Two adult burials from Vila de Madrid necropolis.Credit: MHCB, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Posted on 09/04/2022 7:59:36 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Spain, working with a colleague from South Africa, has found that for some people living in the Roman Empire, funerary meals were much like everyday meals...
During the time of the Roman Empire, rules were made for conquered lands that tended to coincide with rules that the Romans themselves followed. One set of rules governed funeral arrangements. And one of those rules mandated that an animal (or part of one) must be sacrificed and placed into the grave with the person who had died—regardless of age, gender or social status. In this new effort, the researchers looked into how that mandate was carried out by people living in one part of Spain.
In their work, the researchers looked at the remains of 41 people who had been found in the ancient necropolis along with the remains of 50 animals that had also been found in the graves. They note that they expected to find that the animal sacrifices would be of a special kind—after all, it was meant to be consumed by the dead person as they made their way from an earthly realm to whatever the afterlife held in store. But that was not what they found. Instead, they found that meat placed in a grave was pretty much the same type and quality as the meat the person would have been eating before they died...
The researchers also found a few exceptions, such as graves with no animal bones and a couple of individuals who appeared to have had radically different diets than everybody else. They plan to continue their work to learn more about how burials were conducted for those interred at Vila de Madrid.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Two adult burials from Vila de Madrid necropolis.Credit: MHCB, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
That's good.
You have a designated hitter? ;^)
Everyday meals? I didn’t know there were McDonald’s in Rome back then.
When it comes to spiders, you betcha!
What, they had hot dishes and casseroles back then?
When I die, I want to be buried with cans of Beefaroni.
:^)
Beefaroni bump.
So basically their funerary dinners were wakes.
I come from the midwest and there the funerary meal is for the survivors after the funeral. Usually at the K of C hall, but sometimes the VFW. Bring a covered dish!
CC
Around here the funeral dinner would be at the church, in the fellowship hall. Planners also need to know if the deceased had Mennonite and Amish relatives because they will turn out and bump up the numbers.
If it’s a very small family, the church will take the family out to dinner at a restaurant.
I hear it’s Rusty’s favorite.
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