Cremation: From Greece to Egypt

Περίληψη

This paper surveys some aspects related to cremation in Greece and Egypt.

Cremation was employed in Greece since the Neolithic period in the 7^th millennium B.C.E. The corpse was placed on a pyre composed of crossed beams of wood approximately fitting the size of the dead. Although pyres were completely consumed with fire, Greek pottery provided images representing them during the Classical period. Homer, as the earliest literary source, described the process. Experimental Archaeology replicated the process and presented a better understanding in relation to the suitable amount of wood logs used, intensity of fire and the nature of the ashes.  

When Alexander the Great began his conquests, the Greeks, whether soldiers or immigrants brought this custom with them as a non-indigenous practice to Egypt, where the funerary practices used were different, as preserving the body of the dead was a necessary measure in the afterlife. Cremation was attested by the presence of certain types of hydriae known as Hadra vases which were almost exclusively employed as cinerary urns. They indicated that cremation was practiced for about a century until the beginning of the second century B.C.E.