Eytan Pol
Het leven duurt maar kort: deeltentamen II
Mario Erasmo – Death
Antiquity & its Legacy
Chapter I Funerals
Ancient Greek and Roman funerary practices have shaped Western attitudes towards death and
the dead. Funerals are important events in demarcating but also in erasing boundaries between the
living and the dead. The term funeral is broad and refers to the series of events that leads to
disposal: a wake, with or without an open coffin, a memorial or religious service and disposal,
whether cremation or an inhumation burial. Depending on one’s culture, religion or individual
preferences, not all of these elements may be present. Jewish funerary customs do not allow
embalming and call for burial as soon as possible after death. Burial and mourning were subject
to legislation in ancient Athens and Rome. Implicit and explicit reasons seem to be for the
observance of religious rites, community hygiene and to curb excessive displays of grief or
expenditure that could promote political ambition and social unrest.
Death is a biological and a social construct that makes the moment of death difficult to define.
Infamous cases of corpse abuse in ancient Rome were usually politically motivated from denial
of burial, decapitation and the desecration of funeral and burial rites. In Ancient Athens, a jar was
placed outside the door with water from an outside sources to warn strangers of a death and to
purify on leaving the house. In Rome, houses in mourning were marked with branches of cypress
and pine for nine days.
Theatre metaphors connect the preparation of the corpse and the visitation to theatrical events
complete with actor, audience and stage. In ancient Egypt, embalming was performed by
professional embalmers as part of the process of mummification to preserve the body for burial
and the afterlife, rather than for visitation. Herodotus describes various embalming methods that
varied on procedure and price:
• Removal of the brain and abdomen contents, cleansing and filling with spices, sewn up and
covered in natrum for seventy days and finally sealed and positioned upright in a burial chamber.
• No removal of intestines, injection of cedar oil into the body and return of the body.
• Cleansing out the intestines with a purge and storing the body for seventy days.
In ancient Greece, the preparation of the corpse for viewing and burial was done in the home and
was the responsibility of women. After washing of the corpse in ancient Greece, the eyes were
closed to evoke sleeping and perhaps even for the living to avert the potentially dangerous gaze
of the dead. A coin was placed between the teeth. Clothing was usually white.
Public mourning practices of women became more restricted following the archaic period. The
burial and commemoration of unmarried or engaged girls in bridal attire evokes a wedding never
celebrated, but the burial and commemoration of married women as brides evokes and repeats an
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