#death anthropology

[yourheartinyourmouth]

hi, native new englander here! they’re called “flying death’s heads”, and they symbolize a couple of different ideas, mostly about the transience of life and the imminence of death and the ascension of the soul into the afterlife, and was a non-religious decorative motif used on gravestones in the 18th and 19th centuries

i have a necklace of a flying death’s head that was molded directly from a 1700s gravestone*:

*this group always gets full permission from the municipality and the cemetery before they do anything

I love New England death's-head gravestones because there are some of horrific beauty that force you to confront Death head on

And then sometimes you get this instead

[cheekios]

Cash App Loan + Interest

If you participate in the poll please reblog and fully interact (♥️ + comment) with my posts.

Goal: $110

CA: $HushEmu

PP: emuslayter@gmail.com

Hey guys it’s cheekios. I have been really struggling lately. Losing my job + only pair of glasses being destroyed I hate to do this. I have no choice to play catch up to stay afloat. This loan will just keep collecting interest. Would really appreciate help with goals this month.

[spiraledeyes]

uhhh what if the guy born in 1300 something was well acquainted with herbalism and a little sorcery, and then saw public opinion towards magic and herbalism change dramatically in the 1400s, especially being part of the printing business and witnessing Malleus Maleficarum. Then he thinks, "yknow for the sake of my new life and family, i'll keep out of this!" Then his family dies and he returns to magic, but this time he dabbles in necromancy and summons Death who heard all the hubbub and decided to pop in and check Dream's pet project. Then they become buddies, but he gets discovered and drowned as a witch and all his shit gets destroyed and he loses his grimoire on summoning Death, but surely it got destroyed with his house. Surely no one sinister could get their hands on this book.

TL:DR what if Hob was actually a witch (witch being a very nebulous term due to the nature of the witch hunts and mythos)

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

The Petelia Tablet, Greek, c.300-200 BCE: this totenpass (a "passport for the dead") was meant to be buried in a human grave; it bears an inscription that tells the dead person exactly where to go and what to say after crossing into the Greek Underworld

Made from a sheet of gold foil, this tablet measures just 4.5cm (a little over 1.5 inches) in length, and although it was found inside a pendant case in Petelia, Italy, it's believed to have originated in ancient Greece. It was meant to aid the dead in their journey through the Underworld -- providing them with specific instructions, conferring special privileges, and granting them access to the most coveted realms within the afterlife.

The Petelia tablet, displayed with the pendant case in which it was discovered

The tablet itself dates back to about 300-200 BCE, while the pendant case/chain that accompanies it was likely made about 400 years later, during the Roman era. It's believed that the tablet was originally buried with the dead, and that an unknown individual later removed it from the burial site and stuffed it into the pendant case. Unfortunately, in order to make it fit, they simply rolled it up and then snipped off the tip of the tablet. The final lines of the inscription were destroyed in the process.

The inverse side of the Petelia tablet

These textual amulets/lamellae are often referred to as totenpässe ("passports for the dead"). They were used as roadmaps to help guide the dead through the Underworld, but they also served as indicators of the elite/divine status of certain individuals, ultimately providing them with the means to obtain an elevated position in the afterlife.

The Petelia tablet is incised with an inscription in ancient Greek, and the translated inscription reads:

You will find a spring on your left in Hades’ halls, and by it the cypress with its luminous sheen.

Do not go near this spring or drink its water. You will find another, cold water flowing from Memory’s lake; its guardians stand before it.

Say: "I am a child of Earth and starry Heaven, but descended from Heaven; you yourselves know this. I am parched with thirst and dying: quickly, give me the cool water flowing from Memory’s lake."

And they will give you water from the sacred spring, and then you will join the heroes at their rites.

This is [the ... of memory]: [on the point of death] ... write this ... the darkness folding [you] within it.

The final section was damaged when the tablet was shoved into the pendant case; sadly, that part of the inscription does not appear on any of the other totenpässe that are known to exist, so the meaning of those lines remains a mystery (no pun intended).

Lamellae that are inscribed with this motif are very rare. They're known as "Orphic lamellae" or simply "Orphic tablets." As the name suggests, these inscriptions are traditionally attributed to an Orphic-Bacchic mystery cult.

The inscriptions vary, but they generally contain similar references to a cypress tree, one spring that must be avoided, another spring known as the "Lake of Memory," the sensation of thirst, and a conversation with a guardian (or another entity within the Underworld, such as the goddess Persephone) in which the dead must present themselves as initiates or divine individuals in order to be granted permission to drink from the Lake of Memory. They are thereby able to obtain privileges that are reserved only for the elite.

Though the specifics of this reward are often vague, it may have been viewed as a way to gain access to the Elysian Fields (the ancient Greek version of paradise) or as a way to participate in sacred rites; some totenpässe suggest that it may have allowed the soul to break free from the eternal cycle of reincarnation. Regardless, the overall objective was likely the same: to obtain a special status and acquire privileges that were inaccessible to most of the souls in the Underworld.

Sources & More Info:

Altlas Obscura: The Ancient Greeks Created Golden Passports to Paradise

The Museum of Cycladic Art: The Bacchic-Orphic Underworld

Bryn Mawr College: Festivals in the Afterlife: a new reading of the Petelia tablet

The Getty Museum: Underworld (imagining the afterlife)

The British Museum: Petelia tablet (with pendant case; chain)

[tumblebagel]

Alright chat, how do we feel about something like this?

I've moved the Maid Knight design away from my original sona (rounder glasses, fluffier more kempt hair). But the majority of it is still there. We've also got a bit more main cast.

I figure, who would hire a maid who can fight? A noble family in a CLEARLY corrupted/haunted manor with no intentions of moving out. In the end, I decided it was more of a Darkest Dungeon situation, with eldritch entities that need to be fended off, crawling out of the dungeon from time to time.

So, our two other main cast members are two other nobles who live in the house under Madeline's protection. We first have Cassandra, who recently died in an attack. Madeline's EXTRA distraught about this because she was fucking down baaaaad for her. We also have Robin, who, through dark arcane processes, accidentally trapped Cass' spirit inside a pendant. Currently, they're the only one who can see her, and they're flipping out a bit trying to figure out how to break the news.

Oh also Robin is an uncracked trans gal.

Style isn't finalized, I'll likely put more effort in if y'all like what you see

I reaaaally wanna make more with these guys, but step one is seeing if anybody else gives a shit. Is this something y'all would be into?

[a-typical]

At almost any location in any major city on Earth, you are likely standing on thousands of bodies. These bodies represent a history that exists, often unknown, beneath our feet. While a new Crossrail station was being dug in London in 2015, 3,500 bodies were excavated from a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century cemetery under Liverpool Street, including a burial pit from the Great Plague of 1665. To cremate bodies we burn fossil fuel, thus named because it is made of decomposed dead organisms. Plants grow from the decayed matter of former plants. The pages of this book are made from the pulp of raw wood from a tree felled in its prime. All that surrounds us comes from death, every part of every city, and every part of every person.

Death avoidance is not an individual failing; it’s a cultural one. Facing death is not for the faint-hearted. It is far too challenging to expect that each citizen will do so on his or her own. Death acceptance is the responsibility of all death professionals—funeral directors, cemetery managers, hospital workers. It is the responsibility of those who have been tasked with creating physical and emotional environments where safe, open interaction with death and dead bodies is possible.

— From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Caitlin Doughty

[hamletthedane]

🥺🐈

[for more information/pictures of the site]

[crazycatsiren]

One of my morbid fascinations is mourning customs around the world.

I know that in the West it's mostly silent and solemn. Quiet respect for the dead.

The people of my motherland prefer to howl loud enough for the dead to hear.

I personally have always been a quiet mourner. Then again, it might have a lot to do with my reluctance to draw any attention to myself at all times. From the living and the dead, I suppose.

[gaymeing]

So um. I found this book at my local library. I don't know what to do with this information. Help.

[zsorosebudphoto]

Uviéu, Asturies, 22-03-24

[thefearandwonder]

I invented a new drink

pinot noir mixed with cherry coke zero

with coconut non-dairy whipped cream on top

I might be insane I'm going to pay $10 to boost this post to prove I am insane

[randomduckwandering]

INTRO!!!

-

Hello!! My name is Lucian! You can call me Lu or LuLu or any variation…

I go by litteraly anything but SHE.

I like…

GOOD OMENS

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

OUR FLAG MEANS DEATH

SUPERWHOLOCK

and more!!!

-

I’ve been here for maybe a year but i wanted to come back to this app as tiktok is currently indisposed so PLEASE FRIENDS / MUTUALS I WILL POST A WHOLE LOT!!

[mindblowingscience]

The deadliest pandemic in recorded history may still continue to plague human oral health centuries later, potentially contributing to some modern cases of gum disease. That's still very much a hypothesis, but if the correlations can stand up to future research, it could reveal an unexpected, long-lasting consequence of contagious respiratory diseases. The microbiome that lives in the human mouth, nose, and pharynx is the second-largest microbial community in our bodies after the gut. Now, one of the first studies to track its evolution through history has found a pivotal transition that coincides with the Black Death of the Late Middle Ages.

Continue Reading.

[etdraconis]

Something something modern verse Emmrich as a biological and cultural anthropologist, specializing in the study of death rituals and burials of other cultures. Also a professor obviously how else will he get research funding in this economy

Something something Bellara as an archaeologist and historian combo but with a mechanical engineering background. Works with Emmrich. Fixes all the machinery and vehicles herself on digs.

Something something lucanis having a coffee shop and or restaurant and technically being like, celebrity chef status but still insists on running things himself bc he likes cooking and being busy

Something something… that’s all I got for now will do the other companions as I think of them 😅

[theoldworldsrunnerup]

(HI I hope this post makes sense it’s almost four am and I’m tired)

Okay so I’ve been thinking about this post (I’m too lazy to summarise it, please go look at it yourself for context) since I first reblogged it and, more specifically, why exactly it translated to “romantic”, because??? Surely it didn’t actually say that (I assumed it was maybe a word that could mean romantic but had differing definitions depending on the context or something like that) (also I had already heard that it said “beautiful” instead of “cute” so I’m not focusing on that).

So, despite the fact that I do not understand Japanese whatsoever, I decided I needed to figure out where exactly in the sentence “romantic” comes from, because it was going to bother me for ages if I didn’t.

After searching for a VERY long time, I managed to find this image of the untranslated Japanese version (which I only found because I remembered where to look lmao).

At first, out of curiosity, I stuck the text into google translate myself to see if it would say anything different, but it was pretty much the same result. I actually tried several other online translators, but again, they all said the same thing (in various levels of coherency).

Now, while google translate can be unreliable, I figured I could use it to get the gist of individual words, and, in particular, figure out what exactly here translated into romantic.

Something I noticed was that “romansu” by itself translated into romance, but, since the romanised version had “romansugurē“ written as one word, I put all of it in and ended up with this.

So, from this, I had figured out where “romantic” had come from. But at this point, I was more interested as to why “romance” and “grey” were one word here, so I looked it up.

The term romansugurē is, unsurprisingly, derived from the words romance and grey. It’s usually used to describe the grey hair of a middle aged man, but its connotation can kind of differ. From what I understand, it can be a somewhat neutral descriptor (a lot of the results from my search defined it as “silver-grey hair”), but it can also be, as this introduction to linguistic anthropology I accidentally stumbled across puts it:

In this context, I guess it’s kind of similar to terms like silver fox.

I went scrolling through twitter for about half an hour to see how people actually used it, and if either connotation was more commonly used than the other, but it seemed pretty evenly split (although it seems like it’s usually used in a more positive context, it isn’t necessarily always used in the context of sexual attraction, if that makes sense???).

So, in conclusion: it DOES actually say “beautiful romantic grey hair”, which I did not expect, and, taking into account the second connotation, may or may not be somehow gayer than the official English translation.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. If anyone who actually knows what they’re talking about wants to add anything to this/correct me on something, please do (but please be nice about it :( I’m trying my best here).

[a-typical]

In Toraja, during the period of time between death and the funeral, the body is kept in the home. That might not sound particularly shocking, until I tell you that period can last from several months to several years. During that time, the family cares for and mummifies the body, bringing the corpse food, changing its clothes, and speaking to the body.

The first time Paul ever visited Toraja, he asked Agus if it was unusual for a family to keep a dead relative in the home. Agus laughed at the question. “When I was a child, we had my grandfather in the home for seven years. My brother and I, we slept with him in the same bed. In the morning we put his clothes on and stood him against the wall. At night he came back to bed.”

Paul describes death in Toraja, as he’s witnessed it, not as a “hard border,” an impenetrable wall between the living and the dead, but a border that can be transgressed. According to their animistic belief system, there is also no barrier between the human and nonhuman aspects of the natural world: animals, mountains, and even the dead. Speaking to your grandfather’s corpse is a way to build a connection to the person’s spirit.

— From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, Caitlin Doughty