Cremation: The Late Stone Age

Neanderthal burials that have been excavated and researched in the past have produced convincing evidence suggesting that they exhibited similar characteristics to humans when it comes to religiosity. Nikki Basset explains in her article about burial rituals that “Gargett recognized that often Neanderthals were believed to have buried their dead and performed rituals that suggest an emotional capacity equal to our own.” (basset) The common theme and emotional capacity that Gargett was speaking of was that of death, and that “…they treated death similarly to other people, as an extension of life, and thus they believed that people post-mortem play similar social roles as in everyday life.”

The text Burial Rites written by Hannah Kent focuses on the true story of the last woman to be executed in Iceland, her punishment for playing part in the murder of two men. She is sent to wait out her days on the farm of a district officer, Jón Jónsson with his two daughters and wife. Naturally, the family are horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst. Borne from this, the family refuse to talk to her. A young man, Toti is appointed as her spiritual guardian in the last days of her life, throughout the text, he attempts to redeem her soul by asking her to recount her life.

Mummification is an ancient egyptian burial rite that is centered around preparing the soul of the deceased for the afterlife. There are multiple steps involved in the process of mummification and several objects with different functions used to perform this burial rite. Mummification is centered around the thought that death was merely physical and your soul continued living, with the ability to take distinct action, in the afterlife. Everyone desired to be mummified, however the extent of the mummification depended on the wealth of the family involved. Mummification was also generally not a rite reserved for criminals and lawbreakers since the idea behind mummification is for the deceased to have an easier afterlife.

The play Antigone is a fictional Greek tragedy from 441 b. c. In the play, there is a war over two brothers that both want to be king. By the end of the war, both brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, were killed. This left Creon, their uncle, to rule as the king of Thebes. Though both brothers died fighting for the same thing, Polynices was considered the enemy. Therefore, Polynices did not have a traditional burial like Eteocles had. This is when the main character, Antigone, comes in. She is already grieving for her two brother, and to make matters worse, one doesn’t get to rest in peace. Antigone knows that the law states that if someone tries to bury an enemy, they will be put to death. But instead of abiding the law, she decides that risking

The Ancient Egyptians had a very specific and uncommon way that they buried the dead. The way that the Egyptians buried their dead would be very uncommon in modern day society. There are many steps in this burial process. Each burial had a system or process of steps that they followed to lay down fellow members of their society. The process of mummification had many steps.

The burial process in ancient Greece was an influential part of the culture shown in art, rituals, and stories. It was very significant to what they believed in at the time, which was gods and goddesses, big ceremonial rituals for every occasion, and family was also important. This ritual was sacred and was supposed to be done correctly out of respect for the deceased. This burial ritual includes three main parts. Each part representing an important meaning to the Greeks.

Many may refute that religion and honoring the dead is more valuable than the dollar, which is respectable. But if that is the case, then why have many notable religions deemed cremation acceptable? If ancient and wise religions have came to the fact that cremation is not taboo and just as acceptable as a burial, then we as people should not look at cremation as heinous but as a viable option to fix all the problems that a burial based funeral

Inside the tent I prepare the body for the funeral first it is wrapped in linen then wrapped in hemp*, when done it looks like a mummy. Next I get dressed for the ceremony, I dress myself in black bear skins and fasten an elk rack on my head. When I feel that everything is set inside the tent I grab a piece of cheese and very carefully make my way out of the tent, making sure that the headdress does not get trapped in the flaps of the tent. I take a bite of the cheese and look around the grove, I see the the bull is ready and the altar is set, but the pyre has not be build. Rufus where are you we need some wood for the pyre.

After you pass away, your remains are going to need to be transported to the funeral home that will take care of your cremation. Your remains will have to be transported from where ever you are to the funeral home that you choose. If you are trying to plan your funeral and burial out in advance, you are going to need to look into the cost of transportation for bodies.

Ancient Assyrians during the Neo-Assyrian Empire in 911BC to 612BC had a set or funerary practices for the death of a human being. The death of a male in an Assyrian family is seen as an even worse family tragedy and therefore has a different set of burial practices and rituals. These burial rituals were important to the Ancient Assyrians, as they were a process of mourning.

In “The Premature Burial” by Edgar Allan Poe uses first person narrative, Congressman’s wife, a banker’s wife, a soldier, a patient, and himself, to show why he was obsessed about the fear of being buried alive during the early nineteenth century. Through this story it tells how five different people are buried alive, the last one himself. During the early nineteenth century it was common for people to be buried alive. Doctors did not have the resources that is available today to help determine whether or not someone was in fact deceased. After going through this for a long time some people decided to help prevent this. They did this by putting a pipe from the ground to the coffin. They tied a bell, sometimes a flag to the end of the pole sticking out of the ground. If the bell rang they knew to come dig up this person. Although this is not very common now, there have been a few reports that have said otherwise.

There are many burial sites which are associated with the Vikings all over Europe and that of their spheres of influence, the burial practices of the Vikings were varied meaning that they didn’t bury in one universal style but in many other ways, the most famous of those were digging graves in the ground, to their famous tumuli, and sometimes it included ship burials. According to these written sources, most of their funerals usually occurred at sea. Their funerals contained two ways it was either by burial or cremation, this matter depended strongly on the local customs. In the area that is now Sweden, cremations were the universal way of burying their dead; whereas in Denmark burial was more common, by common I mean that they used to bury

Cremation was started for the health of the people after deadly wars. Using a crematory

One of the main advantages of cremation over a traditional burial is that the possibility of what to do with the cremated remains of a loved one is almost limitless. You can spread the remains over a favorite spot of theirs, or hold onto them in a unique way. Personalization of cremated remains is becoming more popular, and if it’s something that you want to do, consider one of these 3 methods of doing it.

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