Greece. The inhabitants of Mycenae and other prehistoric sites did not burn their dead, so far as we know, but buried them with the belongings which they had used and valued in life. Members of rich or princely families were often decked with gold ornaments and diadems, and the face covered with a gold mask moulded to resemble the features. Reproductions of some of the objects found in graves at Mycenae are in Case T in the First Room, and in the center of the same room is a reproduction of a stone sarcophagus from Hagia Triada in Crete, decorated with painted scenes representing a funerary sacrifice.

The people of the Homeric poems burned their dead and buried the ashes beneath a mound. Both ways of disposing of the body continued in common use in Greece, the choice resting with the family of the deceased. Cremation was more costly than burial, and so was practised less frequently by the poorer classes. At all periods both Greeks and Romans attached great importance to the proper performance of funeral rites, as they were believed to affect the happiness of the soul in the world of the dead.

The body was prepared for burial by the women of the family, who anointed it with oil and perfumes, and clothed it in the dress of common life, usually of white. A wreath of flowers, or of laurel, olive, or ivy was placed on the head, or in its stead a wreath of gold leaves. Before the funeral the dead was laid on a couch in the central hall of the house, with his feet toward the house door. His relatives and friends came to pay their last respects, and the funeral dirge was sung. An interesting terracotta relief from Attica on the north wall of the Second Room represents such an occasion. The women standing by the bier are tearing their hair as they raise their voices in the lament (fig. 146). The same scene is frequent on certain kinds of Greek pottery, notably the great Dipylon vases of the eighth century B.C., which were used as grave monuments. There are two Dipylon vases in the Second Room in Cases G and L (fig. 148). On the upper band of each is a scene showing a dead man on a bier surrounded by his family (see head-band, p. 121). An interesting plate in Case K in the same room is decorated with a scene which seems to represent a poet on a funeral couch with a wreath about his head and his lyre hanging on the wall above (fig. 147).

The greatest number of funeral scenes are found on the white Athenian lekythoi of the fifth century and later, which were made to be placed about the bier, in the tomb, or around the monument. One of those in Case L in the Fifth Room is painted in colors with a scene of mourners beside a funeral couch, treated in a later style. Other typical scenes are the farewell of the dead to his family as if for a long journey, and the care of the tomb by surviving relatives. Most of the vases in Cases L and F in the Fifth Room are decorated with variations of these two themes (fig. 149). Early in the morning of the second or third day after death the body was carried on the couch out of the city gates for burial or cremation. The funeral procession is represented on the lower bands of the Dipylon vases, or it may be that the horses and chariots are intended to suggest the funeral games, which were celebrated in early times after the death of a man of rank.

The loutrophoros is a vase associated especially with the funeral procession. These long-necked jars were used in the marriage ceremonies to bring water for the ceremonial bath of the bridegroom and the bride; and in the case of the death of a betrothed person, a loutrophoros was carried in the funeral procession and set up on the grave. One of these vases will be found in Case R in the Third Room. If the body was disposed of by cremation the ashes were placed in a jar, usually of stone or pottery. In Cases P, R, and T in the Seventh Room are a number of pottery jars which were used to hold the ashes of Greeks who died at Alexandria. Some of them are marked with the name of the deceased and the position of the jar in the cemetery. It was usual to erect tombs along the roads leading from the city gates, the sculptured tablets bordering the highway on either side, interspersed with trees, and sometimes accompanied by stone seats erected by families for the use of those members who came to tend the graves. Greek grave monuments are frequently very beautiful, and are characterized by fine taste and restraint in the expression of feeling, as well as by the absence of painful or shocking suggestion. There are a number of examples in the Sculpture Gallery. The marble lekythos is an example of a common type of monument (fig. 150). Another form is the lofty tablet with painted or sculptured akroterion (see tail-piece, p. 131), such as Nos. 6 and 5A in the Sculpture Gallery and the stele in the Third Room. Examples of tablets with sculptured figures are Nos. 4, 7, 10, 30, and 59 in the Sculpture Gallery and the stele of a young man in the Sixth Room. On these monuments the dead is represented alone in a quiet pose, with some article or utensil suggesting his favorite occupation or manner of life; or as taking leave of his family (fig. 152). In Rooms 21, 22, and 23 in the Gallery of Casts are reproductions of some of the most beautiful and best known of the Greek grave stelai. Several painted stones from the cemetery near Alexandria will be found in two cases in the Vestibule. The Cesnola Collection contains a number of Cypriote grave monuments inscribed with Greek formulas of farewell. These are in Cases 6 to 12, 14, and 15 in the corridor.

The custom, followed by the inhabitants of Greece and Italy for many centuries, of placing in tombs articles used in daily life, has preserved large numbers of objects which would otherwise have perished. The dead was surrounded by the belongings he had valued; the warrior had his arms, the woman her ornaments, mirror, and toilet boxes, and the child his toys. An idea of the prevalence of the custom may be formed by looking through the collection with this fact in mind. The greater part of the Greek pottery now in existence was found in tombs, not only in Greece but in Italy and in many other parts of the Mediterranean world. The bronze chariot and the utensils in Case S in the Third Room were the tomb furniture of an Etruscan noble. The beautiful bronze table service in Case E in the same room, and the table service of black-glazed pottery in Case G in the Seventh Room were also found in tombs. In Case F in the Sixth Room are the toilet articles and utensils buried in the grave of an Etruscan lady, the terracotta figurines in the Sixth and Seventh Rooms were made to be placed in graves, and many separate objects in the collection have been preserved in the same manner.

Italy. The earliest inhabitants of Italy did not practise cremation, but this custom was introduced in prehistoric times, both cremation and burial continuing in use contemporaneously.

The Etruscans placed the ashes of the dead in jars with smaller vases and ornaments and buried them in pits; or for the wealthy, tomb-chambers were built and arranged to resemble rooms in the houses of the living, the cinerary urns being set in niches, or the bodies being laid out on biers. Their urns in the earlier periods were frequently made in a very rude imitation of a human being with portrait head, and were often placed in terracotta chairs. Two examples are in Case N in the Second Room (fig. 153). Curious trays of dishes, probably used for offerings to the dead and known as “focolari,” are not uncommonly found in tombs. Examples are in Cases R and Q in the Second Room (fig. 151). In later times rectangular stone boxes, sculptured or painted, with a reclining figure of the deceased on the cover, were used. There are several of these urns in the Seventh Room, in Cases N and P and on Pedestals E and U (figs. 154-155).

The Romans burned their dead, with some exceptions. A few of the ancient families, notably the Cornelii, kept to the older fashion of burial, and it was customary even when a body was cremated to take one small portion of bone, called the “os resectum” from the ashes and bury it. The very poor, slaves, and outcasts were buried in graves made to hold a number of bodies, often with little care or respect. Roman funeral customs, so far as we know them, were very similar to those of Greece. Glass urns were in common use in the western part of the Roman world from the first to the third century A.D. One still contains fragments of bone and ashes. Under the Empire the custom of burial became frequent among the well-to-do, as is evidenced by the large and costly stone sarcophagi of the period. There are two Roman sarcophagi, Nos. 36 and 46 in the Sculpture Gallery, and a large one from Tarsus in the Vestibule. The relief on the south wall of the Sculpture Gallery representing the death of Meleager (No. 38A) once decorated a sarcophagus. These sculptured scenes are rarely connected with death, but are usually mythical or fanciful. A grave monument on the west wall of the Eighth Room, representing a young man and his wife, is interesting in that this form of portrait relief within a box-like frame is thought to have been derived from the wax death-masks, “imagines,” enclosed in boxes, which adorned the hall of the Roman noble (fig. 156). In the Sculpture Gallery is a stone cippus or monument (No. 43), erected to a mother and her two sons, and decorated with portraits in relief.