DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1021#0140
96 THE MYCENAEAN AGE
that Homer thrice employs 'tapxysiv? in the sense to bury,
while the word is obviously only another form for the later
current <rapi%sv£tv to pickle, embalm. Hence it is not im-
probable that embalming was known in the Mycenaean
age, though employed simply for the preservation of the
body while lying in state. This, without doubt, continued
many days in the case of chiefs and princes -— not so with
the common people j hence, embalming would be exceptional.
And from the probable embalming of some corpses we have
no warrant for concluding that the Mycenaeans held views
of a future life akin to those of the Egyptians.2
The six graves obviously belonged to a single dynasty,
and are not all of the same date. The third, fourth and
A Family &£tl\ are distinctly the earlier, as we shall presently
Sepulchre gee_ ]y[ore tnan that, it is altogether improbable
that the several bodies in any one grave were all buried
at the same time: and in that case every grave (except the
second) must have been reopened once or oftener before it
received its complement of corpses. On these occasions
the bones of those buried previously were often pushed
aside or gathered into heaps; at least, this seems to have
been done in the sixth grave (now set up intact at the
National Museum), and we shall see that it was a common
occurrence in the beehive and chamber tombs.
After the burial the grave was covered with slabs and
then mounded over, and the mourners sat down to the
F.merai funeral repast beside it, as may be inferred from
Banquet ^ kones 0f VjeeveS) goats, swine and deer which
litter the ground — partly due to these feasts, partly also
1 Iliad, vii. 85 ; xvi. 466, 674.
2 For valuable data as to embalming in other parts of the East (Phoenicia,
India, Babylonia, Scythia), as well as Greece, and in Mexico, Peru and the
South Pacific, sec Ilclbig, I. c.
that Homer thrice employs 'tapxysiv? in the sense to bury,
while the word is obviously only another form for the later
current <rapi%sv£tv to pickle, embalm. Hence it is not im-
probable that embalming was known in the Mycenaean
age, though employed simply for the preservation of the
body while lying in state. This, without doubt, continued
many days in the case of chiefs and princes -— not so with
the common people j hence, embalming would be exceptional.
And from the probable embalming of some corpses we have
no warrant for concluding that the Mycenaeans held views
of a future life akin to those of the Egyptians.2
The six graves obviously belonged to a single dynasty,
and are not all of the same date. The third, fourth and
A Family &£tl\ are distinctly the earlier, as we shall presently
Sepulchre gee_ ]y[ore tnan that, it is altogether improbable
that the several bodies in any one grave were all buried
at the same time: and in that case every grave (except the
second) must have been reopened once or oftener before it
received its complement of corpses. On these occasions
the bones of those buried previously were often pushed
aside or gathered into heaps; at least, this seems to have
been done in the sixth grave (now set up intact at the
National Museum), and we shall see that it was a common
occurrence in the beehive and chamber tombs.
After the burial the grave was covered with slabs and
then mounded over, and the mourners sat down to the
F.merai funeral repast beside it, as may be inferred from
Banquet ^ kones 0f VjeeveS) goats, swine and deer which
litter the ground — partly due to these feasts, partly also
1 Iliad, vii. 85 ; xvi. 466, 674.
2 For valuable data as to embalming in other parts of the East (Phoenicia,
India, Babylonia, Scythia), as well as Greece, and in Mexico, Peru and the
South Pacific, sec Ilclbig, I. c.