Death, Memory and Heritage: Anthropology of Ancestral worship and funeral custom in present and past

Abstract (English)

Funeral is not only the way to dispose the dead, but it is also perform to regulate the social life in community. Among all society of the world, funeral custom can be seen as mode of transporting the departed soul to the heavenly abode via performing elaborate rituals. These rituals are essential elements of the rites of passage, has to be perform to complete the journey of the dead from earth to the final destination. Communities beliefs in life after death and to venerate their dead as ancestral worship, celebrate the occasion of death even in the time of sorrow. Based on social belief these customs have long history since the ancient times and they vary across the world from cremation to inhumation, from Mummification to Norse funeral, from smoke funeral to sky burial and many more. Such elaborated funerary rituals have a deep sense of devotion among the society and relatives towards the dead and they occasionally connected to the concept of monumentality, encouraging them to raise various monuments to venerate the dead as memorials and as resting chambers for them. Such monuments became part of cultural heritage to many ancient and present societies. The propose panel welcomes papers across the world to understand the socio-cultural and archaeological anthropology of tangible and intangible cultural heritage in form of funeral customs and the socio-religious belief behind ancestral worship and to understand the concept of monumentality associated with these customs. The panel invites papers related to anthropology of death, considering tangible and intangible aspects, archaeological anthropology, scientific analysis and discussion to conserving these heritage of both past and living societies in rapidly changing landscape and vanishing traditions all over the world.