Cremation

Hellenic religion

• Cremation appears in Hellenic religion.

  Herodotus contrasts Greek and neighboring funeral fire customs with Egyptian burial and embalming speech. A named cremation in that traveler’s ethnography, not burial as the Egyptian keep-apart already walked and not a modern crematorium dump.

  from Herodotus · Histories, c. 440s BCE

  appears in · sourced · documented

Norse tradition

• Cremation appears in Norse tradition.

  Poetic Edda heroic mourning lays seat fire-funeral and pyre speech among the dead’s disposal. A named cremation rite in that verse corpus, not burial as earth interment and not Baldr’s prose funeral alone.

  from Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation) · Poetic Edda, medieval Icelandic compilation; Larrington trans. 1996/2014

  appears in · sourced · documented

Roman religion

• Cremation appears in Roman religion.

  Virgil’s Aeneid seats funeral pyres for Misenus, Anchises’ anniversary fires, Pallas, and war-dead burning rites. Cremation as corpse-fire rite in that epic, not a generic burial walk restated and not bone object alone.

  from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)

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Vedic tradition

• Cremation appears in Vedic tradition.

  The Ṛgveda funeral hymns seat fire-disposal of the dead — Agni carrying the departed — as a named rite of the corpus. A named Vedic cremation in that speech, not antyesti as the later Hindu label alone and not burial as interment.

  from Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton (translation) · The Rigveda, 2014 (this translation); hymns much older

  appears in · sourced · documented