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History of F.S. Q3
Glossary Terms
| 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) |