Classical Greece: Burial Customs

In Classical Greece, social status was an especially important part of Greek life during and after life. It was customary for the dead to be buried and celebrated for a long period of time and to be celebrated elaborately. The term burial rituals describes the rites performed on behalf of the dead at the time of the funeral and also on certain days after the burial thus giving to the living the opportunity to honor the dead through the socially accepted channels. (Vlachou)

During this time, women primarily took care of the grave and decorations surrounding the body or grave. The body was to be separated form the material world (Dubisch). Jill Dubisch writes in the Anthropological Quarterly that death is "...an opportunity for a material display which emphasizes the continuing social identity of individual and family," or as the "...occasion for the affirmation of broader communal values and for the assertion of the transitoriness of the material world." She describes the mourning process after someone has died as lasting from three to seventeen days that include elaborate memorial services that the deceased person can still be connected to the real world. (Dubisch).

The Greeks treated death like this as to stay connected with the material world, and they also had burials to correlate their elaborate memorials to their social status.

In the "Burial and the Polis," Ian Morris says that a formal burial was "...the exclusive prerogative of adults who possessed social rank..." He also states that political and social developments were included during life and when burying someone because of the obligation to have a formal burial for a deceased person. (Morris)

More specifically, the proper burial custom included three main steps:

1. Ekphora, or the funeral procession. The body was then prepared for burial or cremation (Department of Greek and Roman Art)
2. The body was dressed after being washed and anointed with oil for sanitary and ritual purposes (Akmenkalns) The body was then placed on a high bed within the house so that the next step could take place. (Department of Greek and Roman Art) The body was put on a high bed in honor of the Greeks' association between sleep and death. (Akmenkalns)
3. Prothesis: when relatives and friends come to mourn the body and pay their respects. (Department of Greek and Roman Art) It was believed by the Greeks that the dead could "...listen to the laments of the living" (Akmenkalns).

During this process, the women were responsible. At the gravesite, there was an epitaph that contained a verse about the person's life. As the years carried on, more things were added including personal possessions in or surrounding the grave, images of a servant, a dog, and inscriptions from families. Large vases were used as grave markers like the vase pictures below. (Department of Greek and Roman Art)

 The vase is an example of a grave marker that has funerary representations. This vase represents the procession point at which the deceased person is laid on a high bed to be mourned by friends and family. (Department of Greek and Roman Art)

Grave stele with a family group, 360 B.C. It is unclear in this picture who the deceased person was; the inscription has since worn away (Department of Greek and Roman Art)

Ultimately, the Greeks were obligated to have sophisticated and intricate memorials for the deceased. Each funerary process was different for each family, and each process expressed the social class of a family. Even though a person may have died, their soul is kept alive through the memorial and the person's life is described through the items put in their grave, the statues or vases surrounding their graves, and the care that women took over during the process.

Sources:

Akmenkalns, Jessika. "CU Classics. Greek Vase Exhibit Essays. Burial Customs. Colorado University, n.d. Web. 16 Feb. 2014.

Department of Greek and Roman Art. "Death, Burial, and the Afterlife in Ancient Greece". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.

Dubisch, Jill. "Death and Social Change in Greece."Anthropological Quarterly 62.4, The Uses of Death in Europe (1989): 189-200. JSTOR. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.

Morris, Ian. "Burial and the Polis." The Classical Review 39.01 (1989): 66-67. Print.

Vlachou, Vicky. "Join Academia.edu & Share Your Research with the World." ThesCRA VIII Add. VI 1 E: Death and Burial in the Greek World; Greek Funerary Rituals in Their Archaeological Context. J. Paul Getty Museum, 2012. Web. 18 Feb. 2014.