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Med Past > Death > Flashcards

Death Flashcards

1
Q

Aspects of the dead Egyptian

A
  • The akh - the spirit which reflect the deeds of the person in life - can interact with this world
  • The ka - created at the same time as the person themselves, a kind of double or twin which survives death and gets sustenance between the world - magic formula and offerings directed to this
  • The ba - human headed bird - form of the spirit that could interact with the physical world
  • The shadow - role unclear and is part of the spirit
  • The body - must be preserved to reach the afterlife - earthbound conduit
  • The name - as long as name survives on earth, they cannot be completely obliterated
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2
Q

ḥtp-dỉ-nsw formula

A
  • Magically produces food and drink
  • End ‘for the ka of X’
  • Sometimes around false doors
  • False doors are public part of the tomb where the two worlds come together and offerings can be placed
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3
Q

Egyptian ‘Book of Coming Forth by Day’ (AKA ‘Book of the Dead’)

A
  • 16th C BC onwards, second intermediate period
  • Guidebook to being dead
  • Takes one through the process - riddles to be answered at various gateways from death to the judgement hall
  • In judgement hall, heart (intelligence and memory) is weighed against a feather by Maat, goddess of justice and truth, and the result is recorded by Thoth
  • Presented to Osiris who lets them into the afterlife
  • If it is not lighter, Ammit will eat your heart and the spirit will be left to wander the earth
  • If it is written down, it has happened so everyone who depicts this goes through
  • Heart scarabs used to keep guilt hidden
  • Book of the Dead - shows field of Iaru - where commoners end up -bigger and better Egypt with better crops etc.
  • Dead person lives on their existing life, just better
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4
Q

Pyramid Texts

23rd/22nd C BC

A
  • Old Kingdom
  • Only for kings at this place
  • To aid in guiding the spirit to the next world
  • Predates book of dead
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5
Q

Coffin Texts

21st/17th C BC

A
  • Middle Kingdom

- Parts are incorporated into the Book of the Dead

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6
Q

Predynastic burial

A
  • Naqqada culture
  • Crouched bodies in the desert sound
  • Surrounded by sparse grave goods e.g. pottery - pottery much higher quality here than in later periods
  • Natural preservation - desiccation from sun and sand
  • May have inspired mummification
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7
Q

Mummification process

A
  • Depends on what people could afford
  • Peak in the New Kingdom
  • Evisceration - removal of all organs apart from the kidneys and heart
  • Brain removed via nostrils
  • Dessiccation - body buried in Natron - natural salt
  • Natron needs to be changed at least once over the month it is buried in
  • Wrapping - Organs are separately dessicated, wrapped and put in canopic jars
  • The Catafalque - put in coffins and taken to the tomb in a procession
  • Earliest mummies have same pose as predynastic burials but are later fully extended
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8
Q

The Funeral

A
  • Opening the Mouth - funerary ceremony working as a magical reanimation practice
  • Body held up and made to eat with various implements, e.g. Weekend at Bernies
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9
Q

Canopic Equipment

A
  • Varies over time
  • Start of as simple functional things, then have human heads, then four sons of horus atop each jar - protective deities of the dead
  • May be placed in a Canopic chest
  • Royalty have much richer canopic jars - solid gold miniature coffins with a stone canopic chest
  • Baboon
  • Hawk
  • Jackal
  • Human
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10
Q

Mummies: external treatment

A
  • Stretched out in a position of sleep - lying on side with right leg over the left
  • Body on it’s side in the coffin until the Middle Kingdom
  • Outer wrapping soaked in plaster so the features of the body can be modelled
  • After Middle Kingdom - replaced by a stretched out body with a helmet mask over head and shoulders
  • Masks go in and out of fashion
  • Bead nets sometimes draped over body, without a mask, with deities depicted in beads
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11
Q

Early Coffins

A
  • Earliest are short and fat, reflecting the crouched position of the mummies
  • Many are simple wooden boxes but some have nice rounded lids and paneled exteriors, to represent a chapel or high status building
  • Rectangular coffins remain the standard for 1000 years until the Middle kingdom
  • Some kings coffins more simple than private ones
  • Eye panels designed to allow the deceased to look out - hence lying on left side - sometimes looking at pile of offerings - sometimes a depiction of what he can see on the inside -Eye panels still found on coffins even when body is lying on its back
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12
Q

Sarcophagi

A
  • external rectangular container, not always made of stone
  • range from simple to panelled, then elaborately decorated in the New Kingdom - deities, sons of horus, eye panels regardless of position of bodies and extensive texts
  • Wooden ones also exist, mostly from 18th dynasty
  • New Kingdom Dyn XIX - more elaborate, pictures of the kings body on the lid
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13
Q

Shabtis

A
  • Magical servants of the deceased
  • Corvee labour still happening after you die - could be conscripted so need someone to do the work for you in the afterlife
  • Initally just one, then eventually one for every day of the year and overseers
  • Could be over 400
  • Design changes over time - end up as little blue statues
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14
Q

Offering Stelas

A
  • Found in the offering place - depicts person and offerings being made
  • Depictions of things that should be bought - assumed real food would be bought but not always the case
  • Eventually evolve into offering formulae
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15
Q

Saqqara: Step Pyramid

A
  • First monumental tombs
  • Built on top of the burial place itself
  • Dynasty III, 2600 BC
  • Built for King Djoser by Imhotep
  • Combination of the offering place and burial chamber
  • First underground gallery to have decoration - after this, not kings burial passages are decorated for a few centuries
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16
Q

Medium Pyramid

A
  • Dashur, 4th Dynasty
  • Pyramid of Sneferu, along with the Red and Bent Pyramids
  • Step pyramids don’t last long
  • Looks strange as it started as a step pyramid, was converted to a pointed pyramid, then partially collapsed
  • Gives up on rectangular enclosure approach in favour of a simpler one - from here on pyramids have a small temple on the Western face and a causeway which leads to the edge of the desert - becomes the standard plan for a pyramid
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17
Q

Giza Pyramids

A
  • Great Pyramid - 4th Dynasty, Khufu

- Followed by Pyramid of Khafre and the smaller modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure nearby

18
Q

Rock Tombs

A
  • Tombs for private individuals in areas where topography doesn’t allow mastabas to be built e.g. at Aswan
  • offering places cut out of living rock
  • New Kingdom- rock cup chapels with a view, overlooking processional ways
  • Decoration of private individuals surrounding food production and activities people want to continue e.g. hunting, cooking etc - associated with food
  • Burial chambers typically undecorated
19
Q

Memorial Temples

A
  • Old and Middle Kingdoms - temple dedicated to the deceased King
  • New Kingdoms - main temples are dedicated to the King of the Gods Amun, with the King only a subsidiary - separation of spaces in the temples
  • Burial chamber once again moves some distance away from the memorial temple
20
Q

Valley of the Kings

A
  • Tomb chamber moves way away from the memorial temples - couple of kms away
  • In the New Kingdom, moved into the valley of the kings, on the other side of a rock ridge where ‘secret’ tombs were built to avoid tomb robbers
21
Q

Mesopotamian Underworld:

A
  • From texts - no funerary texts, just references in other texts
    • Ruled by goddess Ereshkigal & her husband Nergal
    • Inhabited by the etemmu of the dead
    • Underground, below the world of the living
    • Dark, damp and dreary:
    • ‘The place where they live on dust, their food is mud, and they see no light …’. - not desirable like Egyptian afterlife
    • Accessed via land infested by demons, crossing the Khubur River, with the aid of its guardian, and then passing though seven gates to reach the netherworld - no equivalent book of the dead to guide them through this
    • If proper offerings not made by living, dead might return as malevolent ghosts
22
Q

Ashur royal cemeteries

A
  • 11th-9th century BC
  • Over 1000 years after the Royal Tombs of Ur - not much evidence inbetween
  • Royal Tombs of Ur are in the city but in distinct cemeteries - now the Ashur tombs are underneath houses
  • Brick structures with vaulted or pointed roofs
  • Private individuals buried underneath houses, royalty buried underneath palaces
23
Q

Mycenae

A
  • Grave circles were initially outside the main walled structure but were later enclosed within the walls
  • Main high status cemetery still outside the walls however
24
Q

Grave Circles

A
  • Oldest tomb = grave circle B - contains shaft graves which are deep shafts with the body placed at the bottom with a roof over it, then filled in - at the bottom were grave markers
  • MH III- LHIA 17th-16th c BC
  • all burials within known by greek letters - all contain pottery from MH IIIB, some stelas and Electrum (gold and silver) alloy death masks (LH), lots of gold work
  • Grave Circle A is later but was discovered earlier by Schliemann - LHI - 17th BC where he found ‘Agamemnon’ but date wrong for this
  • Thought this due to gold mask - clearly v important people - large shaft graves with elaborate grave goods inc silver and gold rhyton (to pour wine) in the shape of a bulls head, stela of a chariot fight
25
Q

Chamber Tombs

A
  • Shaft tombs replaced as standard high status tomb with Chamber tombs and Tholos
  • Entrance passage way and chamber cut out of the rock
  • Tholos is free standing equivalent - entrance passage then beehive shaped chamber for burial
  • Both tomb types seem to have been used on a generational basis - reopened and reused by descendants
  • Chamber tombs ubiquitos around greece, not just Mycenae
  • Tholoi at Mycenae include Tomb of Atreus and Tomb of Clytemnestra, both 13th c BC - given names of Homeric heroes even though they definitely weren’t
  • Triangular arch above the doorway typical
26
Q

Cretan Tombs

A
  • Tholoi also found in Crete e.g. at Phourni, 14th c BC
  • Some pillar crypt to one side of the Tholos - not sure what the meaning of these is but thought to be funerary, as well as in living cult centres e.g palaces
  • Some other types of tombs found but their exact context remains unclear
27
Q

Cremation and Inhumation

A
  • Cremation more common in Iron Age when Greece emerges from the Dark Ages - inhumation standard around the near east before this
  • Cremation changes whole nature of burials - just a jar now
  • Athens, 9th c BC
28
Q

The Homeric funeral

A

No written records before classical times but we have evidence during this, particularly from Homer - we assume this is what was happening at his time but we can’t be sure
1. Prothesis: laying out body
2. Ekphora: conveyance to place of interment (began before dawn on 3rd
day)
3. Kedia: deposition of cremated or inhumed remains
4. Perideipnon: ceremonial feast, conceptually hosted by the dead person
- Range of grave goods - statues (kuoros and kore), pots, etc

29
Q

Attica

A
  • Area around athens
    -Switching between whether Cremation of Inhumation is the standard
    11th-10th C: single inhumation
    9th-8th C: cremation
    later 8th C: inhumation (contemporary with establishment of polis)
    7th C: primary cremation
    6th C: inhumation early
    5th C: stone stelae banned
    -Solon’s reforms in early 6th C included that lamentation in the home and in public should be restrained, dignified and restricted to the close relatives of deceased
30
Q

Book of Amuduat

A
  • 15th century BC onwards
  • Kings don’t need to go through the same judgement process that commoners do - don’t need to go live in the next world
  • Kings join with the other gods instead
  • Reflected that in the royal tombs of New Kingdom onwards, wall depictions are to do with the journey of the Sun god through the underworld (ram headed Re)
  • Idea = King is fused with sun god, takes part in his death at sunset and his Resurrection at sun rise
31
Q

Later Coffins

A

-Anthropoid mummy case comes in Middle Kingdom, around 2000 BC onwards - essentially outer depictions of wrapped mummys with mask and shroud
-Later, rectangular coffin goes out of use and anthropoid coffin becomes an independent container
-Rishi (feathered) coffin - body depicted as a ba bird
-White coffins - New Kingdom - reversion to depicting a wrapped mummy
-Black coffins - design stays the same but colour changes to black in middle of 18th dynasty - black colour of dead deities skin, death and resurrection
Kings keep rishi coffins around 600 years after private individuals has stopped using it
-Stone anthropoid coffins used for high status private individuals
-Yellow coffins - late 14th c to 9th c BC but details change over same- decoration gets more and more elaborate
- 13th century - idea of depicting mummy goes out the window briefly and coffins depict person in everyday, living clothes - good for dating
-9th century - complete change in design, with kings in particular losing feathers but it being replaced by a hawks head

32
Q

Models

A
  • 12th dynasty - common to have models of food production activities place in the burial chamber e.g. granaries
33
Q

Abydos

A
  • Earliest royal tombs
  • Simple cuttings in the desert gravel, lined with mud brick, with a wooden roof and a mound of sand or gravel on top of them
  • Small graves around the kings graves are sacrificed servants - Early Dynastic Period 3000-2700 BC - workers died at the same time as the king
  • Future tombs had great rectangular enclosures built where funerals were carried out, before the body was moved a few km away
34
Q

Private tombs

A
  • Initially similar to royal tombs - mud lined graves cut in the desert, simple but sometimes with more elaborate paneled mud brick superstructures
  • Also surrounded by graves of their servants but no evidence they died with owner like king
  • Offering place in left hand niches, where living could come and place offerings
35
Q

Pyramids

A
  • Earliest are the best built - get smaller and poorer after Sneferu - however mortuary temples get bigger
  • 1900 - pyramids start being built of stone rather than brick
  • Small pyramids around it built for Queens
  • Last pyramids have complex internal arrangements with hidden passageways to dissuade tomb robbers
  • Burial chambers generally undecorated in private and royal tombs until the offering stela becomes more standardised and turns into a false door
  • New Kingdom - pyramids abolished for kings and are introduced for the first time for private individuals
36
Q

Mastaba tombs

A
  • Old and Middle Kingdoms - Private individuals are under bench shaped mud brick Mastaba tombs
  • Some free standing tombs built with little pyramids on top
37
Q

Royal Tombs of Ur

A
  • Early burials in distinct cemeteries, then later within settlements and underneath houses and palaces, such as at Ur, where royal cemeteries are under the main temple
  • Monumental sub structure, but no monumental superstructure
  • Built structures in pits in the ground
  • Most famous example PG/789 is the so called ‘Death Pit of Ur’ - huge amount of material - lots of aurochs and servants, all killed/sacrified themselves at the same time within the pit, in situ and it is then filled in
38
Q

Queen Puabi

A
  • One of the Royal Tombs of Ur

- Elaborately dressed, buried with a gold crown

39
Q

Nimrud

A
  • Burials of Queens in Northwest Palace, underneath courtyards
  • Coffins, jewellery
40
Q

Persia

A
  • Royal tombs, particularly in Pasagardae and Persepolis
  • includes Tomb of Cyrus (559-529 BC) founder of Persian Empire - Tomb is a podium with a pointed roof tomb chamber on top at Pasagardae
  • More typical tomb is one such as the Tomb of Darius I(522-486 BC), a tomb cut into a vertical rock face with a facade and a stereotype of the king and various subject races
  • Chamber inside with a series of body cuttings
41
Q

Cist Graves

A

-Cutting lined with stone with a roof of stone and the body is placed within

42
Q

Pithos Grave

A
  • Bodies buried in large pots - particularly with child burials, but also very large pots in which adults (“humans”) are buried

Med Past (11 decks)

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