Famous Quotes About Death

"I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them." Ian Fleming

"I dont want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying." Woody Allen

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours." Yogi Berra

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." Redd Foxx

"Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes." Benjamin Franklin

"A recent survey stated that the average person's greatest fear is having to give a speech in public. Somehow this ranked even higher than death which was third on the list. So, you're telling me that at a funeral, most people would rather be the guy in the coffin than have to stand up and give a eulogy."
Jerry Seinfield

Tutenkhamen 'Killed by Sickle-Cell Disease'

I found an interesting article in the "New Scientist" magazine online by Jo Marchant.  It states that a team of German archaeologists seem to think there is evidence that Egypt's boy-king was killed by Sickle-Cell Disease, not malaria.  There has been speculations of his death, from falling off a chariot, to murdered by poison, since his body's discovery in 1922, but this has been the best shot yet at determining the young Pharaoh's early demise.  Earlier observations explained that his death at 19 years old was caused by malaria, but these observations can be better explained by the diagnosis of sickle-cell disease.  People with two copies of the sick-cell gene suffer severe anaemia and often die young.  Tutenkhamen's parents were thought to have been related, boosting the chance that they both had the sickle cell gene.  In the young king's case, this could have triggered fatal "sickle cell crisis" in which his essential organs were starved of oxygen.
Members of Egypt's team describe the suggestion as "interesting and plausible" and that they are "currently investigating".  However, collaboration invitations from US teams have been left unresponsive.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19094-tutankhamen-killed-by-sicklecell-disease.html

9,000 Year Old Mysterious Burial Ritual Discovered in Iran

The Ancient Sialk Ziggurat located near the city of Kashan

Reported on May 18th, 2009, archaeologists at Iran's Sialk Mound discovered a mysterious burial ritual that is dated as old as 9,000 years.  Sialk is located in the center of Iran and is seen as one of the focal origins of technology and religious thought.  This discovery had shed new light on religious rituals in ancient Iran because it revealed practices they had never known existed.  Hassan Fazeli, the Director of Iran's Archaeological Research Center, explained that four bodies had been burned at temperatures ranging from 400-700 degrees.  A combination of Ash and remains were found buried in jars at the site.  Traces of red petals were also found in these jars which were believed to signify life and eternity in ancient Persia.  What made this discovery so important was that this kind of burial ritual involving burning and the containing of remains in jars had never been discovered before in Iran.  The excitement of the discovery brought together archaeologists from not just Iran, but from France, Italy, England, and Germany.

I had found quite a few other news articles on this same discovery, but they were all posted within a few days of each other, so it's hard to say that this discovery held it's excitement for any extended period of time.  I found this article interesting because it's not everyday I read an article about an archaeological finding in Iran.  It has actually inspired me to look more closely at archaeological findings in the middle east, and see how these compare to those found in Europe.  How will their mortuary practices differ? How will status be represented? So many new interesting things to learn!

http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/iranica/maps-of-iran-5000-bc-651-ad/9000-yr-old-mysterious-burial-ritual-discovered-in-iran/

Funerary Practices of the Non-Elites

Finding information on the burial practices of non-elites was actually quite frustrating. It didn't seem to be a topic that any anthropologists or archaeologists were interested in researching.  Finally I came across a half decent thesis paper for a Master's project.  It is an article by Ruth Humphreys on the Matmar site in Egypt from the Third Intermediate Period.  It was a site originally excavated by Guy Brunton between 1928 and 1931 containing almost 1000 burials of non-elites.  The individuals were generally buried flat on their back with their arms crossed over their chest oriented East to West (heads facing West).  Most of them were buried wrapped in some kind of bandage or cloth, but no evidence of mummification.  The graves of the non-elite were buried quite shallow.  The deepest grave being 200cm deep with no stone or brick walls to give it structure.  This shows that there was no construction of these graves before the death of the occupant.  Only 25% contained precious metals of any kind within a particular time period, 6.5% contained pottery, and 41% contained amulets of some kind.  Humphreys noticed that Brunton didn't even bother to record the burials at Matmar that contained no grave goods at all.  This shows how insignificant non-elites are viewed in the archaeological record.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Iu5nCYh0SZwJ:etheses.bham.ac.uk/963/1/Humprheys_10_MPhil.pdf+research+on+non-elites,+funerary+practices&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca&client=safari&source=www.google.ca

Status

 Anthropologists and archaeologists are commonly interested in studying the "status" of individuals and cultural groups. Status is the hierarchical ranking of persons or groups in relation to others, which can be based on several differing aspects of their lives.  The kinds of status that anthropologists and archaeologists generally talk about are economic, religious, political, and status based on age. Other kinds of status that might be talked about are social status, biological status, status within the household, and status based on gender.

Example of elite grave goods
from Varna Necropolis
4500-4000 BC

The question then becomes, how might we measure this status?  Status can usually be measured based on the quality, rarity, and abundance of grave goods.  The more they have, the more possibility there is of a high economic and political status.  If there is evidence that the grave has had continual modification and up-keep, monuments are present, or there is an abundance of space allotted for that grave, this could be an indication of high status.  Status can also be measured based on the osteology of the remains.  By looking at the bones you can usually tell the overall health of the individual; if they have healthy bones, they probably had a better diet, which means they had a higher status.  It can also be measured on whether or not there was shaping of the cranium and feet. Often, individuals of high status had their craniums elongated slowly over the course of their life, or had their feet bound to keep them small.  However, measuring status is never cut and dry.  According to John Robb et. al. (2001) in the article Social "Status" and Biological "Status": A Comparison of Grave Goods and Skeletal Indicators from Pontecagnano, the relation between status in life and treatment in death is mediated by many factors.  These can include the circumstances of death, the political situation of the surviving community, and the specific ideologies of death and identity.  Hence, grave goods can never easily be translated into living status. There are far too many variables that could effect this interpretation.

A Case of Historic Cannibalism in the American West: Implications for Southwestern Archaeology

The article that I found of interest for this blog is A Case of Historic Cannibalism in the American West: Implications for Southwestern Archaeology by Alison E. Rautman and Todd W. Fenton.  Here are some questions that emphasized what was most important in the article.

1. What do Rautman and Fenton argue in this article?
   They argue that osteological data from the historic Alferd Packer cannibalism case contributes to the debate on cannibalism because it provides remains that show non-debatable evidence that cannibalism was involved. They also argue that the Packer case contributes to the study of prehistoric cannibalism because of it's rich historical context.
2. What is the purpose of this article?
   Their goal is to inform archaeologists to a case study (the Packer case) that they feel should be of more than just historic interest.
3. What evidence makes the authors so sure that there had been postmortem processing?
   Evidence shows that there were multiple cut marks exhibited on the bones that would have had large muscles attached to them. These cut marks were not found on the small bones of the body such as hands or feet. They were not found on bones of the body that have minimal muscle attachment either, such as the skull.
4. What are two ways that prove the data from the Packer case is relevant to the debate regarding Anasazi cannibalism?
   The Packer case provides evidence that shows cannibalism has no necessary correlation with any particular postmortem treatment of the human body. It also shows how cannibalism can be identified from material remains in the archaeological record.

Kinship Patterns

While wandering around the Ross Bay Cemetery looking for the grave monuments of young children, we came across a few monuments that were devoted to kin groups.  We also noticed that many of the deceased were buried next to close members of their family (mother, father, brother, sister).  The monuments were usually much larger (in width and height) than the gravestones for an individual.  A few of them were tall, rectangular shapes with 3 or 4 sides dedicated to the inscription of the family names.  If archaeologists in the future look at these monuments, they might infer that these were the burials of an important political leader, or that they were a member of some sort of royal family.  It is common for royal kins to want to be buried in the same plot.  When looking at the remains, they might also interpret this as a sacrificial burial. For example, maybe the parents were sacrificed to be buried with their child who passed away, or vice versa.