Through countless eons of birth and death, our ancient ancestors have passed down their burial and funerary practices to the present day. Some of these customs have remained the same, while others have faded into history. Yet, regardless of whether these practices still exist today, some of the graves and cemeteries left behind by historical humans, from those located in caves or beneath giant, towering monuments, have lived on for millennia.
Learn more about some of these graveyards, as well as what they can tell scientists about the ancient civilizations or people they survived.
1. Ancient Egyptian Tombs
When we think of ancient burials, Egypt and its pyramids often come to mind first. But besides pyramids, for most of Egyptian history, burials took place within mastabas --- stone structures with a flat roof.
Typically, Egyptian tombs were divided in two parts: one to house bodies for eternity, the other acting as a passage of sorts between the living world and the hereafter. Sometimes, these two parts were even physically separated. Burial chambers themselves were usually sealed away privately, while public offering places could be decorated with scenes ranging from depictions of daily life and food production to ones involving gods.
Later on, burial chambers and tombs became consolidated under one structure – the pyramid. Egypt’s earliest pyramids looked like giant, tapering staircases, possibly imitating a heavenly path for kings. The smooth pyramids we most closely associate with Egypt came later on during the Fourth Dynasty, which occurred from 2680 to 2560 B.C.E.
But, as is often the case with other civilizations as well, not everyone who died could linger in historical records. A disparity existed between the amount of funds that went into the funerary monuments of the wealthy and royal and the rest of the population, according to a 2002 article in the Journal of Social Archaeology. In addition, it’s likely the case that not everyone received thorough embalming practices, if they did at all.
Read More: How Ancient Egyptians Preserved Bodies for the Afterlife
2. Prehistoric African Burials
The continent of Africa is a rich hotbed of history, considered the cradle of humanity’s origins. In the Grotte des Pigeons cave, located near Morocco, lies the oldest cemetery in Africa and even the world. Discovered in 1908, the site contains over 30 Iberomaurusian skeletons dating to the Later Stone Age. (These were a group of ancient humans who shared some ancestry with the Natufians, hunter-gatherers who lived in parts of Syria and Palestine.)
Even the discovery of single burials has immense implications for our ancestors’ histories. In 2021, for example, archaeologists found and dated the earliest known human burial in Africa after uncovering the preserved skeleton of a child who was at most three years old. This toddler was found curled up and buried with some sort of now-degraded cushion within the Panga ya Saidi cave.
Scientists reported that the purposefulness of the burial points to the deliberate care exhibited toward the child, whom they named Mtoto (“child” in Swahili). Archaeologists continually debate whether the burial itself is enough to evidence early humans’ abilities to form symbolic thought in terms of differentiating between the real world and a metaphorical other. Nevertheless, ancient humans were indeed interested in keeping their dead close: Neanderthals and Natufians were known to bury their dead near residential sites.
Read More: Africa's Earliest Human Burial Comes to Light
3. Ancient Roman Cemeteries
Roman burials also boast a rich history, revealing the wide range of funerary practices and attitudes that varied across the empire’s vast geography. For instance, a majority of Roman citizens’ burials took place outside the confines of Rome itself due to fears of “death pollution,” or the idea that left unchecked, death threatened to contaminate the living.
Of course, elites and aristocrats had a different experience, with many of their tombs lining the main roads and arteries pumping into the city. Some even found their final resting places within the city walls.
There was no ubiquitously “Roman” way of dying. Even the methods with which Romans disposed of their dead varied over time. While inhumation – the act of placing a body directly into the ground or inside a coffin – was popular in pre-Roman Italy, cremation began gaining popularity between the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E., though not everywhere. These burial methods still did not account for how marginalized classes of people were buried, as enslaved or poor people often left behind no traces in historical records.
Read More: Raiding Graves — Not to Rob But to Remember
4. Ancient Middle Eastern Graves
The ancient Middle East is one more storied region with much to say about our earliest ancestors. By analyzing ancient DNA, scientists have reported in 2022 that they could reconstruct some of the demographic movements and histories of the Levant region – thanks to one of the earliest Islamic burials found in modern-day Syria.
In this case, the two bodies in question were laid to rest in separate graves rather than in a conventional Muslim cemetery. Of course, one of the largest cemeteries in the world is also located in the Middle East, according to the UNESCO World Heritage Center. The Wadi Al-Salam Cemetery, located in modern-day Iraq, is one of the oldest Muslim cemeteries in the world, housing the remains of millions of Muslims, ranging from scientists to ancient prophets to kings and sultans.
Archaeologists caution against building a singular, confining narrative for complicated societies based purely on one grave – individual or massive. But one thing is clear: Death, rather than being a singular endpoint in someone’s timeline, is just as reflective of the ways the living operated and coped with loss.
Read More: When is it OK For Archaeologists to Dig Up the Dead?
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Tombs in Ancient Egypt
Smithsonian. The Egyptian Pyramid
Journal of Social Archaeology. Burial and the Dead in Ancient Egyptian Society
The Conversation. Ancient DNA helps reveal social changes in Africa 50,000 years ago that shaped the human story
Atlas Obscura. Taforalt (Cave of Pigeons)
Science. Oldest DNA from Africa offers clues to mysterious ancient culture
Britannica. Natufian culture
PNAS. A 12,000-year-old Shaman burial from the southern Levant (Israel)
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Burial Practices and Tombs in the Roman World
Communications Biology. Bioarchaeological evidence of one of the earliest Islamic burials in the Levant
UNESCO. Wadi Al-Salam Cemetery in Najaf
