What Did the Greeks Believe About the Afterlife?

by James Hewson

The ancient Greek notion of the afterlife and the rituals accompanying burials were previously well instituted by the 6th century B.C. In the Odyssey, Homer depicts the Underworld, deep below the earth, where Hades, the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and his spouse, Persephone, ruled over a myriad of wandering legions of gloomy figures known as the 'shades' which were all those who had previously perished. It was not a joyful locality, and indeed, the soul of the great warrior Achilles informed Odysseus that he would might as well be a miserable helot on Earth than lord of all the departed in the land of the dead.

The Greeks conceived that at this point of death the soul, or ghost of the deceased, was released from the body as a brief puff of wind. The deceased was then readied for interment conforming to their time-honored practices. Ancient scholarly authorities insist on the need of a correct funeral and refer to the exclusion of burial ceremonies as an defamation to human nobility. Families of the dead, principally women, administered the elaborate funeral traditions that were traditionally made up of three sections. These were the placing of the body, the burial march, and the burying of the individual or cremated ashes of the deceased. Following being cleaned and daubed with oil, the individual was clothed and positioned on a high bed inside the dwelling. Throughout the placing of the body, relations and friends drew near to grieve and provide their respects. Lamentation of the deceased is highlighted in aged Greek paintings at least as ancient as the Geometric era, when vases were adorned with areas illustrating the departed surrounded by grievers. The final stage of the process was to bring the deceased to the burial ground in a procession, the ekphora, which commonly took place almost ahead of dawn and a handful of objects were deposited into the grave, but imposing earth stacks, orthogonal constructed crypts, and elaborate marble stelai and carvings were frequently formed to indicate the grave and to safeguard that the deceased would always be remembered. Eternal life lay in the lasting recollection of the deceased by the living and from representations on white ground lekythoi, we understand that the women of Traditional Athens made habitual visits to the burial sites with gifts that included little cakes and liquid offerings.

The most sumptuous burial mausoleums were built in the 6th century B.C. by upper-class kindreds of Attica in exclusive funeral land along the roadside on the relatives land or approaching Athens. Relief carvings, figures, and tall stelai enthroned by finials identified many of these burial places. Each funerary mausoleum had an engraved foundation with an epitaph, frequently in poetry that memorialized the deceased. A relief illustrating a generalized impression of the departed occasionally summoned up characteristics of the individual's existence, with the inclusion of a minion, belongings, and animals. On ancient reliefs, it is simple to recognize the deceased individual nevertheless, throughout the 4th century B.C., further family associates were attached to the scenes and generally many names were etched into the tribute, making it hard to differentiate the deceased from the grievers. Like all aged marble carving, funerary figures and burial stelai were brightly colored, and comprehensive remains of scarlet, dark, cobalt, and green coloring can nevertheless be viewed.

Many of the best Attica burial memorials endured in a burial place positioned in the outlying Kerameikos area situated on the edge of Athens barely outside the gateways of the old city barrier. The burial ground was being used for centuries and awe-inspiring Geometrical craters marked burial mounds of the 8th century B.C., in addition to excavations which have exposed a obvious structure of graves from the Traditional era. At the demise of the 5th century B.C., Athenian households started to inter their deceased in modest stone sarcophagi positioned in the ground inside grave areas coordinated in manufactured terraces supported by a tall retaining barriers. Marble cenotaphs belonging to various associates of a relatives were positioned alongside the edge of the terrace rather than over the tombs themselves.

As we can see the Greeks believed a significant amount about the afterlife and paid great attention to trusted traditions when burying their loved ones and did not deviate from this for many years.

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