What they find and where
The last item points to a shift that happened in many cultures. Real valuables were gradually replaced with images and models: the meaning remained, while the property stayed with the living.
Burials with no objects at all are a separate case. We should not read them as poverty: in some traditions, leaving out grave goods was a deliberate choice and meant that the person was traveling light.
What this tells us about the living
The difference between rich and poor burials in one cemetery is one of the main ways to measure inequality in a society that left no written records. The greater the spread, the more stratified that society was.
Trade connections can also be reconstructed from grave goods. A shell from a distant sea, amber from the other side of the continent, a bead from a foreign workshop: each object marks the route it traveled.
There is also a caveat that archaeologists state openly. The set of objects reflects what the living chose to place there: their beliefs, their generosity and their wish to present themselves to their neighbors, not necessarily the wishes of the deceased.
That is why modern excavations record not only the objects, but also their placement: how the body lay, what was closest to the hands and what was placed last. The sequence of actions says no less than the objects themselves.
Finish reading in the Miqo app
1 more minute, then a quiz at the end. Find it under “Mythology → The Afterlife”
Point your phone camera here to open the App Store or Google Play.
Sources
- Grave goods in different cultures included food, dishes, weapons, symbolic payment and models of objects
- differences in their composition within one cemetery are used to assess social stratification, while the composition of the finds reflects the decisions of those who buried them