History of American Funeral Directing - Early Mortuary Behavior

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers concepts from early mortuary history, focusing on the common beliefs of American funeral practices and the specific death concepts of Ancient Egyptian civilization.

Social institution

The bundle of common beliefs, assumptions, and opinions that people take for granted, forming the premises for group thinking and individual judgments.

Humanitarianism

A doctrine stating that human obligations are limited to and dependent alone on the individual and human relations.

Pagan Renaissance

The historical movement (distinct from the Christian Renaissance) from which some of the "reverential roots" of American mortuary belief descended.

Osiris

The Egyptian god of the underworld and judge of the dead.

The Ba

The Egyptian term for the Soul.

The Yakhu

The Egyptian term for the "Shining One."

The Ka

An element of a person that remained by the dead and demanded attention from the living, originally in the form of food offerings and later through prayers.

The Heart

Regarded by ancient Egyptians as the seat of the intellect and emotions.

Bodily Resuscitation

The central Egyptian belief that the complex elements of a person could be reconstituted or brought back together in the body through ritualistic actions.

The Art of Embalming

The title of a book published in $2021$ by Thomas Greenhill ($1705$), which suggested the soul only left the body when it became corrupt and putrefied.

Tomb chaplains

Priests in Egyptian funerary customs responsible for performing necessary ritualistic actions and protecting the body, coffin, and treasures.

Pyramids

The most enduring monuments in the world which served as both memorials and tombs for the rulers of Egypt.

Mortalized

A term used to describe the Egyptian concept of bringing the soul back to the body to restore the whole person.

Decent burial

A firmly held assumption in American thought that every person, regardless of circumstance, has the right to a dignified funeral service.