The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Burial Customs of the Ancient Greeks
Title: The Burial Customs of the Ancient Greeks
Author: Frank Pierrepont Graves
Release date: July 12, 2015 [eBook #49431]
Most recently updated: October 24, 2024
Language: English
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THE
BURIAL CUSTOMS
OF THE
ANCIENT GREEKS.
A DISSERTATION
BY
FRANK PIERREPONT GRAVES,
COLUMBIA COLLEGE.
BROOKLYN.
May 1891.
PREFACE.
The author of this thesis does not lay claim to profound scholarship or extended research. It may contain errors that are perceptible to a careful student of Greek archaeology, even without subjecting the paper to a minute scrutiny. The material has been found scattered through the writings of ancient and modern authors and in the records of many excavations and the treasures of many museums. In the process of gathering from so extended a field, it is but natural that mistakes should have crept into the work. The effort has been made to exclude as many errors as possible and to weed out those that could be discovered with as great diligence as the inexperience of the author permitted. The labor of compilation has been undergone in the hope that a connected account of these ancient burial customs might breed an interest in the subject and prove an incentive to a more extended examination by some whose curiosity might not be strong enough or whose leisure time might not be sufficient to gather what was so widely separated.
AUTHORITIES.
Besides the writers of ancient Greece, the following authorities have been consulted in the preparation of this dissertation:
ANACHARSIS, Travels of, Par l’abbe Barthélemi. English translation, London, 1800.
BECKER, W. Adolph, Charicles, or Illustrations of the private life of the Ancient Greeks. Excursus on Burials.
BENNDORF, Griechische und Sicilien, Vasenbilden.
BOS, Antiquities of Greece, London, 1772.
CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM GRAECARUM, Edidit Augustus Boeckhius, Berolini.
COULANGE, La Cité Antique.
DODWELL, Edward, Classical and Topographical Tour through Greece, London, 1819.
FEYDEAU, Histoire générale des usages funébres et des sepultures des peuples anciens, Paris, 1858.
FORBIGER, Populäre Darstellung des öffentlichen und häuslichen Lebens der Griechen und Römer. I Band, Leipzig, 1876.
GARDNER, Percy, Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. v.
HERMANN, Lehrbuch der Griechischen Privatalterthümer von K. F. Hermann. Dritte Auflage von Dr. Hugo Blümner, Freiburg, 1882.
MAHAFFY, J. P., Rambles and Studies in Greece, second edition 1878.
MERRIAM, A. C., American Journal of Arch. v. Icaria.
MILLIN, A. L., Peintures de vases antiques vulgairement appelés Etrusques tírées des differentes collections.
MITCHELL, LUCY M., History of Ancient Sculpture.
MILLINGEN, J. V., Painted Greek Vases, London, 1822.
PERROT et CHIPIEZ, Histoire de L’art dans L’antiquité, Tome premier, L’Egypte.
POTTIER, EDMOND. Étude sur les Lecythes Blancs Attiques á Représentations Funéraires. [Bibliothéque des écoles françaises d’Athénes et de Rome, Tome 30.]
ROBERTS, E. S. Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Cambridge, 1887.
SCHREIBER, Bilderatlas and Commentary.
STACKELBERG, Baron. Die Graeber der Hellenen, Berlin, 1837.
ST. JOHN, History of the Manners and Customs of Ancient Greeks, Vol. III, London, 1842.
TEGG, The Last Act. London, 1877.
CONTENTS.
Duty of Burial: Burial of an enemy—Duty toward parents.
Burials Extraordinary: Burial of criminals—Of suicides—Of traitors—Of those struck by lightning—Special ceremonies for violent deaths—For persons drowned.
Preparation for Burial: Former features—Reforms—The passage money—The bath—The unguents—The wreaths—The honey-cake—The garments.
The Lying in State (Prothesis): When this took place—Regulations of Ceos—The women who took part—The scarf, the fan, and the bird—The place—The position of the corpse—The kline—The lecyths—The ardanion—Two purposes of the prothesis.
Outward Grief: By whom rendered—Only a form—Excesses—Laws against excess—Their result.
The Procession, (ekphora): Third day the set time—Exceptions to set time—Hour of the day—The kline—Who carried the bier—The dirge singers—Who might attend the procession—Military funeral processions.
Burning or Inhumation? The extreme views—The two methods contemporary—Cremation at every period—Burial also existed—Custom at Sparta and Sicyon—Comparison with modern methods—Details of cremation—Place of cremation.
The Coffins: Early coffins—Those of stone—Of cypress—Shape and decorations.
The Tombs: The varieties—Heaps of earth—The stêlæ—Decorations—The kion—The trapezae—The herôum—Early entombments—Later cost and regulations against it—Inscriptions on the tombs—Epitaphs to children—Trinkets placed in the tomb—The public cemetery—Tombs of the richer class—Burials outside of the city—The motive—Laws at Sparta and other States.
The Funeral Feast (Perideipnon): Its purpose—The host—The place—Praise of deceased’s virtues—Consecration of fragments.
Sacrifices at the Grave: Performed by relatives—The two varieties—Increase in expense—The trita—The ennata—The sacrifices of the Argives—Of the Spartans—When mourning ceased—The basket—Other utensils—What was employed for sacrifices—Women performed sacrifices—Grief less noticeable than at prothesis—Customs at the tomb—General attention to the graves.
Further Ceremonies: The genesia—The nekysia—Funeral games—Duty of visiting the grave—General conduct of a mourner—Black garments and polling of the head—Custom at Sparta—Conclusion.