Family Antiquities

The Ancient City, by de Coulanges, was one of those rare books where reading it is more of an experience than a receipt of information.  It is as if I dreamed the book.

One thing I got from it that struck me very powerfully, and still does now that I am ‘awake,’ is the sense of physicality associated with the ancestors.  Unlike with other pagan beliefs, it would be impious to cremate your ancestors’ remains.   There is some real truth to this; it wasn’t until recently that we allowed cremations; in common with the Christian tradition, we used to ban them.  There is still a sense that the physical remains have some special connection to the person, which is why we dedicate the graves and Joseph Smith taught resurrection at the site of burial.

In a certain sense, the Ancient Religion just was tending to graves, and there is a lot we can take from that.    That is as much family history as searching out names online.  Perhaps more so.  So too the care and transmission of family antiquities.

When the ancients left to found a new city, they would take soil from atop their ancestors’ graves with them to commingle in their new earth.  This is a powerful thing to do.