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What they did with their dead ​….

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tiompan T
tiompan Jun 13, 2016 14:53:17
Replying to moss

moss wrote:
Markoid wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Yes ,the more sanitised stuff is relatively recent and it's imagined that the beliefs and rituals are pretty similar even across Europe , when that is not the case .
Secondary burial is still carried out in southern and eastern Europe with attendant rituals that seem strange to us north westerners .
Rituals respect the dead and the living. I think that's where the word came from. A relegious term. Almost like a trance - like prayer.
Less sanitised, and please don't read the link if you are squeamish, is the Tibetan 'sky burials' and probably nearer in principle to the excarnation of the prehistoric period.

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~pamlogan/skybury.htm

It's likely that there was more to the rituals than just excarnation ,if contemporary practices from differing cultures are anything to go by .
Smearing yourself in the more liquid remains of the ancestors , takes a bit of beating .

M Markoid
Markoid Jun 13, 2016 15:40:34
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
moss wrote:
Markoid wrote:
tiompan wrote:
Yes ,the more sanitised stuff is relatively recent and it's imagined that the beliefs and rituals are pretty similar even across Europe , when that is not the case .
Secondary burial is still carried out in southern and eastern Europe with attendant rituals that seem strange to us north westerners .
Rituals respect the dead and the living. I think that's where the word came from. A relegious term. Almost like a trance - like prayer.
Less sanitised, and please don't read the link if you are squeamish, is the Tibetan 'sky burials' and probably nearer in principle to the excarnation of the prehistoric period.

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~pamlogan/skybury.htm

It's likely that there was more to the rituals than just excarnation ,if contemporary practices from differing cultures are anything to go by .
Smearing yourself in the more liquid remains of the ancestors , takes a bit of beating .
Pretty much everything in meditation is to do with breathing. It is the essence and focus.

Try climbing in Nepal!

H Howburn Digger
Howburn Digger Jun 14, 2016 16:44:27
Replying to tiompan

tiompan wrote:
moss wrote:
Less sanitised, and please don't read the link if you are squeamish, is the Tibetan 'sky burials' and probably nearer in principle to the excarnation of the prehistoric period.

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~pamlogan/skybury.htm

It's likely that there was more to the rituals than just excarnation ,if contemporary practices from differing cultures are anything to go by .
Smearing yourself in the more liquid remains of the ancestors , takes a bit of beating .
There seems to be a fair bit of defleshing activity happening in the sky burials as opposed to simply leaving an entire intact corpse to the birdies.

Don't watch this if you are in any way queazy about such things.

https://youtu.be/BUp4jUMIy68

Perhaps the carving up of the main course on the video could explain some of the "chops and scrapes" on the Orkney bones. While sky burials/excarnation can be seen simply as the removal of the dead flesh on an empty vessel... it would make sense to assist/ ease the work of the birds. Some of the sky burial reports describe the de-fleshing by birds taking mere minutes after the partial carving up of the main course. That is a very quick job indeed.

The smearing does take some beating though.