Funeral rite

Burial rite describes - especially in ethnology and archeology - the totality of all actions before, during and after a burial . In the narrower sense, the type of burial is meant (e.g. stool grave ), in the broader sense all actions connected with the physical remains of the deceased.

Burial rites have been known since the Stone Age ( Paleolithic ) and are an important part of most cultures . They are a specifically human phenomenon and do not occur in the animal kingdom. They are closely linked to the respective conceptions of the afterlife of a culture and therefore mostly belong to its religious area.

Funeral rites can be viewed as rites of passage , as they serve the funeral directors to channel their grief and to process the disturbance caused by death in the community and to make statements about the afterlife.

Burial forms

Almost every conceivable treatment of corpses has been described by ethnologists, historians, and archaeologists. Common forms are:

Body burial

In the case of body burials in the narrower sense, the entire body is buried. Partial burials are also often carried out for religious reasons , for example if only a heart or head burial takes place. Secondary burials are mostly burial in the earth and take place after an exhumation when the body is buried elsewhere. Often not the entire skeletal material is reburied, but only the most important skeletal parts. An example of secondary burials are the ossuary of the late Middle Ages, where the remaining bones were cleaned after decomposition and placed in ossuaries .

Cremation

The cremation is urn burial the most common form. Here, the remaining ashes of the corpse after its cremation are collected in a vessel and buried. In the event of a fire spread , the corpse burn is collected and then poured into the grave pit. If the grave is built over the funeral pyre (mostly barrows) and lit it is called a funeral pyre grave , whereas in the case of a bustum grave in the opposite case the funeral pyre is built over the grave pit and the ashes fall down into the grave as a result of the burning.

While the corpse is buried in the above-mentioned cases, it is also common to scatter the ashes in the wind ( burial in the air ) and to discharge the ashes into a body of water. More recently, there are other options: parts of the deceased's ashes can in the space funeral will be launched into space. In diamond burial, the amorphous carbon remaining after the cremation is converted into a synthetic diamond, which the bereaved as a reminder of the deceased. Partial burns are also possible in all cases .

Rites of different cultures

• Roman burial rituals

See also

• Stool grave
• Cult of the dead , sepulchral culture
• dig
• Aerial burial
• Heavenly burial
• Space burial
• Diamond burial
• Funeral Act
• Care for the dead
• Funeral procession
• Secondary burial

literature

• Reiner Sörries, Stefanie Knöll: Large lexicon of funeral and cemetery culture. Dictionary of Sepulchral Culture. Volume 2: Archaeological-art-historical part. From the waste pit to the Twelve Tables Act . Thalacker Medien, Braunschweig 2005, ISBN 3-87815-182-9 .
• Roderick Sprague: Burial Terminology. A guide for researchers. AltaMira Press, Lanham MD 2005, ISBN 0-7591-0840-4 .

Web links

• History of death in modern times
• Extraordinary funeral rites in the world at bestattungen.de
• Dead custom in the Eifel

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Early humans with burial rites Does the history of mankind have to be rewritten? at berliner-zeitung.de, accessed on May 16, 2018.