Post by Graveyardbride on Oct 17, 2013 8:51:39 GMT -5
Funeral Practices Through the Ages
People have buried their dead since the beginning of recorded time and earlier. The oldest known burial took place around 130,000 years ago and it is generally believed burial of the dead is the oldest form of religious practice, suggesting human beings have always believed in an afterlife, or at least been concerned about what happens after life leaves the body. Our ancestors of eons past realized relationships never end ... only change, and since time immemorial, funerals have honored the dead and comforted the living and in that respect, little has changed, as evidenced by the following:
Ancient Egyptian Funeral Practices. Of all the great civilizations, when it comes to death and burial, the Egyptian culture is singled out as the beginning of modern day funeral practices. Egyptians believed profoundly in life beyond death and took great care in the preparation therefor. The theologies of Sun worship and the Cult of Osiris maintained the body and one’s possessions were necessary in the afterlife. Accordingly, steps were undertaken to preserve the corpse, and mummies and artifacts discovered over the following centuries are a testament to this practice. The Egyptians were the first to embalm and the Kher-heb, or high priest, supervised the procedure. The religious convictions of the Egyptians combined with an arid climate has rendered study of bodily preservation possible and much of what they did is still practiced in modern-day funeral homes.
Ancient Greek Funeral Customs. Unlike the Egyptians, the ancient Greeks conceived death as one of the harsher lots of mankind. The writings of the Classical Period (5 BC) employed stern and severe epithets for death. Early on, it was believed a bodily existence continued beneath the Earth. Later in Homeric times (700 BC), this belief gave way to the concept of a shadowy afterlife peopled by disembodied souls. Earth burial was practiced early in Greek culture with cremation later becoming the vogue. Reverence for the dead predominates in the burial customs of the Greeks through the ages. While there were no serious attempts at embalming, the body was anointed with perfumes and spices and lay in state. Because passage to the netherworld required crossing the River Styx, a coin was placed in the corpse’s mouth to pay Charon, the ferryman. Lacking such fare, the unlucky soul was doomed to wander 100 years along the shores. While a choice of burial or cremation was available in later periods, their shadowy afterlife was a sharp contrast to that of the Egyptians who believed in reanimation of the dead.
Roman Funeral Customs. Belief in an afterlife among Romans varied over the course of time. Around 300 BC, the Epicureans philosophized that the body and soul, composed of atoms, simply disintegrated at death. Thus, the afterlife was no different than the life before death. The emergence of Christianity as the dominant religion of the Roman Empire (AD 300) brought with it a theological orientation toward death. Death customs for the most part were patterned on the sepulchre of Christ. Both cremation and Earth burial were practiced by the Romans: the body lay in state and was anointed much in the same manner as with the Greeks, but when this “preservation” was completed, it was supervised by the Libitinarius, the Roman equivalent of today’s funeral director. This was the first time, so far as is known, that a secular functionary was involved in care of the dead. The Roman word funeral meant in essence parade, and depending on the importance of the individual, some were elaborate, involving professional mourners.
Early Hebrew Funeral Customs. Like other Semitic peoples, early Hebrews regarded man as composed of two elements, Basar (flesh) and Nefesh (breath). Early Hebrews believed the soul maintained a close connection to the dead body and if the corpse was injured, the soul suffered. In like fashion, the early Hebrews generally held that the soul led a shadowy afterlife in a netherworld called Sheol. Around 547 BC, Monotheism (belief in one God) developed as a belief centering on the figure Yaweh. The Hebrew dead were anointed, dressed in their best attire (because they could be recognized by their garments in the hereafter) and the body lay in state. Jewish custom also mandated burial take place before sundown on the day of passing, a practice founded on hygienic necessity. During all historical periods, the ancient Hebrews interred their dead. Cremation was not allowed and when it took place, was frowned upon as an indignity to the corpse.
Funeral Beliefs of Early Christians. Early Christian beliefs regarding death and the disposal of the dead were predicated upon the general mortuary ideology of the Hebrews as vivified and expanded by the teachings of Christ. For early Christians, the concept of a “flesh and blood” relationship of man to God, a grave from which the body was resurrected and the eventual divine judgment wherein each man gives an account of his life on Earth, had an added dimension – the infinite and equal value of every human soul. The soul was both spiritual and immortal and destined to become a discarnate spirit in the afterlife. No soul could be totally destroyed – resurrection was the Miracle of God. Christians customarily buried their dead. There was a rigidly compelling doctrine forbidding cremation and it was finally prohibited during the reign of Constantine the Great (AD 306-337). Christians believed they were asleep in Christ and “cemetery,” in its etymology, designates a sleeping place. The concept and terminology of death as sleep have continued through 2000 years into modern funerary practices.
Funeral Beliefs of the Ancient Scandinavians. Cremation of the dead held the attentions of the Greeks and Romans for more than a millennium, but fire burial was practiced by the Scandinavians, independent of this influence, for more than 2000 years. New beliefs, or “folkways,” concerning the afterlife were adopted and one was to burn the body as a method of protecting the living against harmful spirits. Another was “to free the spirit of the dead from the clogging prison of the body.” There were two contributing concepts of freeing the spirit: One was the belief that in the afterlife, the dead could enter into the realm of the Gods; the other was the belief that the spirit continues to exist within the grave mound itself. From the second sprang cults of the dead. Scandinavians believed in the “journey to the land of the dead,” as reflected in the mode of ship burials of the Viking Age in Norway whereby a ship containing the body was set afire and allowed to drift out to sea.
Iron Age burial.
Common Elements in the Mortuary Beliefs of Early People. We have seen the various beliefs and burial practices of early cultures – Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, Christians and the Scandinavians. As we consider the primary mortuary beliefs of the early peoples and cultures, we are able to draw at least one solid conclusion: Death does not end the relationship between the living and the dead, but merely signals the transition from one type relationship to another. Religious beliefs played an important role in funerary customs as did practicality. Modes of burial were affected by religion as well as sanitation and timely disposal. Today, as then, religion and public health are prime considerations in death and burial practices.
Funeral Practices in the Middle Ages. The emergence of the Christian Church from a time of persecution gave primitive burial practices an imposing dignity that better expressed the importance of the church. By the late 5th century, the dead were brought to the church for a religious mass. People were buried in the costumes indicative of their positions in life – kings, knights, priests, monks, etc. were all adorned in their distinctive garb. Burial up to this time always took place outside city walls, but when Constantine’s Edict of Toleration was passed in AD 313, burial within city walls received tremendous impetus. People later wished to be buried in or near the church and this gave rise to the church graveyard, or churchyard, and in Europe today, many important religious figures are, indeed, buried in or beneath churches.
Medical Embalmers and Anatomists. While the link between modern times and ancient Egypt is unbroken, there were almost 1500 years during which embalming was rarely practiced and when it was, it was carried out incidentally and secondarily by someone primarily engaged in an occupation other than the burial of the dead. In the 15th century, there was a revival of interest in anatomy and surgery. These demands for better methods of preservation were seconded by artists who drew anatomical plates. Leonardo Da Vinci developed a system of venous injection that served as a precursor to modern embalming procedures. When the circulation of blood was discovered in the early 17th century, the art of arterial embalming emerged.
Rise of the English Undertaker. Funeral undertaking as a clear-cut distinct secular occupation wasn’t evident in Europe prior to the 17th century. Embalming developed as a medical specialty independent of undertaking. The feudal period dramatized death with high ritual and ceremony, and death was an integral part of the life of the English aristocracy. Segments of cities from the 17th century forward demanded funerals simply in the name of religion. Others, remembering how the Plague had devastated Europe, vigorously demanded them in the name of sanitation. Because of this, the undertaker, or one who provided all necessary items for such ceremonies, was created. There was now a single individual coordinating everything involved in the burial rite.
Old New England tombstone.
American Colonial Funeral Behavior. Because American Colonial settlements were founded by English-speaking Europeans, many of their skills, arts and crafts remain as basic substructures to the distinctive American way of life. Early New England folk recognized death as a natural and inevitable commonplace reality. Death was never denied and the earliest New England burials were models of simplicity and quiet dignity. Mourners merely followed the coffin and stood silently as the grave was filled. Later, the practice of funeral services in the church was observed and mourning took on an extensive social character of its own. Despite the growing concern over burial expense and legislative attempts to curb the practice of spending a sizable portion of the estate on funeral gifts (e.g., glove), the colonists persisted in celebrating the disposal of the dead with food, alcoholic beverages and gifts for friends and relatives who attended the funeral.
Overview of Funeral Services Today. Embalming from Egypt, cremation from Greece and Scandinavia, the funeral mass from Europe, and funeral sermons from early New England are all still with us today. The funeral as we know it can be traced back thousands of years. Archaeologists maintain the Shanandar tribe of Araq engaged in some sort of funerary service 50,000 years ago. Today the funeral service us a testament to a life lived that allows loved ones express their grief.
Sources: Sellers Funeral Home; The History of Death: Burial Customs and Funeral Rites from the Ancient World to Modern Times by Michael Kerrigan; Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual by Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington; and the National Funeral Directors Association.
