Antonaccio - Burial Customs. The Homer Encyclopedia (2011)

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Burial Customs Burial in all societies is but one Amphidamas of CHALCIS by HESIOD) have sug-
stage in a process that begins prior to the death gested the origins of later Panhellenic contests
and may end a long time after the disposal of the with their connections to the burial places of
BODY. Many societies do not dispose of the corpse heroes, such as PELOPS (see HERO-CULT). Feasting
in a single moment, but after some care of it closed the rites. These practices obviously repay
(washing, clothing, etc.), convert it from something the mourners for the labor of cutting the wood
subject to decay into a substance that is more inert; and building the pyre and mound, as well as
for example, by exposing the body or burying it provide opportunities for advancing in the
until it is defleshed and the bones can then be social hierarchy through their physical skills in
gathered and conserved. Offerings, FEASTING, and competition, wherein they gain prestige a well
rites focused on the site of final disposal may as prizes (see also ARISTOCRACY). The feasting
ensue, lasting sometimes a year or for years later. and games also reintegrate the community after
In Homer, the body’s rendering is accomplished the rupture caused by the death; they glorify the
exclusively through the practice of cremation; this dead and also the living survivors who stage
practice also seems to allow the lingering spirit of and participate in the rites. Feasting and com-
the deceased to make the transition from life to petition for prizes, a form of gift-EXCHANGE, are
DEATH, as the shade of PATROKLOS implies when he also frequently called into use at many other
visits the sleeping ACHILLES and asks his friend to times to forge bonds of obligation and solidar-
end his extended mourning and burn his body (Il. ity; contests could be held at times other than
23.65–79). In Homer, after the pyre dies down, the funerals, as when ODYSSEUS is among the
mourners raise a mound and top it with a marker, PHAEACIANS (see also SPORT). Finally, epic itself
a FORMULA that is so prescribed it is called the “due serves to perpetuate and express the glory or
of the dead” (see also GERAS). The monument thus renown of the dead; it is important to recognize
created is the physical manifestation of the mem- that WOMEN, too, have this renown, though they
ory of the deceased and serves to incite the recita- do not accomplish it through glorious deaths.
tion of his name, parentage, and deeds (see GLORY). The poetic tradition seems totally unaware of
In the ILIAD, such mounds also served as landmarks the long-standing tradition of multiple burial,
in the Trojan plain, inscribing heroic ancestors on inhumations rather than cremation, in the Bronze
the landscape (see GEOGRAPHY, THE ILIAD). Age, the setting of the narratives themselves.
The basic rites of cremation, mound, and Indeed, cremation is rare in the Bronze Age.
marker are accorded to everyone from ODYSSEUS’ Neither chamber tombs nor the monumental
inept companion ELPENOR (who fell off KIRKE’s built tholos tombs so prominent especially in the
roof) to the great warriors Patroklos and Late Bronze Age on the mainland, and earlier in
HECTOR. The TROJANS and their allies, and the MESSENIA and on CRETE (see MYCENAEAN AGE), are
Greeks and theirs, all use these rites. At the same hinted at in the epics. It has been argued that this is
time, much elaboration of this basic format was due to the setting of the Iliad far from the heroes’
possible, depending on the status of the homes, so that a kind of family burial or any alter-
deceased and the community of mourners. The native to cremation would be impractical. There is
funeral of Patroklos, for example, included no reference to burial on ITHACA; in Homer we
extended mourning; the later practice of cut- never hear of the burial of a woman or child,
ting the hair as a sign of grief is offered by though Odysseus encounters women in the
Achilles; offerings of FOOD, WINE, and slaugh- UNDERWORLD, including his own mother. The
tered ANIMALS (including DOGS and HORSES) were poems are focused exclusively on the heroes who
made at Patroklos’ funeral prior to the pyre’s fight at Troy and try to get home. Moreover, the
lighting. Games in honor of the deceased com- mounds attributed to Trojan heroes in their own
panion of Achilles and of AMARYNKEUS, king of plain, and the formula of “mound and stele” for
the EPEIANS (Il. 23.630–642) (and the reference each individual hero, as mentioned above, both
to COMPETITIONS in honor of the dead indicate that for the Trojans at home, in their own
land, the usages Homer describes were customary.
The Homer Encyclopedia, edited by Margalit Finkelberg The close connection of the death of the HERO and
© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. his memory with the epic tradition itself seems to
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mandate the single burial found in Homer. While Oropos on EUBOEA, but also in abandoned settle-
parentage is clearly important in Homer, the ments on Naxos, Crete, and other communities,
actions of the individual and his own prestige suggests the close connections that might exist
assure him of his place both in the present and in in some Iron Age societies between the house, as
the memories of men in the future. The poems at a symbol of continuity, identity, and claims to
times offer more lengthy GENEALOGIES of high-status the land.
objects given in exchange than of the men who give
them. This is of a piece with the importance of com- See also LAMENT.
petition in virtually every aspect of life.
At the same time, there are warrior burials in
the Greek Iron Age (see DARK AGE) in a number References and Suggested Readings
Andronikos 1968; Garland 1985; Johnston 1999;
of communities that feature some aspect of
Dickinson 2006.
“Homeric” burial. These include warrior crema-
tions with weapons in metal vessels, the heaping Andronikos, M. 1968. Totenkult. AH: IIIW.
up of mounds over tholos tombs, the offerings of Dickinson, O. 2006. The Aegean from Bronze Age to Iron
food and evidence for feasting, as well as the SAC- Age. London: Routledge.
RIFICE of horses, even if such burials are not iso- Garland, R. 1985. The Greek Way of Death. London:
lated but part of a cemetery. Although cremation Duckworth.
was a dominant form of disposal during much Johnston, S. I. 1999. The Restless Dead: Encounters
of the historical Greek Iron Age, it was not the Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece.
only possibility: inhumation was also practiced, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
sometimes in the same cemetery. Burial around
and under HOUSES, as known at LEFKANDI and CARLA M. ANTONACCIO

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