December 6, 2018

Funerary Practice

By Stuart Munro-Hay

The Aksumites belonging to the last three categories above are those for whom we can envisage burial in the main cemeteries at Aksum. Tomb architecture and the stelae have already been discussed (Ch. 5: 5 & 6); it can be assumed that only the upper echelons of society could have had a built tomb or one of the larger rock-cut types. In the royal cemetery, the dead were probably buried with considerable amounts of valuable gear, and with the full panoply of the ceremony, sacrificial offerings, and the like. The dead of high rank were laid in stone coffins, and, surrounded with their equipment, were either sealed up forever or to wait for the next member of the family to die if they were in multiple tombs. So far among the tombs discovered, only that of the False Door seems to have been an individual tomb. Very likely the dead were dressed in their best clothing and decked with their jewelry, but no intact burial assemblage in one of the larger tombs has yet been found. Stone coffins were visible in the partly-plundered Tomb of the Brick Arches, but no-one has yet penetrated into the inner chambers, where some of the burials still perhaps lie undisturbed since the robbery which scattered other occupants’ possessions across the floor of the outer rooms.

Tombe-Kaleb-Gebre-Meskel-Aksum

The tomb excavated by the BIEA in the Gudit Stele Field, though it was only a simple excavated chamber marked by a rough stele, seems from its contents to have belonged to someone in the better-off social strata. However, it contained only pottery, glass and iron tools (though some valuable items may have been taken by robbers), whereas the only partially cleared Tomb of the Brick Arches, situated in the main cemetery but still a modest tomb in comparison to some of the really large ones, contained objects of every kind, including precious metals. Such a gap probably expresses the differences between the third and fourth categories discussed above and indicates how the ruling class compared with even the next grade of their subjects in terms of material wealth.

Some tombs contained multiple burials with only a few personal items of jewelry, or the occasional pot or glass vessel (Shaft Tomb A at Aksum; Chittick 1974: 171). These seem to date to the Christian period, and probably the old customs requiring a mass of funerary equipment died away after the spread of Christianity. Tombs of persons of rank, such as the so-called Tombs of Kaleb and Gabra Masqal, and the tomb at Matara Tertre D (Anfray and Annequin 1965: pls. XLIV-XLV), were still very well-constructed but contained less space for equipment. All these tombs and that of the False Door have been open for centuries or were so badly robbed in antiquity that nothing can now be said about their possible contents; only the stone sarcophagi remain in some of them, and even these are often smashed into fragments.

Rather lesser tombs were found in and around the building at Tertre A at Matara (Anfray 1963); they may be contemporary with the building, but are more likely to have been installed after its abandonment. There were six, either built of stones or simply dug into the earth, and roofed with stone slabs. Occasionally they yielded some pottery, and some contained three or four bodies. Information about the burial of newly-born or very young children comes from both Adulis and Matara. In these places, imported amphorae, formerly used for the conveyance of wine or oil from abroad, were used as miniature coffins to bury children in the houses of their parents. The necks of the amphorae having been broken off, the body was put inside, and the top closed by a stone lid (e.g. Anfray and Annequin 1965: pl. L, 1). The custom of burying children thus was not uncommon in the contemporary Roman world.

The discovery of two skeletons thrown into the pit at the base of Stele 137 at Aksum, and the fact that among the platforms and in some tombs were found animal bones, either burnt or not, may indicate that certain sacrificial ceremonies were enacted during funerals or dedications of stelae (Munro-Hay 1989). Possibly the animal bones and charcoal were the remains of a funerary or celebratory meal. If Drewes (1962: 41) is correct in his interpretation of the Safra inscription A, we have their details of the offerings on the occasion of certain acts connected with death and burial. These seem to consist of the completion of an excavated tomb; the occasion of a funerary ceremony; the immolation of a cow; and a gathering at the tomb. The inscription is apparently of the third century, and the rites mentioned by it may have been the same as those enacted at the necropolis of Aksum, resulting in the occurrence of animal bones and their burnt remains in and around the tombs.