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Volume 4 120 |
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A–Z |  |
LAST SCENE OF ALL IN A LIFE DRAMA: A GREEK PEASANT LYING IN STATE
| Some of the customs attending death and burial in Greece are distinctly curious. The dead, dressed in their best clothes and shod for their long journey to the other world, lie in state and are carried in unclosed coffins to the church. This exposure of the corpse until the actual moment of interment was originally ordained by Solon as a deterrent of foul play. In some remote districts there is a strange custom of disinterring the bones after a few years, sewing them up in embroidered sacks and depositing them in an ossuary near the church |