Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-08-19
Museum Relics of the Burial of
Ancient Dead
(Taken from Dr.Robinson's Note Book0

AS death has entered every family
since humanity began, the disposition
of the dead body has been stamped by
some method from every race of men.
The style of burial relatively measures
the amount of civilization and culture
of people. Golgotha or the place of
skulls where the grinning teeth of
feshless heads laugh to scorn its brutal
executor, where whitened shafts of
human bones glisten in the sun and
the blank. gaze of eyeless sockets sends
q thrill Of terror even iuto the scared
conscience of tyrant monarchs, can
only indicate disreputable, coarse peo-
pie with disreputable, low culture
and civilization. Savages an uncivil-
lied people will leave their own and
the enemies dead to rot on the field of
battle. Progressive civilization and
the refinement of culture demand that
the dead decomposing body should be
hid from the view of the living.
The first record of burial decent
and tender is that of Sarah the wife or
Abraham. Here we see the Psycholo-
gist the great teacher on the laws of
the mind in his day, standing up before
a foreign court asking for enough land
for burial place that he might bury
his dead out of his sight. This was
$500 years ago, and from that time to
the present, records show that ceremo-
MES and respect have been shown in
the disposition of the dead. Relics in
old museums and writings indicate that
the Greeks disposed Of their dead
either by burning or burying. In
burning or cremation the body was
put on a funeral pyre and burnt to
ashes. The ashes were put in an Urn
and preserved by friends. But the
Greeks also buried in collins, caskets,
boxes or a sarcophagus. The word
sarcophagus is made up of two separ-
ate words and means, flesh eater, as it
was supposed the coffin would consume
the flesh Of the body in few months.
Finally every stone coffin was called
sarcophagus. Many of these are still
existing of various sizes and shapes
with writings carved on them. The
old Greek sarcophagus containing its
Grecian skeleton can yet be found in
museums. They also had collins
made from burnt clay. The Assyrians
probably buried both with coffin
and without and cremated. This can
be easily studied out from the carved
or raised pictures on the slabs of stone
taken from the burnt palace of Sen
nacherib. These slabs and writings
are just as perfect now as when in this
Kings palace 700 years before Christ
On the pictured slabs of stone taken
from the various Assyrain palaces,
funeral prcessions may be seen. These
remains date from 700 to 900 years
before Christ. They may be supposed
to represent the real state of society
for the reason that they are nearly all
taken from the Art Galleries of Kings
palaces and it is more than probable
that the King would employ the most
skillfull artist or sculptor to write
history which would we'll represent his
own record. In fact the King is
always the central figure of all such
records.
The long funeral professions seen on
those Assyrian palatial slabs of stone
show the dead carried by several per-
sons. The body rests on table like
affair Palanquin or bier having four
handles which serve for support in
carrying. The body seems generally
only covered with a cloth which hangs