Greek funeral rituals
Introduction
The classic Greeks did not have a clear and uniform idea about death. It was believed in an idea of a community of souls, which required the prayers and memories of the living for their survival. Both in Greece and in Rome, it was thought that the dead were still alive, and on certain dates, after the funeral and throughout the year, they were offered libations and food;So it is normal for the graves to have a duct that accessed the funeral chamber through which food and drink were introduced. With this offering it was how the memory of the deceased was incorporated into the life to which it had belonged.
Developing
The fact of being insepult and not receiving the funeral honors was considered a misfortune greater than death itself. A soul without a grave was a soul without purple. The funeral rites could be expensive and complex when they were rich or modest and simple citizens as they were wealthy people, but in both, the purpose was the same: to ensure the soul of the deceased their transit to the other life. The relatives themselves were the ones who officiated the funeral ceremonies. Funeral rites in Athens lasted three days, there were also state funerals.
It is above all thucidides who tells us about Athenian state funerals, introduced towards the year 465 to. C. At this funeral the prominence was public, snatching it to the family field. Funeral ceremonies were not directed exclusively to the deceased, it was also considered a way to channel the pain of their nearby. Contact with the body, black clothing, cries, hair cut (like the boyfriend on the first day of the three that make up the Greek marriage ceremony) this grieving process represented the “separation rite” forthe living. The prothesis or wake of the body lasted three days instead of one.
At the time of death, family members were usually. The body was washed with water and scented essences, anointed and wrapped in a shroud, and a garland was placed both in the head and a currency on the lips, the obolo to pay the trip to Caronte that crossed the Leto River, the river of the riverforgot. Next, the body was exposed at the entrance of the house, with the feet towards the door. The ancestor came to be a protective god who radiated his power from fire, which should always remain on, on an altar of the house. Each family had theirs.
“I will begin, above all, for our ancestors, because it is fair and, at the same time, appropriate to an occasion like this, that this tribute of remembrance is given. Always inhabiting this land through successive generations, it is his merit to have the free legacy to this day."Pericles speech. Thucydides. 438ac. But the kingdom of death and the door that led to Hades was already in the tomb itself. The cemetery was, therefore, a sacred place where religious rites were made in honor of the gods to the deceased. On the second day the Ekphora or Transport of the body.
The funeral bed was transported in a car or carried by the servants of the house, and accompanied by family and friends, men in front and, exceptionally, women were allowed to join the courtship by profiling their regrets. The transfer of the body to the cemetery was given before dawn. In the cemetery the body was buried or burned, collecting the ashes in an urn that was deposited in the grave. Libations were then made in honor of the gods of the dead and the deceased. The grave was pointed out with a monument that consisted of a stele placed on steps.
In the wake the epitaph was written and tapes and garlands were hung on it. Poetry and epitaphs suggest that life continues beyond death, the idea of a new home, of a marriage for the young man who did not marry, and the funeral ceremony with the cleaning and dress of the deceased. The Greeks saw the wedding and funeral ceremony very similar, the soul leaves the body as the woman leaves her paternal home. The step to the next stage. In the steps the white backgrounds, perfume bottles were deposited (the perfume was a symbol of fertility, therefore, of immortality) and other offerings.
After the funeral, funeral (agon) games were celebrated, which were repeated annually under the supervision of the pool (Aristotle, Poi.) On the third day the funeral banquet was celebrated in honor of the deceased, which was repeated the ninth and thirteenth day. The libations and offerings were repeated a year, adorning the grave. The place of burial of these Athenian fallen was a specific and ennobled area of the ceramic cemetery, a ceremonial path of 39 meters wide known as the "tomb of the people" or demonstration Sema Sema. This cemetery is known by the excavations of the German Archaeological Institute in Keameikos.
Currently, these funerary findings are found in the Keameikos archaeological museum. Khárôn picked up the souls that Hermes had led to the banks of the Estigia lagoon. According to mythology, the messenger God was the guide to the Estigia lagoon, being the only connoisseur of these paths. After moving on to Cancera, the three -headed dog (Hesiod identifies him with fifty) the soul arrives at the underworld, kingdom of Hades, the soul could rest in three different places;The Asfodelos fields the most common place where "common" souls would rest. The Tartarus collects those who offended the gods, could be compared to Christian hell, or the island of blessed if it was a person of exemplary behavior, similar the sky in the Christian religion.
There were different rituals for the dead in battle in classical antiquity, the dead were generally buried in common graves under a mound (Polyandria). In Athens it was more normal to move the bodies for individual burial, in charge of each family. In the Athenian maritime empire of the 5th century, it was sometimes even necessary. When the transfer was impossible, at least it was sought to take them to a place where they were honored, in certain circumstances even the Athenians buried the dead on the battlefield itself.
And if the bodies were unrecoverable, cenotaphs were erected to have a place to commemorate the memory of the deceased. Not a few cases, as time passed and wars became more prolonged, cruel and wild -especially from the Peloponnesian War in the middle of the 5th century., The bodies, especially the defeated, were insepulated and their bones. The white background lécito with gynece scene. This glass of perfume is characteristic of the classical Greek funeral ritual, it is a white background ceramic technique, it was used by Athenian artisans to decorate funeral vessels placed in the tombs.
conclusion
It was not a ceramic of everyday use, for the nakedness of colors. It is not a usual attic lécito, given the scene that presents a direct image of the cemetery space, but a look towards the intimacy of gyneceo. In this ceramics a bathing scene is reproduced, the woman prepares, attended by her maid that tends a glass of perfumes. But perhaps we can see here a new direction hidden under an appearance of everyday life: it is the preparation for the ritual bath of the maiden before its wedding and, in the case of a funeral glass, of its wedding in the Hades. The idea of the continuity of life in death.
Bibliography
Family and family education in ancient Greece. Javier Vergara Ciordia
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