Anglo-Saxon Burial Techniques:
Early Anglo-Saxon burials are traditionally based on cremation on a pyre, with the deposition of corpses in the ground in a pottery container. The Anglo-Saxons were experts at cremations, with their pyres being at least as efficient as today's pyres, reaching temperatures of up to 9000C. Cremation burials were never found with weapons - it is possible, of course, that these were a part of the cremation, but melted in the flames, but many are found with miniature weapons and miniature combs. In the fourth and fifth centuries, inhumation burials came into common use, where the unburned body is deposited in a rectangular grave. It was probably copied from the late Roman technique, although it is suggested that it was introduced from Denmark. Inhumation burials typically were accompanied by weapons, and grave goods according to status.
In the seventh century, Anglo-Saxon burials abruptly changed, as a direct result of Christianity. The most obvious indicator is the lack of pagan objects, such as weapons- a practice encouraged by the Church. Many cemeteries were abandoned that had been used in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the double cemetery also became common -that is, a cemetery was abandoned and a new one was setup beside it.
There were a number of new types of burial present after the Church arrived. The first of these is the 'Final Phase' burial, which is basically a transition between a pagan inhumation, with the corpse being accompanied typically by clothes, jewelry, weapons and other personal belongings, and a Christian inhumation, where the corpse is unclothed and unfurnished, except for a shroud. On the whole, these burials have very few grave goods when compared to the previous pagan period, and some have no grave goods at all. The graves are aligned east-west, after the Christian fashion, and all except a very small number are inhumation - after the sixth century, cremations become almost redundant.
Another type of burial identified, is that of the 'Princely' burial, normally located under a mound, with a high number of quality grave goods. They contain either a cremation or an inhumation. Anglo-Saxon standards is that burial mounds usually cover inhumations, rather than cremations. One such burial is that of Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk, on the River Deben. There were a number of burials here, all of them under mounds.
An interesting reflection of Anglo-Saxon society was the graves surrounding - the so-called 'sand-men', which appear to have been human sacrifices.
Perhaps the most notorious of burial practices originating in Egypt is that of mummification. Why such an extraordinary attempt was made to preserve cadavers may seem
In the beginning observations of this story, I learned the unique set of structure used. She started of early in the story stating “43% of American’s who died last year were burned instead of buried”. This represents the idea that there is a significant change in the way we dispose our bodies. The author also introduced a change of traditional methods to modern methods in the structuring of the text. Authors key focus was cultural change. Readings show that people who don’t believe in Christ(Atheism) rose thirteen percent in 2012-2013. This change and rise resurrected ne ideas about our bodies. Traditionally people will get buried as form of laying your body in the ground for the coming of Christ. Since the rise of atheism, however, people think as they don’t need to bury themselves and can use an alternate way they feel that suits them and their body when they
When someone dies their bones are burned and crushed into ash and consumed by the relatives. It puts a persons soul at peace to find a resting place within their family, it would be an abomination to bury them in the ground. Once this ceremony is finished the person is gone. Their name or person is never to be mentioned again.
...uried. The way Heaney describes this cleansing of the body and clothing it was depicted in a very ritualistic and loving way. It showed how important it was to Heaney that his cousin was buried correctly and humanely.
During the Middle and Upper Paleolithic era, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis started to create works of art such as cave paintings, rock art and jewelry as well as religious behavior through burial rights and rituals. These burials are important since it signifies a "concern for the dead that transcends daily life,” (Lieberman). These burial rights and rituals can be dated back to the Middle Paleolithic era, overlapping with the first appearance of Homo neanderthalensis. While it may be disputed, evidence suggests that the Homo neanderthalensis were the first to intentionally bury the dead in shallow graves along with what is assumed to be their possessions (Wikipedia).
Funerals have been around as long as humans have. “Research indicates that as far back as 50,000 years ago, man exhibited concern for the dead” Lensing (2001) stated. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans also had rituals about death and the possibility of an afterlife. The Middle Ages society was one of the first socities to accpet the idea that death was a part of life and that all people had to die. Also during the Middle Ages, rituals of mourning became evident. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the mourning rituals became more elaborate. The rituals included ornate tombstones and a plethora of mourning paraphernalia Lensing (2001).
The time period for Egyptian mummification is from their Predynastic Period (4650-3050 BC) until after the New Kingdom (1069 BC-395 AD). The Egyptians believed in Polytheism, which the religion of worshiping more than one god. Since they believed in more than one god, they believed in Osiris, the earthbound god of the dead, and Re, the sun god. These two gods were critical to the Egyptians, because they counted on those two gods to lead people into the afterlife. In order to achieve the afterlife, a proper burial had to take place for the dead. The Table of Sinuhe, a twelfth dynasty text, described the preparation for a funeral for someone who is elite in Egypt, which included: constructing the grave on an elite location, with both a public chapel and a private burial chamber. The Egyptians did this to preserve the name of the deceased, and their objects that were given to the deceased to help guide them to the afterlife. The family of the deceased then needed to choose which of the three embalming processes was right for them. There were three types of mummification processes: there was the most expensive and most elaborate process; the second way contained some of the steps from the first way to embalm a person, but was very limited; and the last way would be the cheapest and least elaborate way to embalm someone. The embalmer was astute man, who was respected and had the same privileges as the priests did. Nevertheless, this belief in life after death affected the population of Egypt and their art, architecture, technology, and their legal practices, which would be that no one could do any damage to a dead body. Historians find all this information from two writers, who wrote different pieces of text on mummification.
Without advanced medicine, Americans were familiar with death, as the common cold could easily turn fatal. After the death of a loved one, the family members would give the body a bath and store it in the coldest room of the house to prevent immediate decomposing. The body would only stay in the house until people had time to visit and say their goodbyes. The smell was unpleasant, so flowers would be brought in. This initiated the tradition of having flowers at a funeral. After that, the body would be buried next to other deceased family members in a simple, wooden coffin. For those that could afford it, an undertaker was hired to take away the body and hold a formal funeral. The undertaker would store bodies on blocks of
Today the society is looking for ways to ease life and to find solutions for problems which oppress our lives and make it hard to live through. Because of many reasons, the traditional burials in this century are becoming a problem. (Prothero,2001). The fact that they cover a lot of land to build cemeteries and other things that are attached to these traditional burials is enough for us to search for a practical solution. About a century ago the term "cremation" was unknown to many people. It is believed that it began to be practiced during the early Stone Age and still exists today. Since that time cremations have been made all over the world, but they have never been so popular as they are now in this century. First and the most important to us all are the costs which are much less expensive for cremations than for funerals . Second, cremation does not contaminate the earth and cause a foul odor in the ground. Third, a lot of land is saved which means that it has an environmental impact.
Death is the equalizer of all life. Throughout time people have constructed death in many different ways. For ancient civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, Egypt, Ugarit, Greece, and Rome, death consisted of burial rituals and practices, the construction of monuments, murals, and stele, and offering libations to the dead. These civilizations shared many aspects in their perceptions of death and the afterlife, but those perceptions also varied enough to be individualistic and unique to each civilization. Among the many differences between civilizations’ perceptions, some of the variations involved the location of graves, the type of monuments constructed, the structure of the funeral, and preparation of the dead body for the funeral. The relationship
In modern day America, a lot of changes have occurred with a standard funeral. A standard funeral is viewed as a coping mechanism for the living. While coping with death, there are several ways that a body can be disposed .A body can be buried in the earth, buried in the sea, burned (cremation), exposed to air or preserved. After the body is buried, a memorial service is held in honor of the deceased. The manner in which the body is prepared for the funeral and the manner the memorial service is held is determined by the person’s culture and religion.
This changed throughout time and it became a normal practice for loved one’s in Egypt. The Coffin of Tentkhonsu was for an elite member, when focused on the drawings on the outside of the coffin, it conveys a narrative story. On the outside of the coffin there’s scenes depicting the passage to netherworld and to finalize in the rebirth of the mummy. There’s depictions of judgment of the heart, in which two helpers of the gods, weight the soul, to which makes a determination if the individual has the right to salvation and actual rebirth. In the inside there’s scenes showing salvation process and what it appears to be Tentkhonsu rebirth.
It can be said that there is nothing more permanent than change throughout human history. This notion has prevailed throughout thousands of years as old beliefs and ways of life are replaced by the next logical step in humanity’s attempt to achieve some sensation of sureness or stability in life. Change is at the forefront of much of Old English literature, as the pagan, naturalistic religion of the Anglo-Saxons slowly shifted to Christian ideology. This clash of spiritualistic superiority is clearly illustrated in the episode of Grendel’s Mother from Beowulf, the Wanderer, and Caedmon’s Hymn, all of which display a shift of Anglo-Saxon society to Christianity through a demonization of nature, the passing of old tradition, and the power of God’s will over man.
I shall gather various types of archaeological publications dealing with deviant burial. It is important to include differing types of publications to see if it affects the way in which deviancy is dealt with. I will then determine if any common patterns are apparent within the study of deviant burial. If common patterns are found, each one will be explored individually. Searching for specific statements within the texts, I will attempt to determine how the patterns relate to the interpretation of deviant burial. As I have not previously dealt with deviant burials, I will also briefly convey my interpretations – as a simulated intended audience reader – of the way in which deviancy is conveyed through the material. This will give a distinctive perspective as to how the true intended audience of the publications may view the evidence as presented by the archaeologists. A discourse analysis is never complete as there are too many aspects to ever fully dissect a subject (Dijk 2001; Phillips and Hardy 2002). However, it is my intent to try to examine deviant burial as thoroughly as this thesis permits, as well as to bring a unique point of view to the
Burials are one of the main sources of knowledge concerning the Early Bronze Age. The most common practice during this time was placing several generations of one family in the same cave or tomb with a variety of offerings, such as pottery vessels, jewelry, and metal objects. In most cases, skeletal remains were found disarticulated with the skulls separated from the bodies. For example, at Tell Asawir bones were packed in pottery jars; at Azor there is some evidence of cremation; and at Jericho the skulls were separated and arranged in rows (Mazar 1990). Shaft tombs were found at some sites, such as the vast cemetery at Bab edhDhra’, where the Early Bronze Age I phase includes several thousand shaft tombs. As no settlement was established in this phase, the cemetery may have belonged to pastoral semi-nomads. This notion is supported by the method of burial––no more than six or seven individuals were found in each cave; each of these were disarticulated––the long bones arranged in one pile and the skulls laid out in a row (Mazar 1990). The flesh was probably extracted from the bones by boiling, a practice which would have suited the semi-nomadic lifestyle of those who may have kept the bones of the deceased in temporary graves or shelters until they could bring them to final burial in a more central or sacred cemetery (Mazar 1990). Multiple interment in caves continued into the Early Bronze Age II-III. This phase at Bab edh-Dhra’ includes rectangular burial chambers (Mazar 1990).