My burial… or !

Last week, yes I am late, we had, as subject for the blog, to write about what we wanted to have as burial and if what we wanted to be bury with.

For myself I would prefer to be given to medical school for education and after be kept in an osteological lab for further study of my bones. I know that it is not accepted in Canada by the government for an institution to give bones and I am disappointed about that. For me, life is all about education and I want my "after life" or what ever it is after the death (I personally think that there is nothing) to continue in this state of mind and to provide my body to educate people.

What about a grave and grave goods…. well I don't need any since I am going to be nothing. This may sounds critical and I might seem like having a mental problem but I am just a rational person and I don't attach a lot of significance to object (yes I might have a lot of clothes but I don't accord a lot of importance to them, in fact I like to change them as often as I can)

We were also asked to think about what our close relatives want us to be buried with. That is a really hard question. I know that my sisters would probably want me to be buried with my grandmother and my father. For any grave goods, I don't think they would think of burying me with something; it is not a really common practice in our days in Quebec, at least this is what I think.

So yes, that's pretty much it, I am hoping that when I die the government will accept institution to keep human remains so that I will at least be useful!

Maya and Human Sacrificed: a must!

        As a child I have seen Indiana Jones (cliché) and this is the reason why the culture of the Maya has always intrigued me. As some of you may know, a lot of researches has been done on this subject but also a lot of the conclusions are not accepted anymore; as an example the Maya were eaters of human flesh is no longer accepted. In the scientific literature there is a lot of information on the Maya culture but not a lot of questions remains about the human sacrifice.

       I am really curious to know if the Maya actually had human sacrifice rituals and if so was it accompanying death or sacrifice of war prisoners. We know that Maya were big warriors; did they sacrifice war prisoners when a warrior died? In which context can we find accompanying death or sacrifice of war prisoners? Furthermore, what were the uses of the temple, like the Tikal's pyramids? Were they, like the ones in Egypt, reserved for the king and his family as their burial or were they religious temples?

          Of course Maya's culture really interests me, but all the question of the human sacrifice in general does. Why a society has those practices? Who did the people choose to sacrifice? For whom this ritual is reserved? What does a ritual like this say about the believe and the religious practice of a society? Those are questions I would like to explore in the class as well as the Maya's culture.

The trip begins now to the Discovery of Death !

Hi, I am an exchange student from Montreal (yes exchange student from Quebec, Canada, not really exotic) and it is my second year as an Anthropology student. I chose this discipline because it really interests me, I mean all of the branches of Anthropology (linguistic, archaeology, ethnology and biological Anthropology). I don't know yet in which area I want to focus but I have always been curious about the mortuary practices around the world and how death has different meaning in every (or so) society. This blog will be on the Archaeology of death as it is for one of my courses. Every week there will be a post inspired from my class.