| 1. |
- Kaliff, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Kremation och kosmologi : en komparativ arkeologisk introduktion
- 2013
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cremation and Cosmology – A Comparative Archaeological Introduction aims to synthesise in an easily accessible style the current state of cremation research and some of the recent interpretations providing new understandings of the past. Since cremation is a highly complicated technological and cosmological process and ritual, part 1 emphasises what has shaped and restricted most of the Western perceptions of cremation. The Christian hell and its torturing fires, Hindu cremations along holy rivers in Nepal and India, and the ancient Vedic traditions have all to various degrees constructed images of what a cremation is, including our understanding of cremation in the past. This comparative part is stressed not only because it is important knowledge in itself, but also because it is a good point of departure for approaching the past and exploring new interpretations of funerals in general and cremations in particular, which have no ethnographic parallels. With mainly examples from Scandinavian Bronze- and Iron Age, in part 2 a wide range of cremation contexts are analysed from different perspectives highlighting new approaches to the materiality of death. A central theme throughout the book is that cremation is not one, but many funeral practices. By stressing this unique character of cremation compared to other burial practices, cremation as a ritual opens up a wide range of opportunities within the sphere of death, which can be studied archaeologically. As such, this book is intended to be an introductory and coarse book for archaeological students studying death and cremation, but hopefully it may also have interest and relevance beyond the archaeological circles.
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| 2. |
- Oestigaard, Terje, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism : Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption
- 2017
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.
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