Lamps For The Dead
The pagan custom of burying lamps with the dead was to provide the dead with the means of obtaining light in the next world; the lamps were for the most part unlighted. It was of Asiatic origin, traces of it having been observed in Phoenicia and in the Punic colonies, but not in Egypt or Greece. In Europe it was confined to the countries under the domination of Rome.
Read more about this topic: Ceremonial Use Of Lights, Ancient Greece and Rome
Famous quotes containing the words lamps and/or dead:
“Never to walk from the station’s lamps and laurels
Carrying my father’s lean old leather case
Crumbling like the register at the hotel....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“If it were possible to cure evils by lamentation and to raise the dead with tears, then gold would be a less valuable thing than weeping.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)