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| Very exotic ways of saying goodbye
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You live - you learn. What else can I say? While researching funeral rites and cultural funeral traditions of nations all over the planet for local funeral home directory, I found an interesting story of excarnation, which was, I must say, a very exotic way of saying goodbye to their dead by ancient Zoroastrians.
In order to be brief, I must explain that excarnation is the practice of removing the flesh from the corpse without interment. Ancient Zoroastrians traditionally left their dead on Towers of Silence, where the flesh of the corpses was let to be devoured by vultures and other carrion-eating birds. Alternatively, excarnation can also mean butchering the corpse by hand to remove the flesh.
Let me tell you about other ancient ways of dealing with the dead. There was another ancient practice that was called gibbeting. It was the ancient practice of publicly displaying remains of criminals. And how about hanging coffins? These are the coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They can be found in various locations, including China and the Philippines. And there is also a sky burial that involves placing the body on a mountaintop. Who knows, maybe, in future we will have a space burial as well. Remeber, sci-fi movies, when they fire the coffin into space?
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Posted by katyag on 2008-09-12 22:31:51 | Rating: | Views: 80
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Funerary art is fascinating. Apparently, there is a steadily increasing trend toward cremation in our culture. But then, lots of people find themselves holding onto the cremains and sort of get "stuck". Without the urgency of burial, they find themselves unable to let go of what seems to be a final physical connection. Thus, the reemergence of funerary art. One example that illustrates this trend is a mother-daughter team of glass artists in Montana (otrmemorials) that are creating small glass memorials. These beads, touchstones, suncatchers etc. actually incorporate those physical remains, and the process of sharing stories of lost loved ones becomes an integral part of the healing process.
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Posted by tueycm
on 2008-11-12 19:37:16
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