ABSTRACT
The sensory archaeology of death reconstructs the sensory experiences of death and the dead body but also of the ritual practices that structured the understanding of death. Given that death is a crisis—both on an individual and social level—the ritual response to death can often act to augment or affect sensory experiences. This chapter explores some of the ways in which archaeology captures these impressions by reconstructing experiences of the scent, sound, taste, sight and touch of death through engagement with the dead body and the material traces of the ritual practices.
