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Ethnoarchaeology of Rock-cut Tombs

Ethnoarchaeology of Rock-cut Tombs

A Study of Toraja Cemeteries (Sulawesi, Indonesia)

by Guillaume Robin and Ron Adams

Series: Studies in Funerary Archaeology

Imprint: Oxbow Books

192 Pages, 6.7 x 9.4 in, 80 B/W and colour illustrations

Paperback
9798888572207
November 2025
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Description
Contents
Authors

Rock-cut tombs, i.e. chambered tombs hewn out from the bedrock, was a common type of monumental burial among many past societies around the world, from the Neolithic Mediterranean, to the Classical Near East, and Protohistoric Japan and Korea. Around the globe they have attracted the attention of generations of archaeologists, historians and art historians. The island of Sulawesi, Indonesia, is the only place where rock-cut tombs are still being created today, and in a traditional (small scale, animist) society context. The Toraja people of Central Sulawesi have built and used rock-cut chambered tombs (locally called ‘liang pa'’) as kinship communal burials for at least 300 years. This living tradition represents a unique opportunity to study rock-cut monuments from an ethnoarchaeological perspective, with a focus on their material, temporal, social, ritual and landscape dimensions. This book is the first ever dedicated to the Toraja tombs and is the outcome of comprehensive literature-based research (ethnographic literature from the 19th century to present) and original fieldwork carried out by the authors in June 2017. The aim of the book is twofold: first, to provide an overview of liang pa’ rock-cut tombs and, second, to address specific issues that had never been investigated before. These issues include the architectural style and decoration of the tombs, the technical steps and ritual activities associated with the process of cutting the tombs into the rock, their landscape setting, and their relationship to local kinship groups. The authors place the liang pa’ within the context of historical developments pertaining to other funerary traditions of the Toraja people over the past several centuries, and present an overview of burial practices associated with these monuments. The research provides a unique synthesis and offers methodological and theoretical insights that are relevant to any reader interested in rock-cut architectures of the past and present, monuments and rituals, and the anthropological study of human-environment interactions. Overall, the book offers a series of fresh insights on long-debated archaeological issues that will inform discussion and theoretical models for the study and interpretation of ritual monuments from Prehistory to present.

1. Introduction
1.1. Rock-cut monuments and society
1.2. Toraja rock-cut tombs in a nutshell
1.3. The physical environment: geography and geology
1.4. The social environment: Sa’dan Toraja society between tradition and modernity
1.5. Toraja funeral ceremonies
1.6. Studies on Toraja stone monuments: from ethnography to ethno-archaeology
1.7. Fieldwork 2017
1.8. Acknowledgments

2. Tomb traditions through time and space in Tana Toraja
2.1. Wooden sarcophagi (erong)
2.2. Rock-cut tombs (liang pa’)
2.3. House-tombs (patane)
2.4. Lower rank burials
2.5. Infant burials

3. The anatomy and decoration of liang pa’
3.1. Burial chamber
3.2. Entrance area
3.3. Closing systems
3.4. Decorations
3.5. Conclusion

4. Creating a liang pa’: cutting process and rituals
4.1. When and where are new liang pa’ created?
4.2. The stoneworkers: costs, workspaces, tools and roles
4.3. Cutting out the tomb: a technical and ritual chaîne-opératoire
4.4. Consecration of the tomb
4.5. Cutting failures and abandonments
4.6. Tomb worksites as stone quarries
4.7. Conclusion

5. Using a liang pa’: burial and post-burial rituals
5.1. Body preparations prior to burial
5.2. Ceremonial artefacts: from production to procession and deposition at the tomb
5.3. Opening of the tomb and entombment
5.4. Post-burial depositions outside the tomb
5.5. Ma’nene’ ritual
5.6. Relocation of burials
5.7. Conclusion

6. The landscape setting of liang pa’ cemeteries
6.1. Stone and death: Toraja cemeteries as rocky places
6.2. Who owns the cemeteries? Communal vs private lands
6.3. The importance of cardinal points in Toraja cosmography and ritual practices
6.4. Landscape relationships between cemeteries and villages
6.5. Landscape orientation of the tombs
6.6. Boulder cemeteries: case-studies
6.7. Conclusion

7. The social biography of liang pa’ cemeteries
7.1. Mapping kinship groupings: the geographical catchment of cemeteries
7.2. The social life of cemeteries
7.3. Conclusion

8. Conclusion

Bibliography

Appendices
• Glossary of Toraja terms
• Table of cemeteries surveyed in June 2017
• Distribution maps and statistics per lembang
• Data on decorated liang pa’ in Sesean district [North]
• List of tongkonan associated with the cemetery of Sanduni’ (Rembon)
• List of tongkonan associated with the cemetery of Batu Lappa’ (Rembon)
• List of tongkonan associated with the cemetery of Sele (Sesean Suloara’)