Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

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311  ▶ death and burial practices introduction Death in the ancient world had many similarities to death in any other era. Whil ...

AFRICA BY ROBERT SHANAFELT Africa provides evidence of some of the world’s oldest burials and mortuary rituals. At a site contai ...

great mounds, some as much as 100 feet wide and 45 feet high, showed the power and prestige of the rulers. During the fourth and ...

texts from a papyrus, the Opening of the Mouth ceremony took place (supposedly restoring the faculties of the deceased so t hat ...

ers were rare; memorial monuments inside temples have been found but had no physical connection to the burial. Crema- tion was u ...

unchecked human propagation. Th us death from old age and disease came into existence. ASIA AND THE PACIFIC BY CONSTANCE A. COOK ...

sels around the bodies, which might be covered with bone or stone beads. Some jade objects and tomb decor suggest the use of ast ...

Oft en buried with the bodies were off erings that archae- ologists call “grave goods.” Sometimes these goods are lav- ish, in t ...

Europe were diff erent from region to region, with skeletal burial common in some areas and cremation in others. Ancient Europea ...

festival for the dead. Fift h-century Athenian vase paintings depict women tending graves by decorating the tombstones with ribb ...

Th e poorwere buried in mass graves, their bodies cov- ered by simple shrouds or sacks. Th e wealthy used sarcoph- agi—coffi ns ...

goods reserved for a few individuals refl ect the development of social ranking in ancient American societies. In what is now th ...

or atop platforms, alongside similar mirrors and jade fi gures, beads, and ear ornaments. One ruler lay alongside the bro- ken h ...

the prescribed number of days. At the end of the time the cedar-oil is allowed to make its escape; and such is its power that it ...

In mourning garb he was clothed, in soiled garments clad. Shamash [the sun-god] went to Sin [the moon-god], his father, weeping, ...

As each successor fails not his foregoer, so form the lives of these, O great Ordainer Live your full lives and fi nd old age d ...

FURTHER READING Tony Allan, “Glimpses of Past Grandeur.” In Th e Archaeology of the Aft erlife: Deciphering the Past from Tombs, ...

that modern theatergoers expect, including costumes, sets, dialogue, character development, confl ict, and a climax. Per- forman ...

cent fi nd in northwest Botswana has pushed this date back some 30,000 years. Th ere, archaeologists discovered a kind of cave t ...