed by the traumatic or marginal deaths of some individuals whose behaviour, illnesses or ways of dying were suspicious for their closest people: the article closes with the treatment given to certain women. All the deaths in this research aroused suspicions among their relatives or the authorities, who did not hesitate to practise rituals to calm them in the afterlife and ensure that they did not return to life as evil spirits. In this article we will focus on the practices that developed in the city of Onoba and its hinterland or influential area; a Roman colony located in the westernmost part of the province of Baetica, a port city of enormous importance for the Empire given its importance as a gateway for minerals coming from the Urium mines.