Typically, a deceased member of any community would have had family, friends, guilds or confraternity prepare his body for burial and sponsor and showing at home of the corpse, at which visitors might pray and discuss the departed in a spirit shared melancholy.
Burial could take place on the day of death or the following day. A wake could be held at the home, church or graveside before or after burial.
Some cultures extensively prepared bodies, and burial was delayed until the death rituals required by tradition were complete.
When the time came for the interment the body was placed on a bier and carried on am kind of triumph procession to the place of burial or in a natural or artificial crypt.
In modern times, burial was usually in or near the same church and might be witnessed by the family alone. In many cultures, this sober ritual was followed by a more festive meal, perhaps held in the street at long tables with benches.
The most striking evidence of burial practices in Bronze Age Greece is provided by the so-called shaft graves at Mycenae. These graves dated to the 16th century BC are cut into the living rock to a depth of several meters.
In the 15th century a different style of burial developed in the form of beehive tombs, so named because of their domed appearance.
Burials for the death
