Kitobni o'qish: «Funeral Cult»

Archaeological research has established that people buried the dead in pits and caves already in the Stone Age, in the Middle and Late Paleolithic. Burials at sites have been discovered all over the globe. These burials expressed a known form of care for the deceased, which arose from the primitive man's explanation of the phenomenon of death as sleep, and from the religious beliefs that began to emerge. Over time, belief in the afterlife gave rise to a dual attitude towards the deceased in primitive society: on the one hand, caring for him, they decorated him, dressed him in a special suit, left him food, tools, weapons, and sometimes even means of transportation (sleds, boats, etc.); on the other hand, fearing the deceased, they tried to render him harmless and prevent his return: the corpse was sometimes tied in a flexed position (sitting, reclining), carried out through a specially made hole. The dead were sprinkled with red ochre, symbolizing blood, thus striving to form their afterlife.

In addition to the most common burial in the ground (burial ground, necropolis), cremation of corpses has been known since the Bronze Age. A burial ground is a place of many graves, burials, and burials. Burial grounds of the Ancient East, Greece, and Rome are known as necropolises. The term cemetery is usually used for Christian burial grounds. In a broad sense, burial grounds include both burial mounds with a mound consisting of earth or stones, and burials without preserved mounds, the so-called ground burial grounds. The term "burial ground" is more correctly applied to the latter. The most ancient burial grounds, built in the Paleolithic and Neolithic, are ground burial grounds with burials.

The burial rite was preserved in later eras. Beginning with the Bronze Age, burial grounds consisting only of cremations were known in Europe and Asia. In the Iron Age, there were burial grounds with a mixed burial rite (i.e. containing both inhumations and cremations).