Dario Piombino-Mascali and Kenneth C. Nystrom
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781683401032
- eISBN:
- 9781683401216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9781683401032.003.0016
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
The island of Sicily is home to a large number of spontaneously mummified remains, dating from the 16th to 19th centuries CE, most of which are located in the renowned Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, ...
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The island of Sicily is home to a large number of spontaneously mummified remains, dating from the 16th to 19th centuries CE, most of which are located in the renowned Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, where the oldest mummy is buried (Brother Silvestro da Gubbio, who died in 1599). These remains represent unique evidence of deviant practices within the South of Italy, as the large majority of remains was interred in communal graves, cemeteries, or burials within religious buildings. Only a selection of the local population, mainly formed by members of the aristocracy, middle class citizens, and the clergy, underwent a complex treatment that included dehydration of the corpses, cleaning, and filling of the cavities with either animal or vegetal matter, and eventually clothing and exposure in either a wall niche or a coffin. Since 2007, the Sicily Mummy Project has aimed to scientifically investigate this important biocultural heritage and understand local mummification practices. This study sheds new light on mortuary customs and funeral variability in the region and contextualizes and interprets this treatment of the dead through comparisons with the anthropological and sociological literature.Less
The island of Sicily is home to a large number of spontaneously mummified remains, dating from the 16th to 19th centuries CE, most of which are located in the renowned Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo, where the oldest mummy is buried (Brother Silvestro da Gubbio, who died in 1599). These remains represent unique evidence of deviant practices within the South of Italy, as the large majority of remains was interred in communal graves, cemeteries, or burials within religious buildings. Only a selection of the local population, mainly formed by members of the aristocracy, middle class citizens, and the clergy, underwent a complex treatment that included dehydration of the corpses, cleaning, and filling of the cavities with either animal or vegetal matter, and eventually clothing and exposure in either a wall niche or a coffin. Since 2007, the Sicily Mummy Project has aimed to scientifically investigate this important biocultural heritage and understand local mummification practices. This study sheds new light on mortuary customs and funeral variability in the region and contextualizes and interprets this treatment of the dead through comparisons with the anthropological and sociological literature.
John Parker
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780691193151
- eISBN:
- 9780691214900
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691193151.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, African History
This chapter recounts the broader Akan world's or Asante's human sacrifice. It notes that the practice, as established by Law, was widespread in those parts of the West African coastal and forest ...
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This chapter recounts the broader Akan world's or Asante's human sacrifice. It notes that the practice, as established by Law, was widespread in those parts of the West African coastal and forest zones largely untouched by Islam, both in powerful states such Benin, Dahomey and Asante and among non-centralized peoples such as the Igbo in present-day southeastern Nigeria. The chapter presents evidence suggesting that human sacrifice may well have increased in magnitude in the era of the Atlantic slave trade, as increasing levels of militarization and accumulation generated new forms of violence, predation and consumption. The earliest evidence for human sacrifice in the region, however, came from the Gold Coast itself, where, as elsewhere in West Africa, it was identified as an integral part of mortuary customs for the wealthy and powerful. The chapter then shows seventeenth-century accounts about the slaves who composed the majority of those immolated at royal funerals. It also explores how the self-sacrifice of certain individuals served on the early Akan states.Less
This chapter recounts the broader Akan world's or Asante's human sacrifice. It notes that the practice, as established by Law, was widespread in those parts of the West African coastal and forest zones largely untouched by Islam, both in powerful states such Benin, Dahomey and Asante and among non-centralized peoples such as the Igbo in present-day southeastern Nigeria. The chapter presents evidence suggesting that human sacrifice may well have increased in magnitude in the era of the Atlantic slave trade, as increasing levels of militarization and accumulation generated new forms of violence, predation and consumption. The earliest evidence for human sacrifice in the region, however, came from the Gold Coast itself, where, as elsewhere in West Africa, it was identified as an integral part of mortuary customs for the wealthy and powerful. The chapter then shows seventeenth-century accounts about the slaves who composed the majority of those immolated at royal funerals. It also explores how the self-sacrifice of certain individuals served on the early Akan states.
Charlotte Horlyck and Michael J. Pettid (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824839680
- eISBN:
- 9780824868567
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824839680.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Death and the activities and beliefs surrounding it can teach us much about the ideals and cultures of the living. While biologically death is an end to physical life, this break is not quite so ...
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Death and the activities and beliefs surrounding it can teach us much about the ideals and cultures of the living. While biologically death is an end to physical life, this break is not quite so apparent in its mental and spiritual aspects. Indeed, the influence of the dead over the living is sometimes much greater than before death. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach in an effort to provide a fuller understanding of both historic and contemporary practices linked with death in Korea. Chapters incorporate the approaches of archaeology, history, literature, religion, and anthropology in addressing a number of topics organized around issues of the body, disposal of remains, ancestor worship and rites, and the afterlife. The first two chapters explore the ways in which bodies of the dying and the dead were dealt with from the Greater Silla Kingdom (668–935) to the mid-twentieth century. Grave construction and goods, cemeteries, and memorial monuments in the Koryŏ (918–1392) and the twentieth century are then discussed, followed by a consideration of ancestral rites and worship, which have formed an inseparable part of Korean mortuary customs since premodern times. Chapters address the need to appease the dead both in shamanic and Confucians contexts. The final section of the book examines the treatment of the dead and how the state of death has been perceived. It explores how death and the afterlife were understood by early Korean Catholics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.Less
Death and the activities and beliefs surrounding it can teach us much about the ideals and cultures of the living. While biologically death is an end to physical life, this break is not quite so apparent in its mental and spiritual aspects. Indeed, the influence of the dead over the living is sometimes much greater than before death. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach in an effort to provide a fuller understanding of both historic and contemporary practices linked with death in Korea. Chapters incorporate the approaches of archaeology, history, literature, religion, and anthropology in addressing a number of topics organized around issues of the body, disposal of remains, ancestor worship and rites, and the afterlife. The first two chapters explore the ways in which bodies of the dying and the dead were dealt with from the Greater Silla Kingdom (668–935) to the mid-twentieth century. Grave construction and goods, cemeteries, and memorial monuments in the Koryŏ (918–1392) and the twentieth century are then discussed, followed by a consideration of ancestral rites and worship, which have formed an inseparable part of Korean mortuary customs since premodern times. Chapters address the need to appease the dead both in shamanic and Confucians contexts. The final section of the book examines the treatment of the dead and how the state of death has been perceived. It explores how death and the afterlife were understood by early Korean Catholics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
