Thread by @jens2go, Human engagement with #death led to a variety of #mortuary practices. In [...]

Human engagement with #death led to a variety of #mortuary practices. In #archaeology we're usually confronted with their final result, but often left with only vague ideas of underlying concepts.

This makes peculiar present #funeral practices valuable sources. A short thread.

The custom of #SykBurials, reportedly still practiced in parts of Asia, is one of those cues allowing us a gentle glimpse into the manifold ways humans handle death and dying (warning: POSSIBLY EXPLICIT CONTENT).

https://aeon.co/videos/to-tibetan-buddhists-sky-burials-are-sacred-to-tourists-theyre-a-morbid-curiosity via @aeonmag

To Tibetan Buddhists, sky burials are sacred. To tourists, they’re a morbid curiosity | Aeon Videos

Relations between Tibet and China have been fraught for centuries. However, China’s 1950 invasion of Tibet, and its repression of an ensuing 1959 Tibetan uprising which resulted in the Dalai Lama...

https://aeon.co/videos/to-tibetan-buddhists-sky-burials-are-sacred-to-tourists-theyre-a-morbid-curiosity

Consigning the physical remains of a deceased to scavenging birds is an indeed interesting concept:

Transporting the dead body (and undead soul?) into an afterlife - figuratively ('flying away with the bird') and literally (being eaten rather than decaying).

Personally, I find this particularly interesting due to my own work and research regarding the so-called #PrePotteryNeolithic in the #Levant and #Mesopotamia - which also has produces some hints at a remarkable #mortuary #ritual.

Best known examples might be the famous Neolithic plastered human skulls from sites like #TellEsSultan ( #Jericho): Specific individual's heads were given back a face with gypsum and shells and paint - and then apparently displayed.

https://blog.britishmuseum.org/facing-the-past-the-jericho-skull

Another example are the also Neolithic burials from #KörtikTepe in Turkey: Here, the bones of many individuals were plaster-covered and elaborately painted.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-archaeology/article/bone-or-flesh-defleshing-and-postdepositional-treatments-at-kortik-tepe-southeastern-anatolia-ppna-period/21B8788E4BC4F9B913CD65E84424EA0D

This, plastering and painting, of course only could have been done to the bare bones once there was no flesh anymore - hinting at a later exhumation of bodies ... or #excarnation ('defleshment') in the course of #burial #ritual.

Interestingly, there are #Neolithic contexts and physical traces on bones which could hint at, as Hodder & Meskell put it in their article in Current Anthropology 52(2), 2011, "a concern for the processes of #bodily #articulation or #disarticulation".

http://radicalanthropologygroup.org/sites/default/files/pdf/class_text_136.pdf

Among these traces are e.g. #CutMarks on human bones - whose origin and meaning, admittedly, can have a variety of possible reasons ... of which the removal of flesh *might* be one.

Here's a recent study on skull fragments from #GöbekliTepe for instance: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700564

Modified human crania from Göbekli Tepe provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult

Archaeological excavations at Göbekli Tepe, a transitional Neolithic site in southeast Turkey, have revealed the earliest megalithic ritual architecture with characteristic T-shaped pillars. Although...

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/6/e1700564

The complex PPN #iconography adds to this. A recurring motive at #GöbekliTepe, #CatalHöyük and others e.g. are depictions of birds (e.g. #vultures) and separated human heads - or headless bodies:

https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2017/05/17/a-separated-head-between-animals-on-a-stone-slab-from-goebekli-tepe

Furthermore, among the bones of birds found at #GöbekliTepe, necrophagous species (i.e. feeding on corpses) like vultures and corvids (crows, ravens etc.) were dominating - much more than usually expected in contemporary settlements ...

https://books.google.de/books?id=CdnECgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA72&ots=p-zf2UTP3h&dq=notroff%20et%20al%20gathering&hl=de&pg=PA65#v=onepage&q&f=false

... so, either Neolithic hunters really had a thing for crows and ravens (feathers?) - or something seemed to have attracted quite a large number of such birds to this site high up in the mountains.

To this day, the practice of #SkyBurials remains an often referenced cultural phenomenon in the discussion of 'special' (i.e. 'odd' in our western perception) #burial customs (again: likely EXPLICIT CONTENT):

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/03/world/lirong-journal-tibetans-and-vultures-keep-ancient-burial-rite.html?pagewanted=all via @nytimes

Lirong Journal; Tibetans, and Vultures, Keep Ancient Burial Rite

Tibetans have three principal ways to return their dead to earth; in sky burial, body is dismembered and fed to vultures; in water burial, corpse is cut into small pieces and fed to fish; third way,...

https://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/03/world/lirong-journal-tibetans-and-vultures-keep-ancient-burial-rite.html?pagewanted=all

And while I of course do not intend to equal modern-day #SkyBurial in Asia with prehistoric #funerary practices, analogies like this do provide a useful frame to evaluate our archaeological data along the large variety of human responses towards death - and #funerary diversity.

Short addition to this thread: Speaking of funerary diversity - I just had the pleasure following an interesting summary of "25 years of research at #Catalhöyük by Ian Hodder earlier today and since he was touching the fascinating topic of the complexity of burials there ...

Hodder again mentioned the removal of #skulls from #burials, their replastering and circulation among the settlement.

This and the practice of ' #secondary' (i.e. re-) burial seems a particular phenomenon of the later phases pf occupation at #Catalhöyük.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318042962_Skull_Retrieval_and_Secondary_Burial_Practices_in_the_Neolithic_Near_East_Recent_Insights_from_Catalhoyuk_Turkey

Even more interesting (and the reason I ... uh, pun ... dig up this thread again) was his description of evidence for #delayed #burial and the special treatment of bodies to keep them in anatomical position (e.g. wrapping bundles).

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289525849_Living_above_the_Dead_Intramural_Burial_practices_at_Catalhoyuk

Also #smoking was a particularly mentioned possibility for such special treatment. And yes, there are ethnographic analogies for this practice too - e.g. the smoked #Anga #mummies from #PapuaNewGuinea (warning: EXPLICIT photos).

https://www.livescience.com/50948-photos-smoked-mummies-papua-new-guinea.html

The curious relation of #preservation concepts and techniques (be it food or a dear ancestor ...) is something I find particular fascinating here. https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/embalming-culture-mortuary-customs

The Weird, Wild World of Mortuary Customs

Embalming is just one among the world’s wide variety of funeral practices, and in a sense it’s as ordinary as any other. Then again, it’s pretty strange.

https://www.sapiens.org/column/curiosities/embalming-culture-mortuary-customs

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