Death – Burial and Afterlife in Ancient Greece

 

 

The ancient Greeks believed that existence does not end with death; there is no death, only a transition from one state of being to another; every human died only to live again on another level of existence.

This concept is more or less the foundation of the Eleusinian Mysteries.

 

 

 To prepare themselves for life after death, most Greeks of that time, would have at least once in their lives, made the pilgrimage, along the Sacred Way to Eleusis, about 18 kilometres northwest of Athens, to attend the annual Eleusinian festivals.

Here, they gained a higher understanding of life, death, resurrection and reincarnation.

The main goal was sanctification of the soul, a physical, emotional and spiritual cleansing; for some, a preparatory measure before setting out, after death, on their journey to the Underword, were entry was permitted only after completing the ancient Greek burial rituals; three rites of passage.

 

Burial Rituals in Ancient Greece:

The three rites of passage

 

 After 1100 BC, Greeks buried their dead in individual graves rather than group tombs, simple boxes were used for burying the dead, Athens, however, was the exception; the Athenians usually cremated their dead and placed their ashes in an urn.

 

The first rite of passage:

Prothesis  (the laying out of the body)

 

 

When someone died in Ancient Greece, their bodies were washed and anointed and a coin, known as Charon’s obol, was placed in the mouth, with which to pay Charon; the ferryman who rowed the dead across one of the six rivers leading to the Underworld.

 

 

The body was then laid on a couch, with the head resting on a pillow and the feet pointing towards the door, this is called the prothesis ; the laying out of the body, a scene frequently painted on early Greek vases or urns on a white background called a funery lekythos, which were used to mark graves.

This was the first stage in the ancient Greek burial process.

 

The Second Rite of Passage:

Ekphora (transporting the body)

 

 

The second stage of the burial procedure in ancient Greece was the ekphora, meaning the carrying of the deceased from home to the place of burial.

 According to Athenian law, the ekphora had to take place within three days of the death and before sunrise so as not to a cause a public inconvenience.

If the family had the means, the body would be transported by horse and cart, followed by the mourners; men first, with the body, followed by the women.

 Professional undertakers, called klimakophoroi; ladder men (owing to the fact they laid the body on ladders which they carried horizontally), may also have been employed to transfer the body and dig the grave.

 

The Third Rite of Passage:

 Burial

 

 

Little to nothing is known about the ancient Greek burial service, or even if there was a service as we know it today.

No priests would have been present, only relatives and since the corpse was regarded as a breeding ground for miasma (the Greek word for contamination) it must, by law, be buried outside the city walls so as not to contaminate the inhabitants.

In ancient Greece burial within a settlement was extremely rare after the 8th century B.C.

Anyone who had been in contact with the corpse must not have any interaction with anyone outside the home until it had undergone purification, this applied especially to priests who had been in the presence of a corpse, to avoid them infecting the gods.

At the burial site the body, or the cremated ashes, stored in an urn, would be placed in the grave along with gifts such as pottery, the commonest gift (which is why so many Greek vases have survived intact), jewellery and coins, which were believed to have been of use to the deceased in the Underworld.

 

Stele (plural- stelai): Tomb stones

 

 

The ancient Greeks marked graves with stele (plural: stelai), slim stone slabs similar to modern day tombstones, usually carved with an image; these are the oldest example of funerary art in ancient Greece; the earliest stelai , excavated at Mycenae, date back to the 16th century BC.

As time passed, the stelai became larger, some being as tall as two metres and much more elaborate, so much so that in around 490 BC, a law was passed in Athens, banning extravagant stelai.

 

Kouros : Commemorative statues

 

 

Commemorative statues, with details of the deceased engraved on the base, called kouros, meaning young man,, became popular in ancient Greece in the Archaic Period (c. 700–480 BC).

The female equivalent; kourai, dressed in flowing robes, as nude women were not considered appropriate during the Archaic Period, appeared later.

After all three funeral rites were completed, the mourners returned home, where the women would prepare a funeral feast.

On the third, ninth and 30th days after the funeral, family members visited the grave to leave flowers or cakes; this specific tradition is still followed today by the Greek Orthodox Church.

 

Lamellae: Passports to Paradise

 

 

If you thought passports were a thing of the modern world, think again, the ancient Greeks were way ahead; they actually used passports, made of gold, to ensure entry into paradise, Elysium as it was called back then.

These “passports to the afterlife”, small sheets of thin gold, called lamellae in Latin, dating back to the fourth and third centuries BC, inscribed with the holder’s identity and good qualities, along with instructions of how to conduct yourself once you had gained entry, were buried along with the deceased.

Around thirty to forty of these lamellae have been discovered at gravesites from the island of Crete, to the mainland region of Thessaly in northern Greece and Magna Graecia; a region of coastal Southern Italy colonized by the Ancient Greeks.

Once the three-stage ritual burial was completed and you had your passport, you were ready to travel!

 

Journey to the Underworld

 

 

The Ancient Greeks believed that when your time on Earth, which had been alloted to you by  the goddesses of fate; the moirai, came to an end,Thanatos, the personification of death, reached down, seconds before you died and with his sword, lopped off a lock of your hair as an offering for Hades, king of the Underworld.

Then he took your soul.

Could the ancient Greek angel of death be what we now call old Father Time or the Grim Reaper?

 

 

After a visit from Thanatos, you were now ready to embark upon your journey to the afterlife and the Underworld was your destination.

Invisible to the living, the Underworld was named after the god of Hades, who ruled over his kingdom, along with his wife, Persephone, Queen of the dead.

 

Hermes Psychopompos: Herdsman of souls.

 

 

After death, Hermes, messenger of the gods, accompanied you to the first stop on your journey; the riverbank, where a boat was awaiting to carry you to the Underworld.

Hermes is not generally connected with the Underworld in Greek mythology, he did not live there he only led the souls of the dead to their destination, in this sense, he was known as Hermes Psychopompos; Herdsman of souls.

 

Crossing the River:

Who Pays the Ferryman?

 

 

Upon reaching the river bank, Charon, the ferryman, after being paid in advance, then took over from Hermes and rowed you across the river.

Upon reaching the other side you were faced with Cerberus (Kerberos); the three-headed Hound of Hades, who guarded the Underworld, whose job it was to prevent people from leaving and returning to the world of the living.

 

 

There were six main rivers in the Underworld, each with a name resonating with the various emotions which surround death.

 

The Six Rivers of the Underworld

 

The Styx: the river of hatred, the most well-known of the six rivers

The Acheron: the river of pain

The Lethe: the river of forgetfulness, named after Lethe; goddess of forgetfulness and oblivion

The Phlegethon, the river of fire, leading to the depths of Tartarus

The Cocytus: the river of wailing, which flows into the Acheron

Oceanus: the river that encircles the world

 

The Asphodel Fields

 

 

Once safely over the river you would walk across the Asphodel Fields, an endless stretch of fields covered with grey and ghostly asphodel flowers, where all memories of your former life were deleted, before coming to a fork in the road, where the three judges of the dead awaited you:

The judges were; Rhadamanthus; Lord of Elysium and judge of the men of Asia, Aeacus; guardian of the Keys of the underworld and judge of the men of Europe and Minos; the judge who had the final vote.

 

 

These three judges would then decide your fate; good people carried on towards Elysium, the land of milk and honey,however, if you had been bad boy (or girl) and upset the gods, you were sent to Tartarus, a terrible place, deep in the bowls of the Earth, where you would receive appropriate punishment.

If you were a borderline case and the judges couldn’t make up their minds, there was the possibility of being sent back to the Asphodel Fields.

 

Life in the Underworld

 

 

You entered the Greek Underworld exactly as you had left the world above, therefore, warriors who experienced gruesome deaths in battle, remained eternally blood-spattered and those who had died a peaceful death, remained at peace: as above, so below!

You didn’t age, in fact your looks, your height and your weight were exactly as they were in life.

Afterlife in the Underworld was actually rather mundane, all social statuses and political positions were removed and no one was able to use their previous lives to their advantage.

Maybe the most well-known inhabitant of the Underworld was the mythical Sisyphus, the greedy and conniving king and founder of Ephyra (now known as Corinth in the Peloponnese), who ruled with an iron-fist.

 

 

The deceitful ways of Sisyphus greatly angered Zeus, king of all Greek gods, who banished him to Tartarus, the place in the Underword where all bad people end up; once there, Hades forced him to roll a huge boulder up a hill only for it to roll down every time it neared the top, condemning Sisyphus to a life of eternal useless efforts and frustration.

 

Don’t leave home without your passport

 

Next time you leave home, don’t forget to take your golden passport with you, you never know, accidents can happen in the blink of an eye; be prepared, you don’t want to end up in godforsaken Tartarus!