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tiompan

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Re: Time Team R.I.P. ?

Jan 10, 2010, 17:33

tjj wrote:

Littlestone wrote:

Burl takes excarnation for granted, mentions Catal Huyuk platforms, so you're saying that the idea of excarnation is just an idea? though to be fair it happens in lots of places so it could easily have happened here as well, thats how they explain four timber posts here as platforms....

Good point. There are very practical reasons why excarnation was practiced in Tibet however, and that's the lack of fuel for cremation and the (frozen) hardness of the ground for burial. If excarnation was practice here it may have been for religious not practical reasons - though folks back then may have preferred to put their feet up during the winter months rather than digging a grave or plodding out to find extra wood for a pyre :-)

Mmm! Interesting ... I never thought about the climate having an influence on how burials took place but of course it makes sense. Some time back I went into a small museum at Lulworth Cove where the display showed illustrations of excarnations - apparently always at a high point of land (hill, clifftop). It seems a little passe to say it now but I used to think that was a possible use for Silbury Hill (processional path to the top) - for important people like tribal leaders.

Just thinking aloud again.

tj

Geology also has a part to play ,some burials on the Aran Isles are very shallow ,Synge mentions the burial of a drowned sailor encroaching on another a generation earlier and only just below the the top soil .
How did they know the excarnations took place at these points ? Sounds like artistic/archaeo licence .

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Re: Time Team R.I.P. ? (tjj)

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Re: Time Team R.I.P. ? (Littlestone)

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