L’Autorità Israeliana per le Antichità sui teschi di galilea
IAA on the Galilean skulls
lunedì 18 agosto 2008
Oggi l’Autorità Israeliana per le Antichità ha diramato un comunicato stampa sul ritrovamento dei teschi in Galilea, di cui avevo parlato qui:
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Especially noteworthy in the building were depressions that were fashioned in the floor and later sealed. Dr. Khalaily says, “It seems that these depressions were used as graves beneath the floors. The funerary practice at this time consisted of burying the dead beneath the plaster floors, inside the buildings. Some time thereafter, the residents would dig up the grave, retrieve the skull from the rest of the skeleton and recover the grave. Later they would then mold the skull in the image of the deceased and keep it inside the house. This custom is known in the scientific literature as “ancestor worship”.
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Worship of the dead and preserving the memory of ancestors, especially those of leaders and influential people, first occurred with the images of the molded skulls and continues to this very day in different manners and in diverse cultures. Thus, for example in China the bodies of kings that date to 5,000 BCE were found which were sculpted in mortar; all of the dead kings were inside of a temple.
