Modern Greek Folklore and Ancient Greek Religion: A Study in Survivals

by J. C. Lawson

Moreover it is possible that the Mycenaean funeral-rite sometimes comprised an act of ceremonial cremation. To review here the archaeological evidence for some use of fire in Mycenaean graves is unnecessary; it will suffice to quote from the summary given by Rohde[1242] as the basis of his theory—to which I by no means assent—that a vigorous ‘soul-cult,’ involving propitiatory offerings to the dead, was a religious feature of that age. ‘Traces of smoke, remnants of ash and charcoal, point to the fact that the dead bodies were laid on the spot where were burnt those offerings to the dead which had previously been made in the tomb.... On the ground, or sometimes on a specially prepared bed of flints, the offerings were burnt, and then, when the fire had gone out, the bodies were laid on top and covered over with sand, lime, and stones.’

Now the fact that in Mycenaean graves gifts were actually consumed by fire while the corpse was left to the process of natural decay is indisputable; but, if the fire employed had no further purpose, the practice of the Mycenaean age would be unique. The custom of all later ages was to treat the corpse and the gifts alike, to burn both or to bury both. This is implied in ancient literature[1243], and confirmed by modern excavations; for funeral-urns seldom contain any remnants of gifts; which means that the gifts had been consumed on the pyre with the body, but that only the bones were collected and stored in the urn; whereas in graves the gifts are constantly found buried with the body and intact. Further the custom of burning both body and gifts is the old Achaean custom, as described by Homer in the funeral of Patroclus; and it would seem probable that the custom of interring both body and gifts intact was the original Pelasgian custom. Was then the use of fire in these Mycenaean graves the first step in the fusion of the Achaean and Pelasgian rites?

Again, the body was observed to lie on top of the burnt gifts. What is the meaning of this superimposition? According to Rohde the fire which consumed the gifts was allowed to go out, and the bodies were then laid on the cold ashes. But manifestly this cannot be proved. All that we know is that the fire did not consume the bodies. No one can assert that they were untouched by flame or ember and that the smell of fire did not pass over them. Was then the act of laying the body on top of the burnt or burning gifts an act of ceremonial cremation?

These questions I cannot answer; but one thing is clear. Either the fusion of the Achaean and Pelasgian rites had already begun, or else, in their original forms, they both comprised usages which greatly facilitated their subsequent fusion.

When we pass on to the Dipylon-period, there is no longer any doubt. Cremation and inhumation were practised both severally side by side and also conjointly as a single rite. The evidence on which I mainly rely is derived from two series of excavations, those of Philios[1244] at Eleusis and those of Brückner and Pernice[1245] in the Dipylon cemetery at Athens.

The autochthonous population of Attica naturally adhered in the main to the old Pelasgian rite of inhumation. Yet at Eleusis, even according to Philios who strangely belittles the importance of his own discoveries[1246], there was one certain case of cremation; and in the Dipylon cemetery also was found one urn which could be dated with equal certainty. One or two other probable cases have also been recorded by others[1247]. Clearly then as early as the eighth century B.C. cremation was sometimes used, side by side with inhumation, as the effective means of disintegrating the dead body.

And there is equally sure proof that the two rites were also employed conjointly, in the sense that a ceremonial act of inhumation followed actual cremation, or a ceremonial act of cremation accompanied actual inhumation. A conspicuous instance of the former is the one certain case of actual cremation recorded by Brückner and Pernice[1248]. A bronze urn containing the calcined bones of a boy or girl had been deposited not in a mere hole dug to fit it, but in a grave fully prepared as if for the reception of a corpse. The measurements of the grave were of normal size; in it had been laid, along with the urn, gifts of the usual nature—an amphora, two boxes, a bowl, and a jug; and above the grave, in a prepared space considerably wider than the actual grave, stood one of the large Dipylon-vases. In every respect the interment had been carried out as if it were the interment of an unburnt body. An attempt had been made so to combine the two rites of cremation and inhumation that neither should seem subordinate to the other.

Instances of the other sort, in which ceremonial cremation accompanied actual inhumation, are furnished by Philios’ excavations at Eleusis. Speaking of the large earthenware jars which often served as coffins for children, he says, ‘Whereas the bones contained in these vessels were unburnt, all round the vessels in the soil traces of burning were abundant and varied[1249].’ Now these traces of fire cannot have been due to the burning of gifts brought subsequently to the interment; for that custom naturally resulted in a stratum of burnt soil above the grave. But here the traces were ‘all round the vessels, in the soil.’ Apparently then we have here a practice parallel to that of Mycenaean times. The body was interred and obtained its actual dissolution by natural decay; but before the interment a fire was kindled in the grave, and among the flames or on the embers the body in its coffin-jar was laid and covered over with the soil. Whether at Eleusis, as at Mycenae, the funeral-gifts were consumed in that fire, we do not know for certain; but since it is undoubtedly rare to find any gift along with the child’s body in these vessels, it is reasonable to suppose that the few gifts—few, because all the circumstances of these funerals seem humble—were burnt[1250] just as were the grander offerings at Mycenae. At any rate these cases reveal an intention of associating fire with the buried body, of adding to the rite of interment a ceremonial act of cremation.

The tendency towards fusion of the two funeral rites has now been traced through the pre-historic era; it is in the historic period that the fusion appears most general and most complete. I will take as typical instances a number of graves, ranging in date from the sixth to the fourth century, opened by the two German excavators on whose narrative I have largely relied for the Dipylon-period[1251]. These graves numbered somewhat under two hundred. In the classification of them there appears the important item—forty-five graves in which the body had been actually burned. In other words, in approximately a quarter of the cases observed the rites of cremation and inhumation had been combined, and that too in such a way that both elements, fire and earth, might well have seemed to share together the work of dissolution. Neither method is here exalted to sole efficacy, neither is degraded into mere ceremony. The balance of importance is adjusted, and the two acts which form the composite funeral-rite are recognised as equal. Indeed there are no longer two distinct acts; they have coalesced; the moment and the act of laying the body in the earth are also the moment and the act of laying the body on the pyre. Amalgamation is complete.

Having traced the history of Greek funeral-usage down to this point, I may now fairly claim, first, that my working hypothesis—the practice of ceremonial cremation as the counterpart of ceremonial inhumation—is justified by the single and consistent explanation which it affords of the phenomena which I have noticed (and I may add that I shall have occasion to explain other phenomena in the latter half of this chapter in the same way); secondly, if that explanation be accepted, I may claim that the only condition under which the two rites could have been employed both severally as alternatives and conjointly as one composite rite was that the religious purpose underlying them both was one and the same. And this purpose, if there is any meaning in the stories of Patroclus, Elpenor, Polynices, and Polydorus, was to give to the dead that which they most craved, a speedy dissolution.