Funereal: How We Die, Why We Bury and What That Tells Us About Ourselves

A globe-trotting and illuminating history of burials and funerary practices, from ancient to modern times, from rulers, kings and queens to everyday people.

Throughout history humans have buried their dead in a variety of ways. We have placed them in caskets, laid them out in the wild so they might return to nature through the work of animals and the environment, we have sailed them down rivers on burning boats, or buried them in elaborate tombs surrounded by all their earthly possessions. And when people die we sing over their bodies, recite prayers hoping they will be conveyed safely to the afterlife, and spread their ashes in their favourite places. Why do we do this? What purpose do funeral rites serve, both for the individual and their mourners? What has changed in the many thousands of years we have been practicing them? What do they tell us about ancient societies, and how they organised themselves? And once our loved ones, our kings and queens, and our fallen heroes were put to rest how do we remember them?

Historian Guy D. Middleton takes us on a journey across time to explore ancient and not-so-ancient burial rites. Traversing the globe, visiting sites like the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Mausoleum of Augustus, and the Tomb at Palenque in modern-day Mexico, we explore how ancient people buried their leaders and elites. To find out how ordinary folk were buried, we dig into circular pits found at the centre of villages in Jomon era Japan, and the mass graves of Incas in modern Peru. We explore how our ancestors buried their young, and warriors who died on the field of battle - people taken before their time. We even look at the role execution and human sacrifice played in ancient funeral rituals and see how societies dealt with outsiders. Funereal is an illuminating historical odyssey unearthing the ways we mourn, that asks the question: why do we bury our dead and what does that tell us about ourselves?