XIII
BURIAL-CUSTOMS
Greece. The inhabitants of Mycenae and other prehistoric sites did not burn their dead, so far as we know, but buried them with the belongings which they had used and valued in life. Members of rich or princely families were often decked with gold ornaments and diadems, and the face covered with a gold mask moulded to resemble the features. Reproductions of some of the objects found in graves at Mycenae are in Case T in the First Room, and in the center of the same room is a reproduction of a stone sarcophagus from Hagia Triada in Crete, decorated with painted scenes representing a funerary sacrifice.
The people of the Homeric poems burned their dead and buried the ashes beneath a mound. Both ways of disposing of the body continued in common use in Greece, the choice resting with the family of the deceased. Cremation was more costly than burial, and so was practised less frequently by the poorer classes. At all periods both Greeks and Romans attached great importance to the proper performance of funeral rites, as they were believed to affect the happiness of the soul in the world of the dead.
FIG. 146. MOURNERS AT A BIER. TERRACOTTA RELIEF
FIG. 147. POET ON HIS BIER (?) TERRACOTTA PLATE
The body was prepared for burial by the women of the family, who anointed it with oil and perfumes, and clothed it in the dress of common life, usually of white. A wreath of flowers, or of laurel, olive, or ivy was placed on the head, or in its stead a wreath of gold leaves. Before the funeral the dead was laid on a couch in the central hall of the house, with his feet toward the house door. His relatives and friends came to pay their last respects, and the funeral dirge was sung. An interesting terracotta relief from Attica on the north wall of the Second Room represents such an occasion. The women standing by the bier are tearing their hair as they raise their voices in the lament ([fig. 146]). The same scene is frequent on certain kinds of Greek pottery, notably the great Dipylon vases of the eighth century B.C., which were used as grave monuments. There are two Dipylon vases in the Second Room in Cases G and L ([fig. 148]). On the upper band of each is a scene showing a dead man on a bier surrounded by his family (see [head-band, p. 121]). An interesting plate in Case K in the same room is decorated with a scene which seems to represent a poet on a funeral couch with a wreath about his head and his lyre hanging on the wall above ([fig. 147]).
