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In Rome's earliest history, both inhumation and cremation were in common use among all classes. Around the mid-Republic inhumation was almost exclusively replaced by cremation, with some notable exceptions, and remained the most common funerary practice until the middle of the Empire, when it was almost entirely replaced by inhumation.
A typical epitaph on a Roman funerary altar opens with a dedication to the manes, or the spirit of the dead, and closes with a word of praise for the honoree. [15] These epitaphs, along with the pictorial attributes of the altars, allow historians to discern much important information about ancient Roman funerary practices and monuments ...
At first, the practice was to sacrifice captives on the tomb, or at the bustum of warriors: instances of which are in Homer – at the funeral of Patroclus – and in Greek tragedy. Their blood was supposed to appease the di inferi or the manes, gods and spirits of the underworld, and render them propitious to the remains of the deceased. In ...
Funerary art is any work of art forming, or placed in, a repository for the remains of the dead. Funeral coin is used for coins issued on the occasion of the death of a prominent person, mostly a ruling prince or a coin-lord. Funeral games are athletic competitions held in honor of a recently deceased person. [12]
In the burial practices of ancient Rome and Roman funerary art, marble and limestone sarcophagi elaborately carved in relief were characteristic of elite inhumation burials from the 2nd to the 4th centuries AD. [2] At least 10,000 Roman sarcophagi have survived, with fragments possibly representing as many as 20,000. [3]
In ancient Roman funerals, an ustrinum (plural ustrina) was the site of a cremation funeral pyre whose ashes were removed for interment elsewhere. The ancient Greek equivalent was a καύστρα (kaustra). Ustrina could be used many times.
A pile, also known as a Roman pile, Gallo-Roman pile, or funerary pile, is a specific type of funerary monument in the archaeological vocabulary of France: elevated towers, typically square or rectangular in plan, with circular forms being less common. Their primary function was to serve as funerary structures within Roman Gaul. Valcabrère pile
A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. [1] Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honour.