Question | Answer |
any object made by human hands | artifact |
Roman word for soul or life-force | anima |
the jackal-headed Egyptian god of embalming | Anubis |
the Egyptian "soul" or spiritual counterpart of the body; could leave the tomb but had to return at night | Ba |
a powerful organization of medieval healthcare professionals who sought a monopoly on the right to embalm | Barber-Surgeons |
the Egyptian collection of magical texts designed to protect the deceased in the afterlife | Book of the Dead |
containers in which the mummified viscera of an Egyptian were entombed | canopic jars |
long underground tunnels used by the pagan Romans for burial and by the early Christians for burial and for worship during times of persecution | catacombs |
three-headed, wild dog who guarded the way to Hades | Ceberus |
burial ground (from the Greek "sleeping place") | cemeterium |
a waxed linen sheet used as a shroud | cere cloth |
a building holding the exhumed bones of bodies previously buried | Charnel House |
the boatman who ferried souls to Hades - for a price | Charon |
a wall-like structure with niches provided for the entombment of cremains (from the Latin dove-cote) | columbarium |
in Roman funeral practice, hired female mourners | Conclamantes mortis |
Roman assistant to the libitudinarius | designator |
form of Greek religion; members believed in a happy immortality | Cult of Dionysus |
the Greek term for paradise | Elysian Fields |
a Greek & Roman school of philosophy whose members believed that both the soul and the body disintegrated after death | Epicurians |
torchbearers in a Roman funeral procession | funerales |
Roman term for a torch-lit procession, from which comes our word "funeral" | funeralis |
Roman term for funeral rites | funus |
artifacts buried with the deceased: clothing, jewelry, weapons, pottery, etc | grave goods |
the Greek concept of the Underworld where souls lived a weak, shadowy existence; also the god who ruled there | Hades |
Egyptian god of the river Nile | Hapi |
the study of past events and cultures and their influence on present conditions, usually through the uses of written records | history |
the study of past funeral beliefs and practices and their influences on funeral beliefs and practices today | history of funeral service |
Egyptian "rock-cut" tombs cut directly into or under cliffs (from the Greek "under the earth) | hypogea |
the Egyptian vital life force which generally resided in a ka-statue after death | Ka |
the Egyptian priest who took charge of the body and supervised the embalming | Kher-heb |
round columns used in Greece to commemorate the dead | kiones |
Greek word for "basket" from which comes the English word "coffin" | kofinos |
Roman protector-goddess of human remains and funerals | Libitina |
Roman head undertaker and direct ancestor of today's professional funeral director | Libitudinarius |
ancient Egyptian concept of justice and "the way things ought to be" | Maat |
a kind of Egyptian tomb, rectangular in shape with sloping sides and a flat roof, covering a shaft leading to an underground burial chamber | mastaba |
Greek tombs built to look like miniature temples | naidia |
mixture of naturally-occuring salts used by the Egyptians to dehydrate bodies during the mummification process | natron |
term used by archeologists for ancient cemeteries, especially Egyptian (from Greek "city of the dead") | necropolis |
the Greek coin placed in the mouth of the deceased to pay Charon | obol |
ancient Egyptian judge of the dead | Osiris |
the complex of beliefs about the life and legend of Osiris which provided the religious justification for many of the funeral practices of the ancient Egyptians | Cult of Osiris |
a container for bones | ossuary |
in ancient Rome, a low-status employee or slave who performed whatever primitive embalming may have been done | pollinctor |
in ancient Rome, the person who announced aloud on the streets the death of an individual and/or the approach of the funeral procession | praeco |
Egyptian god of the sun | Ra |
in early Christian practice, a religious service held for the repose of the soul of the deceased, often with the body present | Requiem Mass |
a carved stone outer container protecting a coffin and the mummy within (from Greek "flesh eater") | sarcophagus |
direct ancestor of today's concrete burial vault (from Greek "flesh eater") | sarcophagus |
a kind of Egyptian tomb consisting of a row of small, square tomb chambers surrounding an open courtyard | saff tomb |
a free-standing tomb structure (from Latin "sepelire," to cover the body) | sepulcher |
medieval Church official in charge of the physical upkeep of the church building and the churchyard and who assumed some of the undertaker's duties | sexton |
in ancient Hebrew belief, the abode of the dead | sheol |
tall, rectangular stone shafts decorated with inscriptions and bas-reliefs and used as grave markers in ancient Greece | stelae |
one of the river boundaries of Hades, the Greek abode of the dead | Styx |
a law that limits the amount of money that can be spent on a funeral or on items considered to be luxuries | sumptuary law |
the ancient Greek version of Hell | Tartarus |
square-cut ancient Greek tombs | trapezae |
small statues of servants entombed with Egyptian mummies | ushabtis |
in Scandinavian (Viking) belief, he abode of the dead who died bravely in battle or after a successful life as a warrior | valhol/valhalla |
the Egyptian place of embalming; direct ancestor of the preparation room | wabt |
in Egyptian belief, that part of the person which upon death became part of the starry constellations of the night sky and, therefore, part of the universe | yakhu (akhu) |