What did the Greeks believe about the afterlife?
The ancient Greek notion of life after death and the rituals that accompany burials were well established previously in the sixth century B.C. , ruled over a myriad of wandering legions of shadowy figures known as the ‘shadows’ who were all those who had previously perished. It was not a happy place, and indeed the soul of the great warrior Achilles informed Odysseus that it would be better to be a miserable helot on Earth than lord of all the dead in the land of the dead.
The Greeks conceived that at this point of death the soul, or ghost of the deceased, was released from the body like a brief gust of wind. It was then read to the deceased for burial in accordance with traditional practices. Ancient scholarly authorities insist on the need for a proper funeral and refer to the exclusion of burial ceremonies as a slander on human nobility. The families of the dead, mainly women, administered the elaborate funeral traditions that traditionally consisted of three sections. These were the laying of the body, the funeral march, and the burial of the individual or cremated ashes of the deceased. After being cleaned and smeared with oil, the individual was dressed and placed on a high bed inside the house. During the laying of the body, family and friends came to mourn and pay their respects. The lamentation of the deceased is prominent in ancient Greek paintings at least as far back as the Geometric era, when vases were adorned with areas illustrating the deceased surrounded by mourners. The final stage of the process was to carry the deceased to the cemetery in a procession, the ekphora, which commonly took place almost before dawn and a handful of objects were deposited in the grave, but imposing mounds of earth, crypts built orthogonally, and often elaborate stelae and marble carvings were formed to mark the grave and ensure that the deceased was always remembered. Eternal life lay in the lasting memory of the deceased by the living and the representations in lekythoi on a white background, we understand that women in traditional Athens made regular visits to burial places with gifts that included cakes and liquid offerings.
The most sumptuous funerary mausoleums were built in the 6th century BC. C. by upper-class relatives from Attica on exclusive burial grounds along the roadside in relative terrain or near Athens. Relief carvings, figures, and tall stelae enthroned by finials identified many of these burial sites. Each funerary mausoleum had a base engraved with an epitaph, often in poetry commemorating the deceased. A relief illustrating a generalized impression of the deceased occasionally evokes features of the individual’s existence, including a servant, belongings, and animals. In ancient reliefs, it is easy to recognize the deceased, however, throughout the IV century BC. C., they were attached to the most familiar scenes and, in general, many names were engraved on the tribute, making it difficult to differentiate the deceased from the mourners. Like all aged marble carvings, the tomb figures and funerary stelae were brightly colored, and yet complete remnants of scarlet, dark, cobalt, and green can be seen.
Many of the best Attic funerary monuments survived in a burial site located in the peripheral area of Kerameikos, situated on the outskirts of Athens, just outside the gatehouses of the ancient city barrier. The cemetery was used for centuries and impressive geometric craters marked burial mounds from the 8th century BC. C., as well as excavations that have exposed obvious traditional-era tomb structure. At the end of the 5th century B.C. C., Athenian families began to bury their deceased in modest stone sarcophagi placed on the ground within coordinated tombs on artificial terraces supported by high retaining barriers. Marble cenotaphs belonging to various associates of a relative were placed along the edge of the terrace rather than over the tombs themselves.
As we can see, the Greeks strongly believed in life after death and paid great attention to reliable traditions when burying their loved ones and did not deviate from this for many years.