—The Ethiopians coated the bodies of their dead with waxy covering called parget. The same comment given on the Babylonian and Scythian processes must also be used here.
Romans.
—The disposition of the dead among the Romans embraced the following treatment: the deceased was first washed with hot water varied with oil, at intervals, for seven days; was dressed and embalmed with the performance of a variety of singular ceremonies. Cremation was then the means of ultimate disposal of the dead, the ashes being gathered and placed in urns and then the urns, in turn, were placed in tombs.
Greeks.
—Homer describes cremation, as an honorable mode of sepulture practiced in the heroic ages. Later from their many conquests, the Greeks acquired the art of embalming patterned after the Arabian and Assyrian-Persian methods, of which we have no record.
Norsemen.
—It appears from the sages that a form of cremation was used by the early Norsemen, who used to place the viking in his ship and send him “flaming out to sea.” Later it became the custom to place him, with all his belongings, in his vessel set on an even keel, and entomb him beneath a mound of earth.
Hindoos.
—Suttee (from Sati-a virtuous wife), an Indian custom, involving the burning of widows on the same funeral pyre as the husband, was the rule until 1829 A. D.