The History of Burial and Funeral Customs

The history of funeral service is a history of mankind. Funeral customs are as old as civilization itself. Every culture and civilization attends to the proper care of their dead. Every culture and civilization ever studied has three things in common relating to death and the disposition of the dead: Some type of funeral rites, rituals, and ceremonies; A sacred place for the dead and Memorialization of the dead. In the beginning, early humans would drop the dead into a hole and cover it with a stone. Some of the dead's possessions may have been placed with the body. Prehistoric humans also might purposely bury their dead in a shallow hole with a heavy stone to prevent the dead from coming back to life. It is believed that between 20,000 and 75,000 years ago, Neanderthals began to bury their dead. Evidence of many of our contemporary customs appears at Neanderthal sites. At Iraq's Sharindar Cave, for example, flowers were left with a burial. Personal effects accompany other burials. The first cities may have been cities of the dead, complexes of grave mounds whose walls were adapted to other purposes. Saxons, which were skilled at digging, buried their dead. The more important the person, the more dirt was piled on top of their grave. These graves were called barrows. Some of the earliest tombs were made in Egypt ,China, and Rome. In Egypt, the dead were wrapped in linen and the pharaohs were buried in huge pyramids.

The earliest known burial ritual is the planting of the deceased that is believed to be for later renewal. In Sumer, the King such as A-Bar-gi, insisted that their advisors and other personal servants join them in the afterlife. While in Egypt the pharaohs substituted statues for the living servants. Many ancient people recognized the burial ground's potential for spreading disease and placed their cemeteries outside their cities or took other precautions. Followers of Zoroaster, known as Parsees, built their Towers of Silence within city walls. Here they exposed their dead. Elaborate drains and charcoal filters purified the rainwater that dribbled off within these towers. Vultures cleaned the bones of the flesh which would otherwise attract maggots and other disease vectors.

Early Christians, who had grown used to spending their religious lives hiding among the dead in the catacombs, forgot the importance of hygienic measures. The dead were often stacked high in churches. Church burial yards were often covered over several times to make room for successive layers of corpses. In the Middle ages and Victorian times, the dead were buried just around the churches. This caused many problems, however. First, these burial plots had limited space, causing the churches to sell the graves multiple times. Any number of corpses might be buried together in a hole only a few feet deep. After the bodies were stuffed into the shallow holes, plagues rose through the soil and infected most people going to mass and the children playing in the areas around the churches. Also, before burial, the valuables were often stolen off the body. Later laws were passed making it illegal to bury bodies less than six feet under the soil, but not after thousands of people were killed from the spreading plagues. Tombstones were first used in this time, most of which depicted death and skeletons. Some time after the law was passed, body snatchers began stealing bodies from their graves to be used in medical research. These people had found a loophole in the laws, and what they did was not officially illegal. The church yards quickly filled and the dead were buried in areas just outside the cities. As cities expanded, the cemeteries would end up in the middle of cities as an area where nature could flourish.

Humans have also long marked graves and commemorated their dead. Stones were used to prevent wild animals despoiling the gravesite. Later, seashells, tools, beads, clothing and other items were piled atop the grave or buried with the dead and funereal rites began. The ancient societies of Egypt, China, and others are particularly noteworthy for their funeral customs, the building of elaborate tombs, and the development of unique types of funerary art and sculpture. When you think of Egypt, the images of mummies, elaborate pyramid tombs, hieroglyphic paintings, and other death-related objects immediately come to mind. The ancient Romans interred their dead in niches beneath the city in what are known as the Catacombs. In fact, studies of all human civilizations reveal that, to some degree or other, they have developed some ritual customs for dealing with death and with the remains of their dead. These include mound building, cremation, launching the dead out to sea in boats, sacrifices (human and otherwise), body painting, hair cutting, keening and wailing, erecting huts or tomb buildings, placing simple or elaborate markers at the death and/or burial site, and a wide variety of other customs. European cultures developed in similar fashion. Pictorial images have been used to commemorate death, with a wide variety of images used. Religious symbols and icons were used and perpetuated by the various sects. Other images came into use during less than cheerful circumstances. The death's head and the dancing skeleton, for instance, became common representations for life's brevity during the epidemics of the plague in Europe. As the centuries passed, more and more graphic representations came into use. During the Victorian era in both Europe and the United States, exceedingly elaborate tombs, gravestone carvings, statuary, funerary clothing and other paraphernalia evolved to commemorate the dead. They also allowed the living to share their sorrow and mourning with one another and for posterity. And entire cemeteries, planned as rural recreational parks, were developed.

Funeral Rites and Customs, observances connected with death and burial. Not only are they deeply associated with religious beliefs about the nature of death and the existence of an afterlife, but they also have important psychological, sociological, and symbolic functions for the survivors. Thus, the study of the ways in which the dead are treated in different cultures leads to a better understanding of the many diverse views about death and dying, as well as of human nature. Funerary rites and customs are concerned not only with the preparation and disposal of the body, but also with the well-being of the survivors and with the persistence of the spirit or memory of the deceased. In all societies, the human body is prepared in some fashion before it is finally laid to rest. Today, washing the body, dressing it in special garments, and adorning it with ornaments, religious objects, or amulets are common procedures. Sometimes the feet are tied together—possibly to prevent the ghost of the deceased from wandering about. The most thorough treatment of the body is embalming which probably originated in ancient Egypt. The Egyptians believed that in order for the soul to pass into the next life, the body must remain intact; hence, to preserve it, they developed the procedures of mummification The purpose of embalming in the United States is to prevent mourners from confronting the process of putrefaction.

The various methods used for disposal of the body are linked to religious beliefs, climate and geography, and social status.

Burial is associated with ancestor worship or beliefs about the afterlife; cremation is sometimes viewed as liberating the spirit of the deceased. Exposure, another widespread practice, may be a substitute for burial in Arctic regions; among the Parsis (followers of an ancient Persian religion) it has religious significance. Less common are water burial (such as burial at sea); sending the corpse to sea in a boat (a journey to ancestral regions or to the world of the dead); and cannibalism (a ceremonial act to ensure continued unity of the deceased with the tribe). The actual funeral—conveying the deceased to the place of burial, cremation, or exposure—also provides an occasion for ritual. In Hinduism the procession to the place of cremation is led by a man carrying a firebrand. The mourners at one point walk around the bier; in former times among some groups, a widow was expected to throw herself onto the burning pyre of her husband . Finally, the cremated remains are deposited in a sacred river. In ancient Greece, Egypt, and China, servants were sometimes buried with their masters. This form of human sacrifice was based on the belief that in the afterworld the deceased continued to need their services.

Fear of death, and to be in awe of it, inspired many peoples from this Neanderthal to modern man. We follow the same 3 customs all the way to the present. Today however, we have devolved, evolved religions, and most people subscribe to one or the other. These religions all seem to have their own set of burial and remembrance guidelines, and some are very elaborate indeed!________________________________________________________________________

Sources:

Funeral customs. Retrieved October 20, 2008 from http://www.alsirat.com/silence/history.html

Burial customs. Retrieved October 20, 2008 from http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc

Death. Retrieved October 20, 2008 from http://www.spiritandsky.com/death-and-funeral