Death

Antiquity and Its Legacy

Mario Erasmo

• Verlag: I.B. Tauris
• Jahr: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780755698257
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Scienze sociali
• Thema: Morte in sociologia

Personal and yet utterly universal, inevitable and yet unknowable, death has been a dominant theme in all cultures, since earliest times. Different societies address death and the act of dying in culturally diverse ways; yet, remarkably, across the span of several millennia, we can recognize in the customs of ancient Greece and Rome ceremonies and rituals that have enduring present-day resonance. For example, preparing the corpse of the deceased, holding a memorial service, the practice of cremation and of burial in 'resting places' are all liminal processes that can trace their origin to ancient practices. Such rites - described by Cicero and Herodotus, among others - have defined traditional modern funerals. Yet of late there has been a shift away from classical ritual and sombre memorialization as the dead are transformed into spectacles. Ad hoc roadside shrines, 'virtual' burials, online guest-books and even jazz memorial processions and firework displays have come to the fore as new modes of marking, even celebrating, bereavement. What is causing this change, and how do urbanisation, economic factors and the rise of individualism play a part?
Mario Erasmo creatively explores the nexus between classical and contemporary approaches to dying, death and interment. From theme funerals in St Louis to Etruscan sarcophagi, he offers a rich and insightful discussion of finitude across the ages.

CHAPTER I

FUNERALS

If my family has an open casket, I want to be fixed up to the max. I want to look good. I want them to fill in my wrinkles; I want people to say, ‘God, she looks great. She looks better dead than alive.’¹

Reversing the physical transformations of death, whether natural or traumatic, is associated with open coffin viewings in order to make the deceased recognizable or look ‘at peace’. To offset decomposition, lips, cheeks, and hands are often filled for public viewing but the wish to be made more attractive or youthful in death, however, is paradoxical.² Rather than reconstructive surgery, this post-mortem elective surgery seems self-indulgent: the comfort and peace of mind of mourners in viewing the deceased restored to their former appearance of just days prior to death is exchanged for a dramatic revelation of a body transformed to their ideal or to the appearance of their youth.³ The theatricality inherent in the display and viewing of the dead leads to the ethical questions of how should one look in death and whether one should even look upon the dead?

Ancient Greek and Roman funerary practices have shaped Western attitudes towards death and the dead. Although, like the ancients, we distance ourselves from death, we continue to engage in ongoing social relationships with the dead. This paradox is grounded in the biology of death and the sociology of human relationships with the dead: corpses decay and need to be disposed of but we continue to attach the former personality and identity to the body. This chapter explores how modern funerary practices, from preparing a corpse for visitation to the events leading up to disposal, share ancient strategies for avoiding contact with death while preserving the identity of the dead for continued relationships with the living. Modern paradigms are shifting due to cultural preferences and the increasing role of the internet in making various aspects of funerals available to a wider audience.

Funeral paradigms

Funerals are important events in demarcating but also in erasing boundaries between the living and the dead. As a formulaic event experienced by many, it is nonetheless difficult to summarize typical elements due to individual preferences and varying cultural and religious rites that are themselves evolving into new paradigms. The term funeral is broad and refers to the series of events that leads to disposal: a wake, with or without an open coffin, a memorial or religious service, and disposal, whether cremation or an inhumation burial. Conveyance of the deceased to the burial site in a vehicle or carried by mourners may also be part of the burial ritual. Depending on one’s culture, religion, or individual preferences, however, not all of these elements may be present. Jewish funerary customs, for example, do not allow embalming and call for burial as soon as possible after death. Funerals are formulaic, therefore, but variations to the paradigm evolve without obscuring the primary function of the ritual.

In a public funeral, preparations and display events are centred on both the deceased and mourners. The embalming or washing of the corpse, for example, is not necessary for disposal but it preserves the deceased for a public viewing that allows mourners an opportunity to socialize with the body of the deceased for a final time. Visitation also allows mourners to process the death psychologically and emotionally as they accept or express condolences. This reciprocity reinforces the life cycle with its perennial demands on the living to bury the dead and to reintegrate with society after a period of mourning. The wake emerges as a liminal experience for both the deceased and survivors, in particular for maintaining social relationships with the dead.

Religion may or may not be a factor in modern funerals: laws and ordinances prescribe the sanitary conditions by which funerals are carried out but they do not dictate religious observance. That does not mean, however, that one’s religious customs cannot be affected by legislation. Immigrants may need to combine traditional rites with those of their new country and indigenous culture, especially if traditional rites, such as outdoor cremations, clash with local or state ordinances that dictate that they be held indoors at an approved facility.⁴ Alternately, an atheist may choose to have a secular service but a member of a religious community may opt for sacred rites and a religious service.

Burial and mourning were subject to legislation in ancient Athens and Rome.⁵ Implicit and explicit reasons seem to be for the observance of religious rites, community hygiene, and to curb excessive displays of grief or expenditure that could promote political ambition and social unrest. In other words, laws governed the disposal of the deceased but also the behaviour and appearance of mourners, especially if paid, which could be an indicator of wealth and social status. In his Life of Solon (21.4–5), Plutarch describes Solon’s reforms that are mostly aimed at curbing the activities of women in public at both funerals and festivals. Prohibitions at funerals included wearing no more than three articles of clothing, the carrying of no more than one obol’s worth of food or drink, a pannier of no more than a cubit in height and no travel at night except by wagon with their way lit by a lamp. Lacerations of the flesh by mourners were forbidden, as were ritual lamentations (threnos), and the bewailing of anyone at the funeral ceremonies of another.⁶ How does one observe or enforce a law that curbs human emotion? Was incredible self-control maintained in observance of law or were spontaneous (and potentially violent) expressions of grief overlooked if not considered intentionally attention-seeking? In the late fourth century BCE, Demetrios of Phaleron made changes to Solon’s laws to curb the growing excess in funerals and burials since their passage. Demetrios’ reforms suggest that the earlier attempt to legislate grief was difficult to enforce, but it is impossible to know how closely his own were observed.⁷

Roman funerary and burial laws outlined in the Twelve Tables curbed excessive expressions of grief by forbidding such activities as digging up a corpse for the staging of multiple funerals. Excessive expressions of power or wealth were curbed through the limiting of expenses to three veils, a purple tunic, and ten flute players. The funerals of aristocrats (discussed below) were orchestrated events with mimes, the display of ancestor portraits, and scenic entertainment, so it seems that there were still opportunities for families to engage in the promotion of the individual or clan (gens). Other laws prohibited cremation or burial within the (sacred) boundary of the city (pomerium), but exceptions are known such as the graves of city heroes, whether legendary or historical, or children (Chapter III).⁸ Cicero’s De legibus is the main source for the citation of these laws, such as the law that a grave only obtained legal and religious status after the sacrifice of a pig at the site of burial.⁹Unfortunately, most of the laws that Cicero cites outline what cannot be done, rather than describe the funerary and burial customs that were actually practised by contemporaries.

Today in the West, social customs and/or religion, rather than legislation usually govern the appropriate clothing to wear at a funeral or during the period of mourning. The wearing of black or dark colours at a funeral is customary in Western cultures but in the East, white is associated with mourning. Wearing mourning clothing for an extended period depends on one’s culture and religion. Immigration further complicates the reading of colour within and across cultures. The symbolism attached to the colour black is changing since its popularity in fashion makes it difficult to know if someone is in mourning. Black clothing is likely to signal a woman in mourning in the Mediterranean region but a fashionable woman at a cocktail party in Manhattan. This marks a distinct change from the elaborate and codified mourning clothing in the Victorian era in which the demand for black crape and other clothing items supported a mourning industry.¹⁰

Funeral homes do not post the same dress codes as retail stores do, such as the display of a sign on the door with an ‘X’ over bare feet, but the social expectation is for attendees to wear clothing, however casual, to be respectful of the occasion. Dress codes may be more formal at religious services as clergy may expect worshippers and funeral attendees to cover their knees and shoulders and perhaps even for women to wear a veil. Dress codes, however, are still imposed in some countries to limit the expression of political dissidence at public funerals. In Iran, for example, supporters of the Green Revolution in 2009 were forbidden to wear or carry green symbols in support of the Revolution at the funeral of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri. Many mourners, however, disobeyed the prohibition and with green symbols, chanted anti-government slogans, risking arrest, injury, and even death.

Death on the periphery

Death is a biological and a social construct that makes the moment of death, the transformation from body to corpse, difficult to define.¹¹ Does death occur when the heart or brain ceases to function? Or does death occur at a later point such as after the performance of ritual, as among Hindus who define death as the moment when the skull (during cremation) is cracked and releases the soul?¹² Interaction and continuing relationships with the dead in Western societies depend on viewing a corpse as the embodiment of pollution (the antithesis of a healthy living body) but also as the focus of materiality that allows for the socializing of the body by the living. Open coffin funerals play an important role in maintaining social relationships with the dead. Definitions of self, body, and soul affect the living’s interaction with the dead: embalming humanizes the dead body and effects a transformation from defiling corpse to a body representing the former living body and person.¹³ The powerless corpse also attains a symbolic power that is subject to exploitation to advance various agendas of the living.¹⁴

Viewing the corpse as a source of environmental or religious pollution has deep cultural roots. In ancient Greece and Rome, religion played an important role in funerals and the burial of the dead was a sacred rite that had consequences for the deceased in the afterlife if a body was either not buried, whether on land or at sea, or not buried properly.¹⁵ Pollution could also attach to the sacred places of the gods if contaminated by corpses that were brought into the city.¹⁶

Infamous cases of corpse abuse in ancient Rome were usually politically motivated from denial of burial, decapitation in the cases of Pompey the Great, Brutus, Cicero, and the emperor Galba to corpse abuse (Sejanus’ corpse was dragged by a hook to the Tiber) and the desecration of funeral and burial rites: the charred body of Pompey’s father was pulled from his bier during cremation and Sulla had Marius’ remains dug up and thrown into the Anio river.¹⁷ Abuse could also extend to the deceased’s memory with the destruction of their images and any epigraphic traces.¹⁸

Exposure to corpses also had consequences for the living. While it was important to prepare someone for burial, it was also important for the public to avoid the sight of or contact with corpses. Houses in mourning in early Greece were indicated by sprays of celery, laurel, marjoram, and myrtle.¹⁹ For the Classical period in Athens, a jar was placed outside the door with water from an outside source. The jar served to warn strangers of a death in the house but the water was also used by family members to purify themselves on leaving.²⁰ Later, a lock of hair or cypress on the door indicated a death in the family. In the Alcestis (438 BCE), Euripides dramatizes a breach in funerary custom involving a death in the house: Herakles arrives at the palace of Admetus following Alcestis’ death yet is nonetheless entertained by Ademetus who does not inform him that the house is in mourning. At issue is Admetus’ role as host and Herakles’ unintentional offensive drunken behaviour. When sacrifices are performed at Alcestis’ tomb, Herakles makes amends by ambushing Death and securing Alcestis’ return to life.

In ancient Rome, houses in mourning (funesta) were marked with branches of cypress and pine for nine days.²¹ Of particular concern was the health of the urban environment but religious motivations can also be detected: just as in ancient Athens where demarchoi removed abandoned corpses and purified the demes that had been polluted, at Rome, aediles were responsible for removing corpses from city streets in the late first century BCE. Roman magistrates and priests were distanced from death pollution. Funeral professionals, such as undertakers (libitinarii), ushers (dissignatores), morticians (pollinctores), bier carriers of the less w...