National Geographic: Ancient Graves: Voices of the Dead
- Year:
- 1998
- 179 Views
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
Death always gets the final word -
no matter how we mock it.
Sworn to eternal silence,
the Dead seem beyond our reach.
Yet to some scientists,
they speak volumes.
"When I look at a mummy,
I'm looking at an encyclopedia."
Through the lens of modern science,
the grave has become
a window on the past.
Today we can learn intimate details
about how the Ancients lived-
and how they died.
"...that's really, that's, that's
really a common way that they did it -
the strangulation
or blows to the head..."
Bit by bit, their portraits emerge
from flesh, bone, and DNA.
"Bringing the people back to life,
I think that that's the fun part of it."
The unearthing of the past reveals
the tangled roots of our family tree.
But some see only the desecration
of their ancestors.
"They must be put back into
the bosom of sacred Mother Earth."
As the Living defend the Dead,
battle lines are drawn.
In truth, those who passed here
long ago still dwell among us.
From fragile remains,
their life stories unfold.
And as we hear them,
they become a part of us all.
Listen now to the voices
of the Dead.
This is the driest place on earth:
Life has found a foothold here:
not in the blazing sands,
but in the slender river valleys
that stretch across the desert
from the Andes to the sea.
The city of Arica stands where
two rivers meet the Pacific Ocean.
Countless generations of fishermen
have thrived here,
and many families have deep roots.
Whenever ground is broken,
there's a good chance
these roots may come to light.
The city's arid soil has yielded
several ancient burials,
to the delight of scientists
from the local university.
But physical anthropologist
Bernardo Arriaza,
now with the University of Nevada,
to a site where the water company
was digging trenches.
I remembered in 1983,
it was a quiet day
when the water company called us.
They said they had
found something unusual,
so that really caught our interest.
"And we get called all the time,
and you never know
what you're going to find,
so that's also
the exciting part of going.
You don't know
what it's going to be.
And this time it was quite
incredible, actually."
The shovels had exposed a plot
of ancient Egypt.
Eerie masks were sculpted
over their faces.
Wigs were glued
directly to their skulls.
Bodies were completely made over-
paste and paint on the outside,
grasses and earth within.
Men, women and children
were mummified.
Even this eight inch long fetus.
These elaborate mummies were created
by a people called the Chinchorro.
in simple huts,
and left little behind-
no monuments, no written texts.
But from their bones and artifacts,
Arriaza has compiled a profile of
their lifestyle.
"The Chinchorro people were fishermen.
They fished from the rocks
with fish hooks made of shells.
They also collected shellfish
and hunted sea lions with harpoons.
And they wove beautiful nets
Their clothing and ornaments
were minimal.
mummifying the dead"
transform their dead
into such elaborate creations?
Arriaza has a theory.
"Someone is being mummified,
it's a lot of energy investment,
it's a lot of caring.
Even the fetuses are fascinating.
Why? Because they have long hair,
they have the mouth open.
That's conveying life.
"We tend to see our dead
as someone that's farther away.
We don't want to see the dead
with open eyes-
no, you think, wow,
You want to see the dead
completely dead.
In the case of the Chinchorro,
they're seeing the dead
as part of the living."
Virtual works of art, their mummies
were not intended for the grave.
in the very heart of the community.
The mummy was an honored emissary who
moved between this world and the next-
sending word to the ancestors,
interceding before the gods.
with songs and offerings.
Mummification helped ease the loss
of a loved one,
and strengthened bonds
between the living.
It made the community whole again.
Such rituals may have quelled the
awful fear of what lies beyond death-
no less a mystery 7,000 years ago
than today.
One of the earliest expressions
of the human spirit,
death rites date back at least
Even the Neanderthals buried
one of their own
beneath a blanket of flowers.
Every culture on earth
has evolved rituals
to bid a final farewell to the dead.
Some consign the body to
the embrace of the earth.
Others ensure the release
of the soul through fire.
In today's crowded world,
the practice of cremation is on the
rise wherever land is at a premium.
We even send our dead into space.
For about the cost of
a terrestrial burial,
a container of ashes on a small rocket.
After orbiting for several years,
the ashes eventually fall into
Earth's atmosphere and vaporize,
like a tiny shooting star.
It's a fitting twenty-
first century sendoff...
but would have been unthinkable
in one of the greatest civilizations
the Earth has ever known.
The ancient Egyptians believed
the body had to last forever.
Without it,
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