Note 208.1 — Chapter XII · Eschatologic Ideas of East and West.

The mode and the place of burial will often throw light on the feelings of the living in regard to the departed. The peoples of the Minoan-Mycenaean culture interred their dead, Homeric society cremated them, while the recent excavations have revealed that both systems were in vogue side by side throughout an indefinite period in Mesopotamia;208.1 and such being the facts, we cannot safely deduce from them any marked difference in spiritual beliefs. More illuminating is the fact that the pre-Homeric society in Greek lands appears generally to have buried its dead in or near their habitations, as if they desired the companionship of the spirits, agreeing in this respect with the people of Gezer in Palestine.209.1 In Mesopotamia, though in very ancient times the dead were sometimes buried in temples, the fashion generally prevailed of establishing a necropolis outside the city, as was the rule also in post-Homeric Greece. This difference alone suggests that the fear of the ghost was less powerful in pre-Homeric Greece than in Mesopotamia.