consume the bodies. No one can assert that they were untouched by flame or ember and that the smell of fire did not pass over them. Was then the act of laying the body on top of the burnt or burning gifts an act of ceremonial cremation?
These questions I cannot answer; but one thing is clear. Either the fusion of the Achaean and Pelasgian rites had already begun, or else, in their original forms, they both comprised usages which greatly facilitated their subsequent fusion.
When we pass on to the Dipylon-period, there is no longer any doubt. Cremation and inhumation were practised both severally side by side and also conjointly as a single rite. The evidence on which I mainly rely is derived from two series of excavations, those of Philios[1] at Eleusis and those of Brückner and Pernice[2] in the Dipylon cemetery at Athens.
The autochthonous population of Attica naturally adhered in the main to the old Pelasgian rite of inhumation. Yet at Eleusis, even according to Philios who strangely belittles the importance of his own discoveries[3], there was one certain case of cremation; and in the Dipylon cemetery also was found one urn which could be dated with equal certainty. One or two other probable cases have also been recorded by others[4]. Clearly then as early as the eighth century B.C. cremation was sometimes used, side by side with inhumation, as the effective means of disintegrating the dead body.
And there is equally sure proof that the two rites were also employed conjointly, in the sense that a ceremonial act of inhumation followed actual cremation, or a ceremonial act of cremation accompanied actual inhumation. A conspicuous instance of the former is the one certain case of actual cremation recorded by Brückner and Pernice[5]. A bronze urn containing the calcined bones of a boy or girl had been deposited not in a mere hole dug. 1889, pp. 171 ff.], in [Greek: Praktika], 1873-4, p. 17.]
- ↑ Described in [Greek: Ephêmeris Archaiol
- ↑ Described in Athen. Mittheilungen, 1893, pp. 73-191.
- ↑ The perusal of Philios' narrative leaves the impression that several cases of cremation were discovered. Yet in his concluding summary he says: "Burial, not burning, of the dead was in those times the more prevalent custom, since in one case and one only can we admit that the corpse was not buried but burnt." I note that Brückner and Pernice (op. cit. p. 149) in referring to Philios' results tacitly soften his rigid 'one and one only' into the more supple 'one or two.' For justification of this see Philios, op. cit. pp. 178, 179, 180, 185.
- ↑ Hirschfeld, in Annali, 1872, pp. 135, 167, cited by Brückner and Pernice op. cit. p. 148. [Greek: Koumanoudês
- ↑ Op. cit. pp. 91 ff.
