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

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INHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL. 489
490 INHUMATION, CREMATION, AND THE SOUL.
Greece. Thus we saw the island population buried their
the Athenian fashion, that is facing west\ The Megarians also
dead in a contracted posture in small ci.st-graves, sometimes,
interred their dead, but they seem to have laid the body so as
as at Amorgus, putting the corpse in a jar, a fashion which
to face the east, though according to Hereas of Megara " the
was likewise found in the graves at Thoricus in Attica (p. 31).
Megarians also bury the corpse to face the west, and moreover
According to Pliny \ the Pythagoreans buried their dead in
share with Salamis the custom of laying three or four in one
earthenware jars {(loliis).
This sect retained many practices
tomb."
which are plainly survivals of a very primitive time, and as
From this it appears that the Salaminians did not adopt
the people of Amorgus certainly buried their dead in jars, the
the practice of cremation, which had at the very close of the
Pythagorean custom was a survival from earlier days, and not
Mycenean period got a temporary footing.
The double usage
a mere sectari;ui deviation from ordinary u.sage.
in orientation at Megara was probably due to the mixed
As has been repeatedly pointed out, there is no trace of
aboriginal aud Doric population.
cremation in the shaft-graves on the Acropolis of Mycenae.
As the dead lay towards the west in Attica, Salamis, in
In Grave I. there were three bodies all with their heads to
some cases at Megara, and in the majority of the interments
the E. and their feet to the W. : in Grave II. there were three
in the shaft graves at Mycenae, it may be inferred that this
bodies all with their heads E. and their feet W. the bodies
was
;
the characteristic orientation of the autochthonous race.
found in Grave III. all had their heads E. and their feet W.; in
This is confirmed by the fact that all the stelae found over
Grave IV. were the remains of five persons, of whom three had
the graves in the Acropolis of Mycenae looked west, thus
their heads E., their feet \V., the other two having their heads
corresponding with tlie position of the dead below, though it
N., their feet S. ;
the only body found in Grave V. had its
has been suggested that the tombstones were so placed that
head E.'^
they might face the roadway.
Two graves containing civmated remains were found in
But, although Solon himself was cremated, as we shall see
Salamis in a Mycenean cemetery, but these interments seem
later on, it must not be supposed that cremation ever became
to belong to the close of the Mycenean age (j). '^'2). Yet as
general at Athens or elsewhere in southern Greece. Such
we kiKtw that Salamis was occupied by the Aeacidae from
certainly was not the case in the fifth and fourth centuries H.C.
the very outset of the Achean invasion, these two ci-eniationgraves
As Herodotus (p. 481) states that the Libyan tribes bury their
are probably Achean.
dead in the same fasliion as the Hellenes, it would appear that
Yet thei-e is
good evidence that the native ))o))nlation were
although cremation was occasionally employed, inhumation was
slow to follow their new ]-ulers in mattei's of l)ini;d.
the noi'inal rite among Hellenes. This is confirmed by modt'rn
We saw from tiie Dipvlon cemetery (p. 32S) that inhumation
discoveries as well as by other ancient writers. Thus although
contiiuied to l)e the regular method of burial at Athens
the Athenians wiio fell in the first
engagement of the Peloponlu'sian
ilown to the sixth century !!. 'MJ :
irvpLoOtv t't IXi'or f/\oiji iriij.iTii
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Tsounta^ and Maiiatt In/', cit.. ]