Mortuary temple

“ Examination of temples, or their equivalents, in endless lands, from China to Peru, has convinced him at last that in almost every case the temple begins as a tomb or shrine of a dead person, and the worship is primarily offered to the actual ghost of the man or woman interred within it. ”

“ On the morrow at sunrise you will be strangled to death, after which your body will be delivered to me for disposition. When it is carefully embalmed I shall place it in a new tomb in the temple of Amun and it shall become sacred to him. The tomb is so constructed that light and air penetrates through slits in the portal and it may be entered from the temple by members of our order. Amun will permit your soul to occupy and grow in your [Pg 207] mummied body. You have said you are not afraid of death. Neither you nor any other man knows what lies beyond. ”

“ Before the temple doors I saw the corpses cast away, nay, before the very altars, that their death might be even more odious. Some hung themselves, driving away the fear of death by death and going out to meet their approaching fate. The dead bodies were not borne out to burial in the accustomed way; for the gates would not accommodate so many funerals, They either lie on the ground unburied, or else they are piled high on funeral pyres without honours. And by this time there is no reverence for the dead ”

“ The small urn containing the parental ashes may be taken by migratory man into the new world or the old, always preserved as the most sacred relic of the family.
How much more beautiful and better would it not be to have the remains of our kin near at hand, in the house. Only then we would be reminded of them every day. Every building could be made to contain a mortuary chamber. Then we would know our dead shielded from the elements. ”

“ As the vague notions of ghosts and spirits grow into definiteness by the corroborating testimony of other members of the tribe, there would naturally arise a desire to gain the favor or avert the displeasure of these powerful beings by gifts and offerings similar to what would have given pleasure during life; these offerings would usually be made at the grave, cave, or house where the dead body was laid, and thus the tomb would become an altar or temple, as we see the tomb and temple associated even in civilized communities. ”

“ The bodies are first of all dried in coffins made for the purpose, whereupon the mummy is burnt, the ashes being deposited in mounds, which last are eventually covered over with conical roofs. [81]
[38]
Many other strange matters connected with mortuary observances, incomprehensible I am afraid at present, would confront the student of burial customs. Why, for instance, should the Greeks who burnt their dead place in the tomb vases and other things esteemed by the deceased? [82] and why do we find the same practice in vogue as far off as Madagascar, where they do not burn their dead? ”

“ Of course, some of these invalids succumb, and from time to time a death occurs; but a funeral is seldom or never seen. When a death happens, the hotel people keep it as long quiet as possible. The authorities take charge of the burial, and the body, which must lie unburied twenty-four hours after death, is removed in a coffin after dark to the mortuary adjoining the cemetery, where the relations assemble usually on the following day, and it is buried. ”

“ The sacred precincts and temples of the gods lie open; and it often happens that in one of them someone is sacrificing or pouring libations or praying, at the moment when men carrying a corpse are passing close by the temple itself, and the voice of lamentations and speech of ill omen is carried even to the altars. ”

“ The male relatives then go in a body to the temple of the local tutelary deity, and announce the death. They carry lighted lanterns, because the daytime of men is the night of gods and spirits. The bell is tolled, the eldest son prostrates himself before the shrine as many times as will correctly indicate the years of the departed, and gives the sad information of his decease. They then return to the house of mourning, and some one goes to a soothsayer to ascertain what time will be lucky for the encoffining of the corpse. ”

“ At each side of the high altar are low, sepulchral recesses, into which you look down through a grating at the coroneted tombs, before which lamps hang dimly burning. Over the altar the Good Shepherd is going in search of his lost lambs, and at the left is a great, pale Christ on the Cross, ghastly and terrible in the shadowy, torch-lit arch. The whole church is paved with tomb-stones, like most of the churches of Avila, as if the idea of death could never be separated from life. But then, which is death and which life? Is it not in the womb of the grave we awaken to the real life? ”

“ The outline of the building is a pleasing one, and the architecture is of such a character that it resembles a church more closely than a place where any mechanical operation is carried on. The grounds of the company are entered from Delavan Avenue by a spacious roadway, running to a porch and then passing around the building to the door of the mortuary chamber, on the east side. Those who accompany the body alight at the porch, and pass thence into the auditorium. The body itself is removed from the hearse at the door of the mortuary chamber. ”

“ And at last, at last, behind all this magnificence, the most sacred place which they show me last, the most strange of all strange places, is the little mortuary court which surrounds the tomb. It is hollowed out of a mountain between whose rocky walls water is dripping: the lichens and moss have made a damp carpet here and the tall, surrounding cedars throw their dark shadows over it. There is an enclosure of bronze, shut by a bronze door which is inscribed across its centre with an inscription in gold,—not in the Japanese language, but in Sanscrit to give more mystery ”

“ At a burial there is but darkness, at a cremation rosy light unaccompanied by fustiness; the dead is really reduced to ashes, and with him the time-honored saying, “Peace to his ashes,” is not a hollow phrase, as it is with those who are interred.
Those who do not wish to miss religious and other ceremonies at incinerations may use any form of burial service they like, and those who desire to dispense with them may do so. And those who already have beloved dead in the cemeteries may rest by their side when the end is come, for the ashes can be interred as well as the body. ”

“ Their burial-ground was a cemetery, that is, a sleeping-place; they regarded the dead as put there to await the awakening; the body was depositus, that is, intrusted to the grave, while the heathen was situs or sepultus, interred or buried,—the words implying a final and definitive position. And as the Christian dormit or quiescit, sleeps or rests in death, so the heathen is described as abreptus, or defunctus, snatched away or departed from life.
Again, the contrast between the inscriptions is marked, and in a sadder way, by the difference of the expressions of mourning and grief. ”

“ These often bear the character of family vaults, and are lined with graves, like the corridors without. They are generally square or rectangular, but sometimes octagonal or circular. They were probably used as mortuary chapels, for the celebration of funeral service, and for the administration of the eucharist near the tombs of the martyrs on the anniversaries of their death. They were too small to be used for regular worship, except perhaps in time of persecution. They are often not more than eight or ten feet square. ”

“ There is nothing beautiful nor impressive about the church; the interior is bare and dingy, every one walks about wearing his hat, without any outward respect for the place or its occupants; people rush down the steps leading to the burial vaults, crowd against each other, peer through the iron bars of the gates at the coffins in the dusky interior, with the same eager curiosity as if viewing the victims at a morgue. ”

“ The funeral was scrupulously held before the second sun went down, and had to be hurried a little, because the morgue authorities, hobbled of red tape, move as slowly as the sea itself in giving up the dead. The coffin—of poorest pine—was knocked to pieces in the grave, before the clods of earth were shoveled in and the doomsday sods laid on. The garments of him who acted as principal mourner were faithfully torn; that is to say, the rabbi cut a careful slit in the lapel of that mourner's waistcoat where it wouldn't show. ”

“ Cemetery is derived from κοιμάω, to sleep, because the primitive Christians spoke of death as a sleep, from which men are to awake at the general resurrection. The first Christian sepulchres were crypts or catacombs. The custom of burying in churches was not practised for the first 300 years of the Christian era; and severe laws were passed against burying even in cities. The first step towards the practice of burying in churches, was the transferring of the relics of martyrs thither: next, sovereigns and princes were allowed burial in the porch: in the sixth century churchyards came into use. ”

“ Slowly, haltingly, led by the dirge of priests, now in darkness, now lighted by the torches’ flare and intermittent beams from cottage doorways, groping at corners, stumbling in ill-paved by-ways, the mourners follow their God to his grave. The circuit of the town is done. All have taken their last look upon the dead. The sepulchre is reached—a vault beneath the church from which the funeral started. ”

“ The ashes could afterwards be collected, and reverentially placed in an urn, [204] or other suitable receptacle, and conveyed to their last resting-place. Plate III. represents a view of a mortuary chapel, such as would probably be required in a Christian cemetery; and the scene there represented will serve to show how completely decorous the procedure would be. [205] And one may here remark that the great advances made by science can nowhere better be evidenced than by a comparison [119] between the modern and ancient systems of cremation. ”

“ Through a range of sepulchral grots underneath, the humbler denizens of the tomb are deposited,—looking out on each successive generation that visits them, with the same face and features they wore centuries ago. Every plant and tree, that is consecrated to death, from the asphodel-flower to the mystic plantain, lends its sweetness or shadow to this place of tombs; and the only noise that disturbs its eternal calm, is the low humming sound of the priests at prayer, when a new inhabitant is added to the silent city. ”

“ Most powerful of all in its favor is the prevention of premature burial. All these are on the side of cremation, and against it is but one—sentiment. It seems more beautiful to lay our friends to rest, softly pillowed, shrouded in satin, inclosed in rose-wood, covered with flowers, and of anything beyond we refuse to think. We erect the imposing marble, set out the blossoming plant, and carry flowers to the spot. The cemetery appeals more strongly to the sentiment than does the crematory. ”

“ These are wooden planks cut in the shape of tombstones and roughly painted. Sometimes they bear also the image of a saint. They are erected—often in a row of thirty and more—on the roadside, in fields and meadows, near chapels and crucifixes, in the village streets—in short, everywhere; they are even nailed to houses and barns. They do not mark burial-places, as might be supposed. As soon as a person has died the corpse is put on a board, and there it lies in state until it is put into the coffin shortly before the funeral. ”

“ There is only one pathway kept clear in the churchyard. It is the one leading from the entrance to the small mortuary. When anyone is to be buried the coffin is carried into the mortuary, and there the pastor reads the service and casts the earth upon the coffin. It is impossible to place the coffin in the ground as long as such a winter lasts. It must remain standing in the mortuary until God sees fit to thaw the earth, and the ground can be digged and made ready. ”

“ All that must now be thought of, is how to deceive the commander of the believers; and I am of opinion, that you should immediately cause a wooden image resembling a dead body to be carved. We will shroud it up in linen, and when shut up in a coffin, it shall be buried in some part of the palace; you shall then immediately cause a marble mausoleum to be built, in the form of a dome, over the burial place, and erect a tomb, which shall be covered with embroidered cloth, and set about with great candlesticks and large wax tapers. ”

“ The custom of periodic offerings and the use of magical texts grew until it reached its highest point in the Fifth Dynasty. At this time there is a burial chamber deep underground where the dead was laid securely in ancient traditional attitude, with his clothing and a few personal ornaments. As a rule, it is only the women, always conservative, that have anything more. Above this grave, there is a solid rectangular structure, with a chapel or offering place on the side towards the valley. The offering place is always there, no matter how poor or small the tomb. ”

“ There is in our hearts an innate reverence for the burial-place; we tread by instinct lightly over the sleeping-places of the dead, and look with silent awe upon their tombs. The feeling being part of our humanity, we might suppose it to be universal, and be apt to conclude that, in our more primitive churchyards at least, we should find some effort to preserve the whole or a large proportion of the memorials which are there dedicated to departed merit, hallowed by love and made sacred by sorrow. ”