A Bit of Ancient History of Funeral Rites

You live - you learn. What else can I say? While doing web research about funeral rites and cultural funeral traditions of nations all over the planet, an interesting story came my way, about excarnation, which was, I must say, a very exotic way of saying goodbye to their dead by ancient Zoroastrians.

In order to be frief, I must explain that excarnation is the practice of removing the flesh from the corpse without interment. Ancient Zoroastrians traditionally left their dead on Towers of Silence, where the flesh of the corpses was let to be devoured by vultures and other carrion-eating birds. Alternatively, excarnation can also mean butchering the corpse by hand to remove the flesh.

Let me tell you about other ancient ways of dealing with the dead. There was another ancient practice that was called gibbeting. It was the ancient practice of publicly displaying remains of criminals. And how about hanging coffins? These are the coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They can be found in various locations, including China and the Philippines. And there is also a sky burial that involves placing the body on a mountaintop. Who knows, maybe, in future we will have a space burial as well. Remeber, sci-fi movies, when they fire the coffin into space?

Astrologers and the End of the World

As I already mentioned somewhere, I am a history buff and I like astrology, classical music and computers. I work as a Web Analyst doing numerous researches for local web analytics company. As for my passion for classical music, those who are interested may visit my blog dedicated to life and death of famous classical music composers starting from Medieval times. I was always interested in the past astrological predictions that did not happen. Throughout history many astrologers made predictions about the future course of world events, and these are often remarkable either for their fulfillment or for the ruin and confusion they brought upon their authors.

So, the favorite topic of the astrologers of all countries has been the immediate end of the world. They announced it when the end of the first millennium was coming to the end, and thousands of people believed them and were ready for their last funeral rites. When this did not happen, as early as 1186 the Earth had escaped another one threatened cataclysm of the astrologers. Another astrologer named Stöffler predicted a universal deluge for the year 1524 - a year, as it turned out, distinguished... for drought. His aspect of the heavens told him that in that year three planets would meet in the aqueous sign of Pisces. Among those who believed was a prominent Frenchman Aurial from Toulouse who built himself a Noah's ark!

The most famous predictions about European and world affairs were made by the astrologer Nostradamus. His claim to fame came after the publication in 1555 of his work Centuries. A book that represented a series of cryptic prophecies. So obscure are the predictions that they have been interpreted as relating to a great variety of events since, including the French and English Revolutions, and the World War 2.

Nostradamus became so popular that in 1556 he was summoned to the French court by queen Catherine de Medici and commissioned to draw up the horoscope of the royal children. She was one of his most staunch supporters. Later Nostradamus fell out of favor with many in the court and was accused of a witchcraft, but Catherine de Medici continued to support him and patronized him until his death.