Historica Olomucensia

Burial rites as a source of understanding of the future

Burial rite and the manner how we deal with lifeless corpses is one of the themes that interests scholars of many disciplines: anthropology, history, archaeology. Comparative cultural anthropological research showed that all cultures and periods share the ambivalent relation to death: on one hand efforts to get connected with the deceased and on the other hand, defence against them. When studying the burial rites, therefore, the aim and focus is not only remains and ruins of the equipment of the graves but also human life. It is important to add, however, that it is crucial to know the remains and ruins of the equipment to be able to build the interpretation on solid source basis.