168 BULLETIN 139^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Cremation was practiced in the Bronze Age and also in the Iron 

 Age, about half of the 1,000 tombs excavated at Hallstatt being 

 cremation interments. 



"My learned friend. Dr. Karl Blind, in his excellent pamphlet 

 entitled 'Fire Burial,' cites the Odin law in Scandinavia, which reads 

 as follows: 'Odin ordained that the dead should be burnt, and that 

 everything that had been theirs should be carried to the pyre. He 

 said that every one should go up to Walhalla with as many riches as 

 would be heaped upon his pyre, and that he should enjoy in Wal- 

 halla all those things also which he had hidden away in the earth. 

 The ashes should be thrown into the sea or be buried deep in the 

 soil; but for illustrious men a mound should be raised as a token of 

 remembrance.' 



" Dr. Blind also gives in the same pamphlet the description of 

 Beowulf's funeral, to prove that it was also the habit with the Anglo- 

 Saxons to burn their dead with treasures: 



" 'Geatland's men for him then made 



A pyre broad, most firmly built, 



With helms bedeckt, with war-shield hung, 



And armour bright, as he them bade. 



In the midst they laid, the sorrowing heroes, 



Their mightly ruler, their beloved lord.' 



"Thus we have the proof that in a remote antiquity it was the 

 custom in Babylon, Egypt, Italy, Macedonia, Scandinavia, and 

 Germany to bury the rich with their treasures, and my excavations 

 have proved that this custom existed also at Mycenae in the time 

 of the Atridae."" 



In accord with some idea of providing for the spirit may be noted 

 the ancient Chinese custom of placing funerary stoves with the 

 dead.'* These have been found dating from the Han dynasty, about 

 2,000 years ago, and present perhaps the earliest specimens of stoves 

 of the brazier type yet recovered. 



CREMATION 



"They burnt a corpse upon the sand — 



The light shone out afar; 

 It guided home the plunging boats 



That beat from Zanzibar. 

 Spirit of Fire, where'er thy altars rise, 

 Thou art Light of Guidance to our eyes." 



— Salsette Boat Song. 



Heading to " In Error." Plain Tales from the Hills. R. Kipling. 



" Henry Schllemann. Mycenae. New York, 1878, p. 349. 



'« B. Laufer. Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty. Brill, Leiden, 1909, J. J. De Qroot. The 

 Religious System of China, Brill, Leyden, 1892, p. 25. 



