The Greeks believed that when you died, your soul was taken away from your body like a puff of wind. They then prepared the body for burial. They were very strict about the time taken for this, and thought that if you didn't take your time on it it was an insult to human dignity. There were three parts of the burial ceremony used done by a woman of the deceased family. These parts were heprothesis(laying out of the body), theekphora (funeral procession), and the interment of the body or cremated remains of the deceased. The body was then dressed and put on a high bed in his or her house.
The Egyptian used the art of Ka when people died. The deceased have a soul and the soul stays with you even during death. They take out the insides of the deceased body, mummify it , and then put it in a tomb and put symbols of what they like to do to define themselves. Soul eventually goes up and gets judged and would weigh your heart to a feather. Lighter than a feather-can go to afterlife.
Egyptian and Greek ways of dealing with afterlife are not very similar, but they have some aspects that relate to each other. For example, they both dress the deceased body and place them into a box where they are preserved. The Greek people bathed the deceased in oils and was more classy about the ways of the ritual; where the Egyptian people just ripped out their intestines and mummified the body.
I am very impressed by the quality of your work and the sharpness of your thought throughout this exam. Here you have given a detailed description and demonstrated your ability to do research.
ReplyDeleteThe one bit of caution I would suggest: the Egyptians may have had a method of burial different than what we are accustomed to, but I think to say that they "just ripped out their intestines..." is a bit harsh; after all, there were religious reasons for doing this. The heart especially had to be taken out and placed in a Canoptic jar so that it would be ready for the weighing as entrance to the afterlife.