 Okay, so thanks very much to Anais and Claudia for organizing this session for accepting my paper So the first thing I'd like to say is that I wish I would pretend to be a social anthropologist, but I'm not I'm an archaeologist and My main area of fieldwork usually is Sardinia so something similar to I'm interested in the late New York rocket tools, which as you can see here have a plan are quite complex architecture of different spaces they are made in a way to look at small houses happiness and often other depressions and they are Often grouped together and in cemeteries and clusters So I that's my main thing, but I started to be interested in the Tauraja for various reasons, but the main one is that to my knowledge that's the only living society where this traditional society were still Doing and using rocket tombs today. So if you go there, there are lots of people still doing rocket tombs in different areas The the Tauraja are very well-known ethnographically. It's been studied a lot by different people especially because they are very famous for their very yet spectacular Burial ceremonies where they do a lot of sacrifices and killing of buffaloes. You can see here the traditional house Tungkonen where you see the Stack of the boards from sacrifice group are also lots of ethnographers have been looking at this aspects of their future and out there Tungkonen houses as well, but very few people actually been looking at details at the the rocket tombs So I thought it would be nice to to go there and to have a look Just again, it's very rough introduction. So this is rocket tombs are called liang pa which is literally cut tombs and they are grouped together in symmetries like this and be called those are clips They are used only by the noble parts of the the society. So These guys the nobles who are also having these very monumental houses Tungkonen Interestingly each single tomb which are collective tombs Each single tomb is paired to a house. So they are working together as a kind of pair You cannot have a Tungkonen without a tomb and this is Versa and Yeah, and these tombs they are made by specialized artisans Again, just to give you a rough idea of how they look like. So this is a typical Current a modern day tomb They have a doorway which is usually closed afterwards by the wooden door and It's very Simple designs is basically a big cube of two meters and 20 centimeters exactly because that's to a low space for coffins of two meters long So you can stack so coffins into into the chamber So that's them the the kind of the tomb you see that were made the last 50 years more or less But before they were a tradition for a slightly smaller tomb. So here that's interesting you see to the two traditions together the smaller version which is About two meters deep but slightly smaller in terms of space okay, so Ron and myself went in Sulawesi last year and we were mostly interested to look at Aspects of the landscapes of how tombs and houses are kind of Position in the landscape at how this is telling us something about the relationship between the dead and the living But as part of this project, we also had we were lucky to meet with a stone covers And we this is what I'm going to talk today, but we also spoke to others who are sponsoring and using these two and also be ritual specialists Creating so the action of creating a liang pa so a tomb is a very Complex social process. So there's a huge social dimension behind it. There's a lot of negotiation Who has a right to be buried there and there so it's very complex I'm not going to discuss this if you're interested. There's a very nice paper by the trucker specialist Watson Watson But so on this paper I'm going just to focus on the the materiality of the rock art Construction and the different ritual aspect of it Okay So the one of the first step when you want to build the tomb is to actually reserve as pots on the surface of the cliff And this can be made by different Processes you can either carve at a small space which corresponds to the Entrance of your future to all you can just paint That's interesting again when you're working pretty straight Europe because often in Sicily or in Sardinia you have this kind of small openings that are not tuned so they are interpreted as unfinished tomb, but they may be just Reserve spot that had never been actually used for to build an actual tomb Then when you decide to make a new tomb so there are different reasons either because you've got a new tonkana or because your family Chamber is full. So that's the only way you can create a new There are lots of It's like when you build a house today, you have to meet with artisans and discuss practice So we were able to collect Of course you don't need to go into details But basically if a team of artisans are working full-time they will finish this tomb in three or six months And but most most of the time the team of artisans would do different tombs in different areas So they will take more or less a year to finish monuments When the project starts so the artisans are going to They just settle around the rock So here you see the entrance of the new Rocket tomb and here the artisans and there are a lot of things going on which is very interesting They have their workshop, but also The place where they will leave and have a small garden and they have it in the bathroom So if you think archaeologically that's interesting because you have like settlement evidence. It's something which is just probably already Yeah house or yeah accommodation The artisans talking about tools. So here it's different because that obviously they are using meat holes But interestingly they're using different sizes for what they want to do for the most complex and when they need Hacureacy that we use a smaller point like especially for the entrance doorway Which is the the more complicated the more complex part of the building and then for just breaking big parts of the Out of the space of the stones that would use the the longer picks In all the different Areas we've been they were always working in three workers together So one that there's a rota in the way they work one is inside the chamber and just cut the stones Another one is just outside and have moving the blocks and throwing that away and the third one is doing Just having a nap. It's just resting so they can basically you have a chance to have a rest every three every three time So okay, so we'd like to talk about the Shennoi part were here that the sequence of construction and the thing that really struck me at the time is that the the actual process of cutting the Chamber is very segmented So we have very specific steps and each step is marked by a very specific ritual So you know in the case where you created room and then at the very end you have like a celebration or like a ceremony to inaugurate it you'll have a ritual of every single step because that's a quite complex and delicate thing so they want to every time they've done a step into the pieces they want to thank the natured for Not making this feeling in a way, so they were there's something that happened rich really so Just to go quickly. It's interesting as well Because when you yeah think again press return as well you You could see similar things, but basically even just before doing Even before starting the cutting process that will have the permission to the nature said the Plants a branch of the combola which is a type of plant and if the the branch is start to grow It means the nature is okay. You can you can process, but if it doesn't work then the nature's refuses you to Alter it's the rock and therefore you cannot Do it what that's what they will used to be traditionally so that I think nobody does this anymore Today, but the other rituals are still being practiced So the first step is to create the doorway Which is the most complex thing because it's it's the nicest part of the tomb and it's smaller as well And it does all these kind of small angles as well So when this is done, they will kill an animal that would kill a dog or pig The next step is called Masiko It means elbow that's because they use their arms over here. There's an interesting use of the body as a way to Create your architecture. So to make sure the first angle of the Chamber here again, that's a view. That's a plan the cross-section plan you so that's the anterior Angles that we use their elbow and if that works if that They will kill a chicken or another animal same thing then they will reach the the back angle of the room and You can see they have the four angles, but the walls are not very nicely finished So that's the next step and again that involves killing an animal Yeah, many animals being killed The Further step is to finish the sailing and it's called my boom-boom and it's solo It's also a ritual you do for houses for actual houses when you finish a roof You have the same ritual with the same name. So here again, there's a close parallel between houses of the dead and houses of the living The last step is to finish the Floor so here you see that they kind of level things But that's a very last step of construction if you want in terms of stone carving And then they will place the wooden doorway at the entrance so here again you kill a little animal and Yeah, interestingly you're at this tape so it's good to do so the door so we went on the side just a few days after that ritual so you see that the door was displayed that they cut through it a bit you could see the The remains of the wood cutting work and then that's the remain of the Of the houses of the workers and here the remains of the ritual so that they made the fire to cook the kids animal and the very final Step is to do the inauguration, which is not something you do You don't touch the monuments, but you do a ritual to consecrate it and that's a very important ritual So it's called Masabu and that's the surname you use for houses We were very lucky to casually attend one of these events That was very nice So they just kill the pig and then cooked it and we did it and it's very important step because basically the the tomb Before this ritual is considered as a whole local. So just like something that's very Taboo if you want and then after this ritual it becomes a tomb and therefore it's taboo You cannot enter it. So typically myself when I was doing the survey I Could enter many tomes where all people were very happy for me to enter into the tomb that were even finished So as I can take measurements and so on but after that ritual it's it's over even if if a coffin would be placed in two or three years time and One action that marks this ritual is that they would take a chicken and they would make a small incision for just Let the blood out and they would just not squeeze but shake They're surviving this Yeah, you don't want to be a too sensible good animals And yeah, so that's what it was so then in the same two days after we get to In the the chamber of the drop of thing that is just actually wasted it ethnographically And then you can take a selfie with your daughter when this is finished Okay, interestingly what we saw as well in our survey is that there were Some projects some construction project that failed or were abandoned. So It's a horrible picture that the only one has and I wanted to remember that that's actually a monument that was started to be made and then the part of it just cracks and I think it's very very bad socially and so so ritually if this happens and other reasons is when you have Project that start and the family runs out of money. So that's ends up in a kind of started tomb but not finished Or they start the tomb and they realize the rock is not very good or there's some water infiltration. So there are different reasons for this Okay, and my last point very quickly is very interestingly A real construction sites of a rocket and this is a car site. So As somebody tells I think in your introduction Claudia, it's a it's a subtractive technology. So your extract material That's something I never thought about working sardina. I never thought what what they what they do with the stones afterwards and Here actually they would use the stone for different things either Simply to do the small platform at the entrance of the tomb But all over the place you will see Retaining walls using the same block. So they will actually use this material for construction Not just in the cemetery, but even in the fields or in villages as well Other thing they do is reuse the small chips that are used At some part in the construction project and they'll do lots of things with it, but in particular the visit for revetments on roads on path And the key point here, which is interesting is that you you're free to use this kind of Extraction material as you wish for example when you were talking to an artisan stone artisan working There were this lady living in the neighborhood and she collected the chips of the stones to for payments But once the tomb has been Uh inaugurated with the massabu ritual then Everything is taboo including The the material that has been extracted. So after that point you cannot reuse the The small parts of the stones which is in front Okay, so Right, okay, that's my last slide so um So some key points. So the the construction of the tomb in tanator raja is It's both technical and ritual and surprisingly I think that's It's very tied up. So every steps you have a ritual and a technical steps and the stone workers themselves Are not just here to perform the actual cutting of the road, but they will so perform the rituals So they are also ritual agents in the in the process Tomes are so rock queries and as I said the statue of the stone is changing across this project. So The tomb is just a hole and they are just stones extracted and after the consecration The stones become something much more sacred or yeah taboo And yeah, thank you. We are working with two very uh nice and good guys. So I would actually thank them and thank you for your