Well if you think about it, it’s pretty logical for people to think that by communicating their needs to their dead that the dead could in turn communicate their living descendant’s needs to god(s). Even today when someone has passed on people who believe in an afterlife say that they've gone to be with God, it’s a reasonable step after that to think that your relative might intercede for you if you give them honor.

I think it would be difficult to know when its not being able to let go and when its wanting assistance from your deceased kin. The Chinchorro's of South America practiced mummification before the AE and kept the bodies of the deceased in the huts with them. Did they miss them or did they want to keep them close to appeal to them for help....




Kat

Ma'at Moderator

Founder and Director of The Hall of Ma'at

Contributing author to Archaeological Fantasies:
How pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past and misleads the public
"If you panic, you're lost" -- W. T. 'Watertight' Southard