The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death

by Timothy Taylor

A global exploration and interpretation of the human rites and rituals of death spans human history as it discusses such topics as ancient rituals with reverberations in the present, human sacrifice, monumental sarcophagi, cannibalism, near-death experiences, vampirism, and the human separation of the body and the spirit that animated it.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Death, Science, Anthropology, Philosophy, Archaeology

353 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book looks into history to see how people deal with death and what happens to the body afterwards (and how it has changed over ages and various developments, which have not developed the same way in different cultures). It also shows us how interpretation of the past can be coloured by our own time's standards and the disbelief we might have on certain habits (like cannibalism, or something recent like Holocaust).

There are things like:
- dismemberment (muti), which could be seen as benefitting the community
- cannibalism: also practise in the Western world, and in prehistoric times
- immediate post-death rituals (to protect the living)
- mourning styles (cutting, mutilation, ash, rending clothes, wailing)
- funeral rituals (attending the corpse, sex, objects placed with the body, sati, purification afterwards)
- exposure platforms
- near death experience
- burial mounds, pyramids, buildings, burial within the house of the living
- cremation or burial in a boat (esp. vikings)
- how the ritual victims were made to not freak out before being killed
- embalming (Lenin used as one example)
- bog bodies (usually transgessors of some upper-class society codes)
- death of the scapegoats (to end crisis within a community) with isolated burial
- grave-robbery (approved in Viking culture)
- origin of vampire belief (changes in the body after death, rare illnesses)
- the question of returning the remains to native people

I found this book very informative, realistic yet not grim at all. There are some pictures and photographs to help, and nice notes after the text. An enjoyable read.

[Daenerys · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Buried Soul provides a good overview of cultural attitudes to death, from cannibalism to the fear of vampires. It is well written and well researched, and various scholars' different takes on each issue are clearly explained. However, I had already heard/read about almost all of the case studies used in each chapter (although here many of them are discussed in much more depth) so I think this would be a more appropriate read for an undergraduate or someone who doesn't have much of a background in archaeology.
My other issue with the interpretations in general is that Taylor has a tendency to go a step (or five) too far in a few cases: are we really supposed to believe that the funeral of a Viking chief was a stratagem to mask an even more important rite consisting of the ritual killing of a slave girl from the bottom of the social ladder?It seems clear enough that this ritual killing was a communal rite through which the community could reassert itself and its identity, but to say that this and not the funeral was the main rite, when one could not have taken place without the other, seems really far-fetched.
A few other unlikely theories are offered elsewhere in other chapters, but for the great part, the book is very well written and offers lots of sound archaeological and anthropological data and interesting theories to consider. Chapter 3 (The Edible Dead - Cannibalism) and 6 (Vexed Ghosts - about bog bodies) are particularly good and wide-ranging in scope.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book which explores the interlinkage between the emergence of burial practices and conceptions of the soul in human societies. It is a dense, academic book but I found it very readable and I got sucked into it very quickly. It is gruesome in places as the author doesn't shy way from discussing practices such as human sacrifices, ritual killings, cannibalism etc. It paints an unforgiving picture of the dark impulses that can drive human nature but that made it all the more through-provoking to read.

[Landis]

This book challenged my thinking, and for that I am grateful. After the first few chapters I was completely entrenched in the author's ideas, and was excited as I looked toward the rest of the book.

Unfortunately, though, I felt as though the author never quite got around to making his point and argument regarding the title of the book. He touched on it, yes. He implied things, yes. But he never got around to really voicing what I consider to have been his inent for the book. In this way, I leave the book unsatisfied, almost as though the whole text was simply the introduction to the book that the author claims to have written.

I want more, and in that regard, perhaps the book was indeed a success.

I want to know what is in the author's head.

[Maiju · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was SO GOOD! I got it for research for a writing project last autumn, but it's so much more than that. It made me realise things about my own and other people's mindsets. The subject here is an archeological and anthropological approach to death, but a lot of the theories can be applied to almost any human phenomena.

The author's style was another thing I enjoyed. The text is confident, but not arrogant, it takes other reseach into account and calls it and itself into question when it's needed. The text wasn't choked by an abundance of details. It referenced the cases and gave enough information for me to be able to dig deeper if I wanted to, but it stuck to the subject matter. I really liked how the author brought personal experiences in to make the text emotionally relatable in the present.

It was also strange how my own attitude towards the physical book changed bit by bit. The front cover was very scary for me at first, but the farther I read, the less I was freaked out about it. The last couple of months it's even been front cover up on my kitchen table and I wasn't tempted to turn it around.

[Devon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I view the title as a bit misleading. Starting the book, I thought the book was going to touch on more of the perceptions of death. However, the book was more of a chronology of different burial practices throughout time and across the world. I did enjoy the reading (some of it was new but others I had already encountered) since I am interested in mortuary analysis.

I was a bit put off by his book when Taylor starts talking about how the Rus and Aztec killings are sadistic. Personally, I felt it came out of left field. I felt like he was being judgey with condemning Aztec and Rus cultural behavior. Personally, I don't understand why he was doing so.

Also, I felt that Taylor went a bit too far with trying to explain the Rus killing of the slave-girl (especially with applying van Gennep's liminality to the girls spirit).

For the most part, I did like the book. Though, I can understand if some people might find the book a bit off-putting with some of the descriptions of the cultural practices.

[Santiago Bartivas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an utterly fascinating read. The second of two books about death that I read back to back, the other being The Undiscovered Country by Carl Watkins, it traces back into prehistory to untangle death rites and what they say about ideas of an afterlife from the Neanderthals right through to the 20th century.

Where The Undiscovered Country left me surprisingly joyous or uplifted, The Buried Soul is a grim book. No punches are pulled in descriptions of rituals that involved human sacrifice, rape and cannibalism. This isn't a lascivious, leering look at the strange things our ancestors have done over thousands of years though - we're guided on the journey by someone who refuses to bow to cultural relativism, who acknowledges the horrors and suffering that some cultures (both ancient and, presented right in the introduction, shockingly modern) have inflicted to pave their way into some kind of afterlife.

The author adds a few brutally honest bits of his own life story into the mix as he explores the impact of death on our psychology, interweaving it through his thoughtful delvings into everything from ancient werewolf executions in peat bogs to Stalin's ritualistic use of Lenin's corpse.

The Buried Soul is in depth and academic on one hand, with a plethora of citations, footnotes and the authors on photographs of archaeological digs, and also beautifully written and personal. I really can't recommend it highly enough, though some of the darker elements will stay with me for a long time.

[Andrew Fear · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an enjoyable read. We get an intriguing overview of dead from prehistory into history where things more or less grind to a halt. Some of the theories, such as those of incorporation etc, seem obvious, but then so does the wheel....now. There is, however, a tendency to push the boat out. I wasn't convinced by the interpretation of Ibn Fadlan's account of a Rus funeral and was even less convinced by the way bog bodies were interpreted. Neither was implausible, but nor did they seem compelling. There is some good stuff on why, contrary to modern fads, moral judgement about the past can be right and proper and I enjoyed the account of the idiocy of how Kennewick was treated and on ideological constructs of the past. The autobiographical parts of the book were a little odd and seemed to be more cathartic than to add to the argument. Overall a good read (for those with a strong stomach), but not a book that will change your world view.

[Raechel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am genuinely surprised that more people haven't read this book. It's absolutely fascinating and so professional and thorough in its description of past events, citing sources, and reasons for speculation.

This book covers how human beings have processed, understood, and ritualized death over tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years ago. It looks at various cultures' death rites, including the Vikings, the Celts, parts of Europe, and South America. I loved learning from this book and the author did a fantastic job writing it. It's so perceptive and well-written, I'm interested in looking into what else Taylor has written.

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

WARNING: explicit description of child murder and dismemberment, cannibalism

This is more dry textbook than the sort of literary, readable non-fiction book which I prefer. There are some interesting facts here, but I wasn't overly concerned with the overall thesis. The way that some burial sites are discussed across separate sections of the book does not benefit the overall structure or the examination of that specific site.

"Today we farm out death to experts, part of whose role may be to obscure its imminence from the dying patient. Death is seen as a tragic failure rather than as the necessary culmination of a good life" (p. 50).

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Have read several times. Engaging and very well-constructed.

[Riversue · Rating 4 out of 5]

An archaeologist takes a fascinating look at death rituals around the world.

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Talk about visceral gut reaction. You need a strong stomach to endure the violent and unrepentantly horrific examples of death ritual Taylor examines. Kudos for not shying away from the taboo topics of cannibalism, ritual sacrifice, rape, murder et al., both prehistoric and modern, but I'm left wondering how exactly it all fits into an overall scheme of the development of human understanding.

Perhaps the title is misleading. I was expecting more of a theoretical explanation of the transition from prehistoric concepts of death to modern ones, but instead I got a detailed examination of a few rituals that highlight certain belief systems of the cultures involved. And an assurance that the horror I feel (at of some points) is an appropriate response that is also (sometimes) desired by the perpetrators. i.e: it is ok to morally condemn these acts/rituals.

I'm not sure where this leaves me. Educated, surely. Enlightened - questionable. Maybe a second reading is in order (although I can't say I'm excited at that prospect).

[Hypatia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was quite interesting, although it's definitely more of an academic book than a popular work. The author makes an interesting argument connecting human burial rites to beliefs about the dead, and not in the direction you might expect. I'm not entirely sure I agree with all his arguments, although they're pretty clearly laid out and are mostly logical. In particular, I thought the idea that burial started out as a means of ostracizing select members of the dead was an interesting one. It particularly makes sense for the bog bodies, although if I have the timelines correct, they date from after the development of ritual burial. Still, I can see how, like witches, they act as scapegoats for things that are going wrong in a community.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

What came first? The human concept of a soul or human burial rites and practices. Written from a wide variety of information, reasearch and even anecdotes. His archaeological research is excellent and generally well supported. This book still makes me think about it.

[Kstgeorge · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little dry, but still interesting.

[Karthick]

I think it will be intresting.

[Fish Tulip · Rating 5 out of 5]

going to start reading it again right away

[Rebecca O'Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good general narrative of past processes - jumps across time periods and societies a bit too much, but very good for challenging preconceived notions of natural human behaviour.

[John Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most interesting and intellectually riveting book I've read in the past few years. Some of it hard to take, but in general excellent!

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of really good research. His presentation was a little too post-processual for my current taste though.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent info - history and archaeology combined

[Stephen Palmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deals with our varied cultural attitudes to death and the rituals of death.

Although some past evidence of Neanderthal burial rites (eg the Shanidar cave) have been reassessed and dismissed, there remains a strong body of evidence to show that Neanderthal people made special ritual at the graves of their dead, which means they had a concept of individuality, of self, and of the uniqueness of self. They would have been aware that everyone is a unique person, seemingly alive behind the eyes. An obvious, yet unanswerable question followed: what happens to that self when the person dies?

Timothy Taylor’s 'The Buried Soul' offers many answers to this question, while tracing the history of the main idea from prehistoric to modern times. While strong on archaeological evidence and theory, Taylor to his great credit also imagines the thoughts and emotions of ancient people in these circumstances, for instance the Iceman of the Alps, Ötzi. Though alive only 5,300 years ago Ötzi still lived in a world numinous with supernatural forces, and these would have made his experience of death very different from ours.

The book passes through many cultural vistas: cannibalism in New Guinea, the ritual deaths of slaves in the Near East, embalming, and the European bog bodies. It’s in this latter chapter that one of the book’s main ideas begins to appear, that of death in liminal zones. A liminal zone is an area between two different geographical zones, for instance plains and woods. The peat bogs of Ireland, Denmark and elsewhere are in fact quite dangerous environments, and would have attracted prehistoric speculation and ritual via their status as liminal zones. That ritual includes the phenomenon of ‘multiple death,’ i.e. killing a person in two or three ways when such a process is apparently unnecessary.

Taylor also covers the famous Shanidar burial. Though the flower pollen ‘evidence’ is now discarded, there is no doubt that the individual was disabled, and therefore alive for social, cultural or humane reasons; and that means consciousness at the very least, if not compassion. In fact Taylor skotches any such ‘flower-people’ theories, as he calls them, and evokes a more ‘ruthlessly cohesive’ theory. But either way, the aeons of mere animal existence were hundreds of thousands of years in the past by the time of Shanidar.

This fascinating book covers much that we don’t wish to talk about in modern Western societies. Although I first read it as part of my own reading around the topic of the origin of ideas of the soul or spirit, it proved to be a more wide-ranging book than I expected – and certainly inspirational.