Page:Mycenaean Troy.djvu/114

  In the Mycenaean age the dead were buried. This custom rested upon the primitive cultus of the dead. In Homer, on the other hand, the dead were burned on a funeral pile, and a mound erected in their honor, an insignificant mark of respect compared with the Mycenaean method of burial. Traces of the divine regard in which the dead were held in Mycenaean times are surely manifest in the magnificent funeral celebration which Achilles prepared for Patroclus. The slaying of the twelve noble youths by Achilles at the funeral of his friend is based on the soul cultus of the past time. It seems likely that the bodies buried in the shaft-graves at Mycenae were embalmed in a sort of crude way. To this custom, apparently, points the expression ("bury"), occurring three times in the Iliad, and probably, like, originally having reference to the preservation of the body.

In consequence of the clear connection between the earlier parts of the