Eating the Dead: Lesser Known Ancient Burial Practices

Join me as we delve into the unique funerary customs of the Iron Age Britons and the Fore people of Papua New Guinea, who practised endocannibalism to honour their deceased loved ones. We'll also uncover the mysterious rituals of the Tower of Silence, an ancient structure used by the Zoroastrians for sky burials. These rare and lesser-known burial traditions challenge our understanding of death, mourning, and remembrance.

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WHO AM I?
Hey there, I’m Cinzia DuBois On this channel, I talk about dark and ancient history, literature and folklore.

❗️DISCLAIMER
I'm very dyslexic, so I apologise for any mispronunciations that occur when I'm reading scripts for videos. Additionally, whilst flattered, I'm only a PhD student and not a professional educator. As such, I would advise against ever citing my videos or using them as an academic resource: please instead cite references for papers I list in the description box.

Resources:

11. Whitfield JT, Pako WH, Collinge J, Alpers MP. Mortuary rites of the South Fore and kuru. Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2008 Nov 27;363(1510):3721-4. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2008.0074. PMID: 18849288; PMCID: PMC2581657.

[goblin]

I am a simple goblin. I see academic discussions of ancient death practices, I click.

[crystallinecrow]

Me when a channel I follow posts a brand new video to the top of my feed: "oh neat! I don't have time this morning but I will watch this later!"

Me when it's a Cinzia video: "I will click this immediately and I will MAKE the time I will watch the whole thing start to finish when it's a quarter hour old and THE RHYTHM SHALL ACKNOWLEDGE MY WILL"

[MasterManGod]

This is one of those things that I got briefly really obsessed with when I was reading the Vampire Chronicles. The creators of vampire kind (indirectly) practiced endocannibalistic funeral rights.

[kadinmay]

Never clicked so fast! I learned a lot about diverse burial practices in Caitlin Doughty’s book From Here to Eternity.

[stephengrahn]

I have said it before but your narration is the tops. Your voice and accent are so enjoyable to listen to. It took your voice to get me to listen to all of this. Yikes like the Road but Blood Meridian is way better imo but very dark.

[Eric.Taylor.]

I went trekking in Tibet in the mid 80's and learned about various Tibetan Buddhist burial practices, that included sky burial. As I recall, a sky burial was an indicator of wealth and status. If you coudn't afford it, then water burial was next best thing, where the body parts were fed to the fish. And so forth down the line. Apparently back then, a tourist could pay to attend a sky burial but why you would want to beats me. I have no idea if the practice continues today. Excellent start to my Friday Cinzia!

[brigittem]

I’m sat. I haven’t been on this channel in a while and IM HERE FOR AUTUMN

[rrqrr]

I believe nothing speaks so much about humanity than burial rituals, the care for the remains of the dead.

[angstymedusa]

I could listen to an hour-long video on this topic. I'm going to check out my library and see what books they have on the variety of topics you talked about in this video. I really need to get a current archeology or anthropology book. ❤

[gilbertoez]

This the first time ever hearing about sky burials it's absolutely fascinating. I didn't even know about this. Learning something new every day thank you.

[AlmightyRawks]

It's so interesting to hear about these vastly different practices! Thank you for another video that completely opens my mind to new topics and details!

[michelleburrell]

Yay! A new Lady of the Library right as im about to clean! Perfect timing! Lovely as always!

[GameTimeWhy]

Thank you for this interesting episode!

[donquet]

I discovered your channel a few weeks ago and I love what you do :) Every new video is as interesting as the one prior ! Thank you for your work !!

[winterburden]

Thanks for this fascinating video Cinzia!

[robintauber]

Your sheep sweater is awesome! I love it!

[jrojala]

The Star Cave findings are very, very controversial - the research is ongoing and it hadn’t been peer reviewed before publication

[mariajesusespinozalazo]

love you cinzia, i've been binging your videos for the last month and one even helped me find some articles useful for my uni thesis!! thank u for your amazing work and for sharing your passion with us♡

[hildisvini_art]

I always find the idea of sky burial really sweet, like the deceased isn't left alone but in a big group resting place <3

[rksnj]

Very interesting!!! Thank you so much!