THE EARLY AGE OF GREECE VOL.I by W.Ridgeway 1901

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IXHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL. 483
eating was combined with the utmost respect and reverence in
historical times."
In a Fourth Dynasty staircase tomb at Ballas, half-way up
the stairway of the tomb, were five burials in circular pots. In
four cases the pots -were placed mouth up, in one, mouth down
(cf. p. 60). At the top of the stairs and at the narrow end of it
was an extended burial with head to the north. It had been
in a coffin of wood, and was of the Twelfth Dynasty, from the
beads found with it.
The Egyptians, the neighbours and kinsmen of the Libyans,
had embalmed their dead for at least three thousand years
before Christ \
Cambyses, as a final act of indignity to the mummy of
Amasis, had it burned. This act was horrible in the eyes of
the Egyptians, for " they believe fire to be a live
animal, which
cats whatever it can seize, and then, glutted with the food,
dies with the matter upon which it feeds. Now to give a
man's body to be devoured by beasts is in no wise agreeable
to their custcjms, and indeed this is the very reason why they
embalm theii' dead :
namely, to prevent them from being eaten
in the grave by worms'"'."
The Maerobii of Ethiopia, when " the dead body has been
dried, cither in the Egyptian,
oi- in some other manner, cover
the whole with gypsinn. ami adorn it with ))aiiitiiig until it is
as like the li\ing uiaii as possi])le.
Then they place the body
in a crvstal jjillar
which has been hollowed out to receive it,
crvstal being dug uj)
in great abundance in their cotmtrv,
and of a kind \ery easy to woi-k. ^'ou may see the corjjse
through the pilhu' within which it lii's: and it ncithci" gives
out any iui])hasant odour, nor is ii in any resjx'ct unseeiulv ;
yet thci'f is no pai't thai is not as plainly \isil)lc as if the
l)(dv was ])arc. The next of kin keep the pillar
in
their
houses a full
year from the time of the death, and gi\e it
the iir>tfruits (-(iiit inually. and hoiKJur it with sacrihce. Attci'
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l;ilil;.'r. 'I'hr Miiiiiiin/. ]>.
|s|. 'I'l,.. (ildr-I iiuiliunv aliout t he dale (if w liicli
thrir i- ti(. (Iniiiii. i> that of S.k,i-ciri -a f, -on of I'tjii
I. ami .Idi r lircithtT
of I'cpi II., i;.( . :i-_'(iii.
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11. i,.!. in. It;.
484 INHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL.
the year
is out they bear the pillar forth, and set it
up near
the town*." Some of the Troglodyte Ethiopians, before burying
their dead, bound the body round from the neck to the legs
with twigs of buckthorn. They then threw stones over the
body until they covered the face, at the same time laughing
and rejoicing''. They then placed over it a ram's horn and
departed.
Cremation was not practised in Egypt, Phoenicia, Palestine,
Asia Minor or Cyprus, save to a small extent by Greeks, or
under Greek influence, and that in late times.
It was the custom of the Hebrews to bury the body, as we
know from the cases of Joseph, Jacob and Asa in the Old Testament,
and from those of Christ and Lazarus in the New'*.
Among them, as among tiie rest of the Semites, cremation
was practically unknown except under very exceptional
circumstances^
Burial was the rule among' their Phoenician nei^rhbours,
as is plain
from researches in their cemeteries. This is true
also of the Carthaginians ^
The Babylonians in the time of Herodotus" buried their
dead in honey.
Sir H. Rawlinsou has pointed out that in all the ruins of
Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea, the normal method of burial
was to double up the body and sipieeze it into the lower half
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Herod, in. 24. The crystal, which was found in such large blocks and
wiis so easily worked, cannot have heen rock-crystal, but may have been talc.
Others have supj)osed it to have been rock-salt, or that niunnny-cases covered
with f^lass enamel are meant.
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Strabo 77-").
Tac, Hit^t. V. ~>, says of the Jews, condire (ms. condere) (juani cremare
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e more Ae[,'y])ti().
*
liobertson Smith, Iti'liijimi of tlic Scmilcs, p. 'M'2. Saul's body was burned
(1 Sam. xxxi. 12), ''possibly to save it from the risk of exhumation by the
I'hilistines, but j)erliaps rather with a reli^^ious intention, and almost as an act
of worship, since his bones were buried under the sacred tamarisk at Jabesh.
In .\mos vi. 10 the victims of a ))lai;ue were burned."
ltol)ertson Smith, op. cit.. ]). i573 ; Tissot, La I'ror. d' Al'ri(jU(', i. 012;
.luslin, XIX. 1. At Hadrumetuni, in the second century B.C., the dead were
burned (lierger, Hit. Arclicol., 18S',), 'M')).
I. I'js.