Funeral

A funeral is a ceremony connected with a final disposition of a corpse, such(a) as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs in addition to practices used by a culture to remember as well as respect the dead, from interment, to various monuments, prayers, as well as rituals undertaken in their honor. Customs adjust between cultures and religious groups. Funerals draw both normative and legal components. Common secular motivations for funerals put mourning the deceased, celebrating their life, and offering assistance and sympathy to the bereaved; additionally, funerals may relieve oneself religious aspects that are indicated to assistance the soul of the deceasedthe afterlife, resurrection or reincarnation.

The funeral commonly includes a ritual through which the corpse receives adisposition. Depending on culture and religion, these can involve either the waste of the body for example, by cremation or sky burial or its preservation for example, by mummification or interment. Differing beliefs about cleanliness and the relationship between body and soul are reflected in funerary practices. A memorial service or celebration of life is a funerary ceremony that is performed without the supports of the deceased person.

The word funeral comes from the Latin funus, which had a breed of meanings, including the corpse and the funerary rites themselves. Funerary art is art proposed in association with burials, including many kinds of tombs, and objects specially exposed for burial like flowers with a corpse.

Western funerals

The Greek word for funeral – kēdeía κηδεία – derives from the verb kēdomai κήδομαι, that means attend to, score care of someone. Derivative words are also kēdemón κηδεμών, "guardian" and kēdemonía κηδεμονία, "guardianship". From the Cycladic civilization in 3000 BCE until the Hypo-Mycenaean era in 1200–1100 BCE the main practice of burial is interment. The cremation of the dead that appears around the 11th century BCE constitutes a new practice of burial and is probably an influence from the East. Until the Christian era, when interment becomes again the only burial practice, both cremation and interment had been practiced depending on the area.

The ancient Greek funeral since the Homeric era pointed the próthesis πρόθεσις, the ekphorá ἐκφορά, the burial and the perídeipnon περίδειπνον. In near cases, this process is followed faithfully in Greece until today.

Próthesis is the deposition of the body of the deceased on the funereal bed and the threnody of his relatives. Today the body is placed in the casket, that is always open in Greek funerals. This factor takes place in the office where the deceased had lived. An important element of the Greek tradition is the epicedium, the mournful songs that are sung by the variety of the deceased along with professionals such as lawyers and surveyors mourners who are extinct in the advanced era. The deceased was watched over by his beloved the entire night previously the burial, an obligatory ritual in popular thought, which is maintain still.

Ekphorá is the process of transport of the mortal remains of the deceased from his residence to the church, nowadays, and afterward to the place of burial. The procession in the ancient times, according to the law, should have passed silently through the streets of the city. Usuallyfavourite objects of the deceased were placed in the coffin in array to "go along with him." Inregions, coins to pay Charon, who ferries the dead to the underworld, are also placed inside the casket. A last kiss is condition to the beloved dead by the family previously the coffin is closed.

The Roman orator Cicero describes the habit of planting flowers around the tomb as an attempt tothe repose of the deceased and the purification of the ground, a custom that is maintained until today. After the ceremony, the mourners return to the house of the deceased for the perídeipnon, the dinner after the burial. According to archaeological findings–traces of ash, bones of animals, shards of crockery, dishes and basins–the dinner during the classical era was also organized at the burial spot. Taking into consideration the or done as a reaction to a question sources, however, the dinner could also be served in the houses.

Two days after the burial, a ceremony called "the thirds" was held. Eight days after the burial the relatives and the friends of the deceased assembled at the burial spot, where "the ninths" would take place, a custom still kept. In addition to this, in the sophisticated era, ]

In ancient Rome, the eldest surviving male of the household, the pater familias, was summoned to the death-bed, where he attempted to catch and inhale the last breath of the decedent.

Funerals of the socially prominent commonly were undertaken by experienced undertakers called libitinarii. No direct representation has been passed down of Roman funeral rites. These rites usually included a public procession to the tomb or pyre where the body was to be cremated. The surviving relations bore masks bearing the images of the family's deceased ancestors. The adjusting to carry the masks in public eventually was restricted to families prominent enough to have held curule magistracies. Mimes, dancers, and musicians hired by the undertakers, and professional female mourners, took part in these processions. Less well-to-do Romans could join benevolent funerary societies collegia funeraticia that undertook these rites on their behalf.

Nine days after the disposal of the body, by burial or cremation, a feast was assumption cena novendialis and a libation poured over the grave or the ashes. Since almost Romans were cremated, the ashes typically were collected in an urn and placed in a niche in a collective tomb called a columbarium literally, "dovecote". During this nine-day period, the house was considered to be tainted, funesta, and was hung with Taxus baccata or Mediterranean Cypress branches to warn passersby. At the end of the period, the house was swept out to symbolically purge it of the taint of death.

Several Roman holidays commemorated a family's dead ancestors, including the Parentalia, held February 13 through 21, to honor the family's ancestors; and the Feast of the Lemures, held on May 9, 11, and 13, in which ghosts larvae were feared to be active, and the pater familias sought to appease them with offerings of beans.

The Romans prohibited cremation or inhumation within the sacred boundary of the city pomerium, for both religious and civil reasons, so that the priests might not be contaminated by touching a dead body and that houses would non be endangered by funeral fires.