CONCEPTS OF DEAD AMONG ANCIENT CIVILIZATION 33 



Contact by a living person with the dead, from which the 

 devil had not been driven out by beasts or birds of prey, meant 

 that he became possessed by the demon who caused the death: the 

 individual was then required to undergo. purification rites by a 

 time-consuming procedure which included basically washing with 

 the fluid thought to be the best active disinfectant, cow's urine. 

 If a dog died in a particular field, it had to lie fallow, by custom, 

 for a year. The ground in which a human body was buried re- 

 mained unclean and condemned for fifty years. If a corpse was 

 found in either running or standing water, it became impure, for 

 how long, was a subject of great debate. Eating human or dog 

 flesh was a monstrous sin which could never be atoned. Up to 

 1,000 lashes with a horsewhip were given to a person throwing 

 away any part of a dead man or dog the size of a joint of the little 

 finger or larger. The body of a beast considered to be endowed 

 with an evil spirit, a worshiper of idols and a heretic were not 

 judged to be unclean because the devil in them had gone off with 

 their souls (Moore, '13). 



F. Greece 



The Iliadj written by the Greek Homer, who lived between 

 900 and 800 B.C., portrays some habits and beliefs regarding 

 the dead. In terms of chronology, the following discussion refers 

 to the era approximately 1,100 years before Christ. 



Numerous gods were worshiped and their place of assemblage 

 was on Mt. Olympus, the highest peak in Greece. Zeus, the leader, 

 a sky god, was judged to be the offspring of Cronus, a vague nature 

 power. He was the most po^verful, unprejudiced and farseeing of 

 the gods. Ranking below the select group of deities, were many 

 lesser sprites: river gods, sea nymphs and fauns of the wood. 

 The oldest and most sacred things of all, however, were the sun, 

 sky, earth, rivers, the underworld and the "falling water of Styx." 

 The last was the river which circled Hades seven times. It 

 was to these, rather than the gods, that sworn and solemn oaths 

 were made. Heroes, legendary founders of cities, ancestral heads 

 of families and historical persons were also venerated. The good 

 will of the gods was obtained by means of sacrifices, performed in 

 grand style; 100 bulls and sheep were frequently offered at one 



