Hearts removed from corpses and Renaissance mummies rewrite Europe’s history of death

Bodies were embalmed in the Renaissance not for secular but for religious purposes.

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Lead coffins containing the skeletons found in the Jacobin convent.

Hundreds of burials discovered in a convent in Brittany, France, have shed new light on medieval and Renaissance funerary practices. Archaeologists have identified mummified corpses, as well as hearts and brains extracted from the deceased bodies that suggest that burials were still deeply rooted in superstition and religious belief.

In 2015, a team from the French national institute for preventive archaeology (INRAP) fully excavated the Jacobin convent in the city of Rennes, which had been founded in 1368 and served as primary burial site for the local aristocracy.

The archaeologists encountered around 900 burials spanning two periods – the 14th to 15th centuries and the 16th through to the 18th century. A number of studies backed by major historical evidence have previously suggested that funeral rites in Europe evolved from the Middle Ages to the Modern era through a process of gradual secularisation.

Another coffin discovered within the Convent in Rennes.

Embalming was a rare practice, usually reserved for the bodies of kings. During the Renaissance however, surgical interventions and embalming was seen as a common preparation for the display of the deceased’s remains, one that had no religious or symbolic value. Thus, archaeologists believe that burials became more secular as years went by.

But the study recently published in the journal PLOS ONE has contradicted these hypotheses. It proposes a new view of the history of death in Europe and of the rituals that go with it.

Extracted hearts and mummies

During their excavations of the Rennes convent, the researchers came across a range of notable burial practices and used imaging and autopsies to study the remains. They were able to identify more than 600 skeletons, as well as two very well conserved mummies from the Renaissance.

For the first time, the archaeologists also documented the practice of heart extraction. They found five hearts which had been removed from the bodies and placed in heart-shaped urns, dating between 1584 and 1655. There was also evidence that the brains had been extracted from some of the corpses as some skulls had been opened.

The scientists conducted autopsies on the corpses to find out more about how they were buried.

Louise and Toussaint

In some instances, the hearts had been placed in the coffin of the person’s spouse. This was the case for Louise de Quengo, a benefactor of the church who was more than 65 years old when she died in 1656, during the Renaissance. The heart of Toussaint de Perrien, her husband, was placed on top of her coffin. He had been buried in another convent in a separate location.

While the team notes that embalming and surgical operations on bodies did occur in Renaissance burials, it is unclear whether this was done for secular and medical purposes or not.

“Louise de Quengo’s internal organs had not been cleaned, no padding had been introduced, the skull had not been cut into, and there were no incisions on the upper or lower limbs, as was often recommended in medical treatises of the period,” they point out.

The removal of the heart and the good state of conservation of the bodies rather served a spiritual and symbolic purpose. In the case of Louise and Toussaint, the idea may have been to honour them in two religious sites of which they had been benefactors. The husband’s heart on the wife’s coffin also suggests the strength of their marital love.

Hearts were removed and placed in heart-shaped urns.

The fact that Toussaint de Perrien’s remains are present at two different religious sites means that he honoured different religious orders, even in death. It also means that a greater number of prayers could be made in his name, giving him greater chances of entering heaven.

The scientists also believe that the presence of well conserved Renaissance mummies at the site echoes the Council of Trent’s affirmation of the “Resurrection of the Flesh” – resurrection would come with the Last Judgement and so preserving bodies would ensure the faithfuls would rise from the dead. Bodies were embalmed to be preserved for religious purposes, but not to be displayed.

Investigations in the Jacobin convent in Rennes shows that Renaissance society’s attitude towards burials was still influenced by age-old, religious practices, while the secularisation of burials likely came later.

Complete Article HERE!

How funeral traditions differ across Abrahamic religions

Funeral practices are deeply integrated in culture, reflecting beliefs and values around death. Offering an index of religion, funeral traditions in Abrahamic religions bear quite different stages as well as certain similarities

 

An Islamic funeral in Pakistan

By AYŞE BETÜL KAYAHAN

[H]aving become a subject of philosophy, psychology, sociology as much as it has of anthropology and theology, mortality has always been a matter of interest throughout history as well in the present day. There is even a scientific field named “thanatology,” the science of death.

The anthropology of death brings us the very different funerary customs that have been in practice throughout history.

To start with a common example, ancient Egyptians used to embalm the deceased and built giant pyramids to house the embalmed bodies of their kings and pharaohs. Other interesting burial traditions include those of the ancient Greeks, recorded in anthropological records or literary works like those in Homer’s “Iliad” and “Odyssey.”

As far as can be understood from historical accounts telling about the funeral of Attila the Hun, ancient Turks used to show their grief by hurting themselves. Before the 6th century, Turks were burning the deceased with their belongings and horses, and keeping the ashes to bury in autumn or spring. Certain Chinese and Arabic accounts report that it was the Kirghiz people who were the first Turks to burn the body. However, it was after this century that Turks began to bury their deceased.

In Iran, dead bodies used to be buried before the arrival of Mazdaism (Zoroastrianism). Fire, soil, air and the water are considered as sacred in Mazdaism and the body must not pollute any of these four elements. There was no burning or burying but the deceased used to be abandoned outside. The same tradition was visible among the Sasanians, as they used to abandon the dead outside and bury the separated bones and flesh in a special containers called “Ossuarium” later on. Today modern Mazdaists bury their deceased. “Burial customs always have been an index of religion,” American scholar Richard Nelson Frye says.

According to Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, the appropriate way is to bury the deceased. It is believed that Cain (Qabil), the eldest son of Adam killed his brother Abel (Habil) and committed the first crime of murder. It was the first death on the earth and the first burial. It is still observed that Muslim and Jewish communities bury deceased people as a funerary custom following the order of the Quran and Torah. Cremation and embalming are strictly forbidden by Islam and Judaism. In both religions, burials take place as quickly as possible to honor the dead. Jews never hold a funeral on “Shabbat,” while there is no similar restriction in Islam.

Muslims and Jews prepare the body for burial by washing the body with warm water from head to feet. Jews call this process “Tahara.” Muslims apply “ghusl,” or the ritual of ablution. While washing, the body can be turned from one side to another to entirely clean it but it is never placed face down. In Islam and Judaism, the body is dressed in white burial shrouds and put in a simple wooden casket. Men prepare men and women prepare women.

In Islam, a person who is about to die is expected to say the “Shahada,” or the testimony of faith, which translates to, “There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” His family or close friends should encourage him to say it because it is regarded as one of the first pillars of Islam.

When the person dies, those present close the deceased’s eyes and cover the body with a clean sheet. Someone is expected to read the Quran. As soon as the “ghusl” and shrouding are done, the deceased’s coffin is taken to the mosque for the funeral prayer “Salat al-Janazah,” which is a communal duty among Muslims.

The deceased person is put in front of the imam and the community behind him faces to the “qibla,” the direction of Mecca, in the courtyard of the mosque. When the prayer ends, the casket should be transported to the cemetery for burial. The body should be placed in the grave on its right side, facing the qibla. A layer of wood is placed over the corpse and then the soil is filled. Following the burial service, the family of the deceased accepts visitors at home.

On the other hand, Jewish funerals take place at synagogues. A Jew who is a Cohen, a descendant of the priestly class, does not join the burial unless the deceased is a close relative since he is forbidden to come near the corpse. A Cohen is commanded to be in state of purity and avoid ritual defilement by a corpse which is ritually unclean.

Women wear conservative apparel and men wear jackets in dark color. The service is held by the rabbi and begins by cutting a black ribbon to symbolize the person’s leaving loved ones.

After the funeral service, people go to the cemetery where men carry the casket. With prayers, the deceased is put in the grave with the casket. Mourners tear their garments as an expression of grief, which is called “keriah.” They keep on doing it during the first mourning process called “shiva” which lasts seven days. In “shiva” mourners keep the traditions such as covering mirrors and lighting candles. People visit the home of bereaved. There the “kaddish” prayer is recited.

Once a Catholic dies, the priest visits the home with a cross and a vessel of holy water to sprinkle over the deceased’s body. There is no washing or bathing but embalming is acceptable. It is also an appropriate way for the viewing and wake and vigil, which is a period of spending time with deceased before the funeral service at home or a funeral home. Relatives and friends of the deceased come, praying and sharing the grief of the immediate family. This is the most appropriate time to eulogize as the “Requiem Mass” (Catholic Church service) does not permit eulogies.

During the wake, the body is put on display in a casket. When the casket is brought to the church, the priest leads the funeral mass. Holy water is sprinkled and there is an opening song and prayer, and a sermon takes place from the Bible and a psalm. When the mass is completed the coffin is taken to the graveyard for the rite of committal.

For Eastern Orthodox Christians, there are differences in the funeral service compared to Catholics. When an Orthodox is about to die, the priest should be there to hear the final confession and administer the “Holy Communion” to the person. The first step is preparing the body that includes washing and clothing. When the body is bathed and dressed, the priest sprinkles the holy water on the four sides of the casket before the body is placed inside. The priest reads the first “Panikhida” (a prayer service). The wake lasts three days and during this, the “Psalter” (The book of Psalms) is read out loud by family and friends.

After this, the body is brought to a church in a form of procession led by the cross. There the coffin is opened and a bowl of “Koliva” (a dish of boiled wheat with honey) is placed with a candle on top, symbolizing the cyclical nature of life and the sweetness of heaven. A cross is placed in the deceased’s hand. Lit candles are distributed to those present in the funeral. The priest leads the “Divine Liturgy,” and recites “Memory Eternal.” Although saying goodbye differs in every society, from the preparation of the deceased to the disposal, the arrangements and funeral services in between actually show us all these funerary customs are important as much as for the bereaved of the deceased. The importance given to funerals is universal for honoring the deceased and consoling and sharing the pain of loss as well at the end of the day.

Complete Article HERE!

Nine weird and wonderful facts about death and funeral practices

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It might not be something you want to think about very often, but it turns out that the way we treat our dead in the modern age is heavily influenced by the way our ancestors treated theirs.

When you look at death and funeral practices through the ages, repeated patterns of behaviour emerge, making it easy to see where some of our modern ideas about death – such as keeping an urn on your mantelpiece or having a gravestone – have come from.

So here are nine surprising facts about death and funeral practices through the ages:

1. Some prehistoric societies defleshed the bones

This was done with sharp knives. And we know this because human skeletons buried during this period show the traces of many cut marks to the skulls, limbs and other bones.

During the medieval period, bodies that needed to be transported over long distances for burial were also defleshed – by dismembering the body and boiling the pieces. The bones were then transported, while the soft tissues were buried close to the place of death.

2. Throwing spears at the dead

During the Middle Iron Age, “speared-corpse” burials were a pretty big deal in east Yorkshire. Spears were thrown or placed into the graves of some young men – and in a couple of instances they appear to have been thrown with enough force to pierce the body. It is unclear why this was done, but it may have been a military send-off – similar to the 21-gun salute at modern military funerals.

3. The Romans introduced gravestones

As an imported practice, the first gravestones in Britain were concentrated close to Roman military forts and more urbanised Romano-British settlements.

Back then, gravestones were more frequently dedicated to women and children than Roman soldiers. This was most likely because Roman soldiers were not legally allowed to marry, so monuments to their deceased family members legitimised their relationships in death in a way they couldn’t be in life.

After the end of Roman control in Britain in the fifth century, gravestones fell out of favour and did not become widely popular again until the modern era.

4. The Anglo Saxons preferred urns

During the early Anglo-Saxon period, cremated remains were often kept within the community for some time before burial. We know this because groups of urns were sometimes buried together. Urns were also included in burials of the deceased – who were likely their relatives.

5. Lots of people shared a coffin

During the medieval period, many parish churches had community coffins, which could be borrowed or leased to transport the deceased person from the home to the churchyard. When they arrived at the graveside, the body would be removed from the coffin and buried in a simple shroud.

6. And rosemary wasn’t just for potatoes

Sprigs of rosemary were often carried by people in the funeral procession and cast onto the coffin before burial, much as roses are today. And as an evergreen plant, rosemary was associated with eternal life. As a fragrant herb, it was also often placed inside coffins to conceal any odours that might be emerging from the corpse. This was important because bodies often lay in state for days and sometimes weeks before burial, while preparations were made and mourners travelled to attend the funeral.

7. Touching a murderer could heal

Throughout early modern times, and up until at least the mid 19th century, it was a common belief that the touch of a murderer – executed by hanging – could cure all kinds of illnesses, ranging from cancer and goitres to skin conditions. Afflicted persons would attend executions hoping to receive the “death stroke” of the executed prisoner.

8. There are still many mysteries

For almost a thousand years, during the British Iron Age, archaeologists don’t really know what kinds of funeral practices were being performed across much of Britain. And human remains only appear in a few places – like the burials in east Yorkshire. So for much of Britain, funeral practices are almost invisible. We suspect bodies were either exposed to the elements in a practice known as “excarnation”, or cremated and the ashes scattered.

9. But the living did respect the dead

Across time, people have engaged with past monuments to the dead, and it is common for people to respect older features of the landscape when deciding where to place new burials.

Bronze Age people created new funeral monuments and buried their dead in close proximity to Neolithic funeral monuments. This can be seen in the landscape around Stonehenge, which was created as an ancestral and funeral monument – and is full of Bronze Age burial mounds known as round barrows.

And when the Anglo-Saxons arrived in Britain, they frequently buried their dead close to Bronze and Iron Age monuments. Sometimes they dug into these older monuments and reused them to bury their own dead.

Even today, green burial grounds tend to respect preexisting field boundaries. And in at least one modern cemetery, burials are placed in alignment with medieval “ridge and furrow”. These are the peaks and troughs in the landscape resulting from medieval ploughing.

Complete Article HERE!

Life after death and the fear of dying

By Heidi Anderson

Heidi Anderson, with her Nan and brother, has been thinking about life after death.

[O]n the 16th of August this year, my beautiful 96 year-old Nan passed away. Since then, I have rode one hell of a roller-coaster with my emotions all over the shop.

 
Nan and I always had a pact that if there were something on the other side, that she would come back and tell me about it.

She never believed there was anything else after you die and she would always say to me: “Once you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s it. There is nothing else.”

That is what terrifies me. The thought of “that’s it” petrifies me. I’m seriously scared of dying and for years this has given me anxiety.

I have worked with my psychologist about this fear. Dying is inevitable, but I still find it so hard to comprehend.

I’m not sure any of the sessions have helped, I still think about it a lot.

People constantly say to me: “Why stress about something you have no control of?”

Or, “You won’t know when you’re dead that you’re dead, so chill out.”

Heidi Anderson’s Nan, who passed away in August age 96.

Believe me, if I could switch it off I would but that’s easier said than done. It’s not the thought of how I die that bothers or upsets me, it’s the thought of the unknown. Not knowing what’s next.

This consumes my thoughts far too often and it’s something that I have tried to come to terms with over the past few years with no such luck.

When my Mum told me that Nan was dying and she wouldn’t recover from her fall, I flew straight to her bedside, along with all the family.

Saying goodbye to my Nan was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.

Once Nan knew herself that she was dying and had accepted her fate, she called me into her room to speak. At this stage, she didn’t have much energy but she was putting all her fight into saying goodbye to people individually.

“Heidi, we all die. That’s life,” she said to me. “That’s the one thing are guaranteed in life. We’re born to die.”

Looking back, I think Nan was speaking to herself, as she too was always so afraid of death.

Over the next few days, Nan went downhill and eventually she stopped speaking and just slept.

Family came and went and said their goodbyes, but I stayed around.

I wanted to be with Nan as she exited this world. I wanted to hold her hand as she took her last breath.

Looking back, I think I also wanted to confront my fear of death. If I saw what actually happens, maybe I wouldn’t be so scared.

So I hung around the hospital like a bad smell, rarely leaving Nan’s bedside.

I played her music, told her stories and relived all our good times.

Unfortunately, by that stage she was no longer talking, but she would twitch her lips or flicker her eyes.

I swear she could hear everything, she just couldn’t respond.

In the end, I flew home to Perth. She was holding on and I felt Nan just didn’t want to die in front of any of her grandkids.

12 hours after I got home, Nan took her last breath with her three daughters at her side.

The nurses at the hospital said it was very common for people, when they’re dying, to choose who is with them.

Although I wanted so desperately to be with Nan, I felt she knew it was best that I wasn’t there.

When I arrived home in Bathurst for her funeral, I still felt that I wanted to confront my fear of death and see Nan.

Mum took me to the funeral home the morning of her farewell and I saw Nan for the first time since she passed away.

She was dead and she even looked it. No amount of makeup was hiding the fact that she was gone.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Nan was dead and she was never coming back.

Thoughts started flooding my brain.

“Where is she? Is there something else out there? Is she with Pop? What happens? Where has she gone?”

Her body was there but that wasn’t my Nan.

My friends asked later if she looked peaceful and I found that hard to explain. She looked like she was gone and that is something I won’t ever really understand.

I’m not sure seeing my Nan in her coffin has helped my fear of dying, but it definitely gave me some kind of closure.

I am still waiting for Nan’s spirit to visit me and let me know if there is anything else out there.

I have had a couple of dreams about her and I talk to her all the time but I am yet to feel her or hear if there is life after death.

Complete Article HERE!

In death reunited: 75 years after Pearl Harbor attack, Anderson brothers of Dilworth, Minn., will rest together in USS Arizona

By Helmut Schmidt

anderson

[J]ohn Anderson somehow survived the bloody mayhem of the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

But in that attack, Anderson, a crewman on the USS Arizona, lost his twin brother, Jake.

Jake was among 1,177 sailors and Marines from the battleship who died, many of whom were entombed when the ship sank in minutes after a bomb touched off a massive explosion in one of the magazines.

Throughout an active and full life, Anderson carried the guilt of not being able to find his brother.

Now, in death, the brothers from Dilworth, Minn., will be reunited.

Anderson’s cremains, along with those of another man who survived that attack 75 years ago, will be interred by Navy divers in the No. 4 turret of the Arizona on Wednesday, Dec. 7.

Their cremains will join those of about 1,100 sailors and Marines entombed in the wreck.

“When you grow up in the shadow of a hero, you don’t always realize a hero is there,” one of his sons, Terry Anderson, 53, of Roswell, N.M., said Friday, Dec. 2. “We have a great sense of pride.”

Karolyn Anderson, 73, said that it’s been a difficult year since her husband’s death Nov. 14, 2015, at the age of 98.

“This is what John would want. I want to do that for John, and Jake. It’s very sad for me, but I’m honoring his wishes and his memory,” the Roswell woman said of her husband of 47 years.

anderson2

“For years, John was hesitant to even talk about Jake, He always carried a guilt burden that he couldn’t get Jake. And finally one day, I said ‘John, you never really mention Jake, why is that?’ And he said. ‘I always felt funny that I lived and he didn’t. I always wondered why I was spared and he wasn’t.’ He just felt like he let himself down, and Jake down as well as the rest of the family.”

John and Jake Anderson were born Aug. 26, 1917, in Verona, N.D. Their family later moved to Dilworth, where the twins grew up and graduated from high school.

Both joined the Navy in March 1937.

John Anderson began his Navy career on the USS Saratoga, then transferred to a destroyer. He was in China when it was attacked by the Japanese.

“That left an impact on him. He had pictures of a Chinese refugee column machine gunned by the Japanese. Pretty graphic stuff,” Terry Anderson said.

Pictured from left are the battleships USS West Virginia, USS Tennessee, and the USS Arizona, after the attack by Japanese aircraft on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941. (U.S. Navy photography provided by the Naval Photographic Center)
Pictured from left are the battleships USS West Virginia, USS Tennessee, and the USS Arizona, after the attack by Japanese aircraft on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on Dec. 7, 1941.

In 1940, he was transferred to Hawaii and eventually to the Arizona.

John was a member of a crew manning one of the ship’s 14-inch turret guns, and Jake’s station was an anti-aircraft gun. John Anderson also had the duty of setting up chairs for Sunday morning worship services on the Arizona’s deck. After setting up the chairs on Dec. 7, he went below deck to have breakfast when he heard a “kaplunk,” looked out a porthole and saw planes bombing nearby Ford Island, he told columnist Bob Lind of The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead.

“They started hearing machine gun fire and explosions going off, and Dad went to the porthole of the ship out of the mess hall and that’s when he saw the Japanese planes flying by and he saw the orange balls and he knew the Japanese were there, because he had seen them in China,” said another son, John Anderson Jr., 47 of Carlsbad, N.M..

John Anderson said in accounts after the war that he then headed for his post, all the while looking for his brother, Jake. He made it to his gun turret, but before he could help load it, a bomb hit the turret’s top, bounced off and penetrated the deck. The resulting explosion killed many of the crew.

Shortly after, the forward ammunition magazine with 1.5 million pounds of gunpowder blew up, virtually splitting the Arizona, and leaving dead and dying men everywhere, he told Lind.

As the ship began sinking, a senior officer ordered Anderson onto a barge taking wounded men to Ford Island, and they picked up wounded men on the way.

Once on the island, Anderson commandeered another boat to go back to the Arizona with a shipmate, Chester Rose. On the way, they pulled survivors from the harbor, but then the small craft was hit and wrecked, and all but John perished.

“He talked about this guy Rose many many times, about how he lost his life trying to help, go back to the ship. After (many) years, he was able to locate the family and tell the family what happened to Rose,” John Jr. said.

John Anderson was wounded, but swam to land and grabbed a rifle and two bandoliers of ammunition. He then jumped into a bomb blast crater on Ford Island and told Lind that he thought, “Let ’em come!”

In a 2014 article, he told the Stars and Stripes newspaper that the next day a Marine patrol told him survivors of the Arizona were to gather on a nearby dock for a head count.

“Everybody I saw there had rags around their heads,” Anderson said. Bandages covered their arms, skin was scorched and hair was burned off. “Beat up something awful.”

Travis Anderson, 45, of Kurtistown, Hawaii, said his father passed on a very memorable lesson learned on that horrible day.

“I don’t remember what we were doing, but he said there’s a reason for rules and doing things the right way, and I kind of smarted off to him and he told me to listen,” Travis Anderson said. “He told me a story about a man locked up on the Arizona. He was in the brig and no one could find the key. Boy, that just hit me like a ton of bricks. That they were trying to get that guy out of there and they didn’t have the key. Pay attention to what you’re doing and do things right. I carried that with me the rest of my life.”

John Anderson joined the destroyer USS Macdonough, and fought in 13 major battles across the Pacific.

After his discharge in 1945, he worked as a movie stuntman and took night classes in meteorology. A friend later convinced him to join the Navy Reserves, where he served for another 23 years.

anderson4

While in Hollywood, he met and worked with John Wayne and also worked on the set of the Jimmy Stewart Christmas staple, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Anderson moved to Roswell, where he was “Cactus Jack,” a disc jockey playing mostly country music. He met Elvis Presley and Eddie Arnold in that job.

Anderson later became a television meteorologist and a real estate agent.

“He went after it. He lived life to the fullest. It was like reading a Hollywood book. He really lived. I could just go on and on,” Travis Anderson said.

“He was a wonderful man, very charismatic. He was bigger than life,” Karolyn added.

The interment ceremony on the Arizona is unique in that it is the only ship in the U.S. Navy where the cremated remains of a survivor are returned.

“It will be a chance to say goodbye to dad and a chance to reflect on Dec. 7. A day we should never forget,” John Jr. said. “It will be a time … to thank God for all he did.”

Complete Article HERE!

Ancient Americans Mutilated Corpses in Funeral Rituals

By Tia Ghose

A skull exhumed from the Lapa do Santo cave in Brazil shows evidence of modification such as tooth removal. Hundreds of remains from the site show that beginning around 10,000 years ago, ancient inhabitants used an elaborate set of rituals surrounding death.
A skull exhumed from the Lapa do Santo cave in Brazil shows evidence of modification such as tooth removal. Hundreds of remains from the site show that beginning around 10,000 years ago, ancient inhabitants used an elaborate set of rituals surrounding death.

Ancient people ripped out teeth, stuffed broken bones into human skulls and de-fleshed corpses as part of elaborate funeral rituals in South America, an archaeological discovery has revealed.

The site of Lapa do Santo in Brazil holds a trove of human remains that were modified elaborately by the earliest inhabitants of the continent starting around 10,000 years ago, the new study shows. The finds change the picture of this culture’s sophistication, said study author André Strauss, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

“In reconstructing the life of past populations, human burials are highly informative of symbolic and ritual behavior,” Strauss said in a statement. “In this frame, the funerary record presented in this study highlights that the human groups inhabiting east South America at 10,000 years ago were more diverse and sophisticated than previously thought.” [See Images of the Mutilated Skeletons at Lapa do Santo]

The site of Lapa do Santo, a cave nestled deep in the rainforest of central-eastern Brazil, shows evidence of human occupation dating back almost 12,000 years. Archaeologists have found a trove of human remains, tools, leftovers from past meals and even etchings of a horny man with a giant phallus in the 14,000-square-foot (1,300 square meters) cave. The huge limestone cavern is also in the same region where archaeologists discovered Luzia, one of the oldest known human skeletons from the New World, Live Science previously reported.

In the 19th century, naturalist Peter Lund first set foot in the region, which harbors some of the oldest skeletons in South America. But although archaeologists have stumbled upon hundreds of skeletons since then, few had noticed one strange feature: Many of the bodies had been modified after death.

In their recent archaeological excavations, Strauss and his colleagues took a more careful look at some of the remains found at Lapa do Santo. They found that starting between 10,600 and 10,400 years ago, the ancient inhabitants of the region buried their dead as complete skeletons.

But 1,000 years later (between about 9,600 and 9,400 years ago), people began dismembering, mutilating and de-fleshing fresh corpses before burying them. The teeth from the skulls were pulled out systematically. Some bones showed evidence of having been burned or cannibalized before being placed inside another skull, the researchers reported in the December issue of the journal Antiquity.

“The strong emphasis on the reduction of fresh corpses explains why these fascinating mortuary practices were not recognized during almost two centuries of research in the region,” Strauss said.

The team has not uncovered any other forms of memorial, such as gravestones or grave goods. Instead, the researchers said, it seems that this strict process of dismemberment and corpse mutilation was one of the central rituals used by these ancient people in commemorating the dead.

Complete Article HERE!

Humanist funerals: Finding meaning without God

humanist-funerals

[I]t’s no secret that British society has become decidedly less religious over the last 50 or so years. According to research by NatCen, just under half of adults in England and Wales define themselves as having no religion.

The funeral has traditionally been a religious affair, with a great proportion of the service dedicated to prayer and worship. But now, in a more secular age, humanist funerals are beginning to emerge as a popular choice for those who don’t follow a religion.

What is humanism?

“Humanism is a life philosophy, an umbrella term for atheist, agnostic and non-religious people,” explains Isabel Russo, head of ceremonies at the British Humanist Association. “Atheism can be seen as a very negative life stance by some, but humanism is a very positive life stance. It is based on the philosophy and the belief that we can be good without God.

“It’s a thought-through position that the meaning of life is to be happy and to help others be happy. We live by the golden rule ‘do unto others what you would have done to yourself’. It is a positive outlook on how you can be a moral, ethical person without any supernatural being guiding your behaviour.”

What is a humanist funeral?

“In religious funerals, God is in the spotlight, but in the humanist funeral God is absent,” Isabel explains. “Instead, the spotlight is on the person who has died. The funeral is centred around them, around their life, around the people who were important to them. The funeral acknowledges their life in all its light and dark, in all its glory.

“Humanist funerals can be a lot more frank in a way. We can be honest about the challenges that person faced and acknowledge their journey, whether they overcame those challenges or not, because not overcoming those challenges makes them human.

“We’re not deifying that person, we’re not trying to save their immortal souls, or to commit them to God and make them worthy of God. We say, ‘This is the person we loved, these are their achievements, these are the people they cared about, these are the things that made them laugh, these are the things that made them cry, these are the challenges they faced.’ So, really it’s about remembering the person in a really whole way.”

Can a humanist funeral be meaningful without God?

If you are used to attending religious funerals, you might be unsure whether a funeral without mention of an afterlife can be as meaningful. But, Isabel says, there is powerful meaning in the act of saying goodbye and remembering the life of the person who has died:

“The challenge of a humanist funeral, but where it is also successful, is being able to walk the line of being a genuinely sad occasion, where you are acknowledging that you are really letting go of someone – because we don’t believe that we’ll see them in heaven again – and at the same time remembering who they were for us, and who they’ll always be for us.

“Of course, for a religious person it will always lack that ultimate meaning for them, because God isn’t mentioned. We would never want to do a humanist service for someone who is religious. We want everyone to have the ceremony that is right for them. However, for a non-religious person it does have that ultimate meaning, because for them life is about life itself, not the afterlife.”

That said, Isabel says that a humanist funeral can be a meaningful experience for religious mourners who attend. She told us about a funeral she conducted for a man who was an out-and-out atheist, but whose wife was religious.

“There were people who were religious who spoke in the service, and there was nobody who came up to me at the end and said it wasn’t meaningful. Everybody, including the religious people, said, ‘That was so meaningful, that was so him, you allowed us the space to laugh and to cry, and to reconnect with who he was for us.’ In a funeral ceremony we always give time for reflection which, we explain, can always be used as time for private prayer.”

Humanist funerals often incorporate elements of ‘alternative’ funeral ideas, such as bright colours, weird and wonderful themes, and other non-traditional aspects such as balloon releases, eco-friendly burials and fireworks. But this doesn’t mean the funeral services are frivolous or light-hearted. On the contrary, the meaningfulness of saying goodbye is central to the humanist service.

“We’re very much in support of that creativity, but also in support of it being rooted in the profound experience of saying goodbye,” Isabel says. “It’s even more important for humanists, because we don’t believe we’re going to be meeting them again in the afterlife. You really are saying goodbye.”

“In a religious ceremony you’re committing the person to God, but in a non-religious ceremony, we like to see it as you’re committing that person’s memory to your heart. That is not to say that it can’t be full of joy, and laughter, and bright colours, but it’s just always remembering that at the heart of it, it’s a very profound thing you are doing.”

How to plan a humanist funeral

If you’re considering a non-religious funeral for your loved one, Isabel recommends working with a humanist celebrant you can trust. Currently there is no regulatory body overseeing the training and accreditation of humanist celebrants, but organisations such as the British Humanist Association have their own quality assurance and training programmes for celebrants.

“The world of funerals and death is just opening so much more, which is great,” Isabel says. “People have more choice now, so I would encourage people to shop around. You can ask questions and find the person who is right for you.”

Your funeral director will be able to help you get in touch with a non-religious celebrant, or you can find an accredited humanist celebrant near you via the British Humanist Association’s website.

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