DAMNATIO MEMORIAE

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It is estimated that more than 108 billion people have ever lived (if we consider only Homo sapiens). From this amount, how many have been granted a place in posterity? Of how many do we keep a record of their deeds, or their names at least? We are aware of the existence of only a miniscule portion of people; with the rest it’s like they were never born.

When we lose someone, a loved one, we carve their name in stone. Carving their name keeps them alive. We put their photo on a tombstone, lay flowers around it, keeping them alive in our memory, though we know they are really dead. Every culture has a grieving ritual.

It could be said that Damnatio Memoriae is the anti-grieving ritual. This is a term that refers to an ancient Roman practice in which the memory of an individual deemed a traitor was formally condemned. This process involved destroying any record of the person in question: erasing their name from inscriptions and defacing images with their likeness. The intent was to remove all traces of this person’s existence from collective memory – as if they had never lived.