Etruscan Death Rituals Involved Orgasm, Blood, and Erotic Dance
This is an interesting article about the death rituals of the Etruscans. They lived in today's Tuscan and were absorbed by the Romans.
Brandt studied Etruscan art left in tombs dating from 2,600 to 2,200 years ago. He thinks that the erotic rituals, blood rituals, and dancing dipicted in the artworks, were designed to bring the soul safely to the kingdom of death.
The three phases of death
The Etruscans left no written sources. So, modern historians depnd on records left by the Romans and Greeks when studying their culture.
"Instead, I've tried to understand the Etruscans from the Etruscans," says Brandt.
The key, he says, is to understand death as a transitional ritual that consists of three phases:
The soul's journey across death’s borderlands
- The separation phase, which occurs at the moment of death when the soul is released from the body.
- The transition phase, when the soul sets out on its perilous journey across the border of death to the kingdom of death.
- The reunification phase, when the soul comes to the kingdom of death and meets its ancestors and celebrates with a big party.
The critical phase in the Etruscans' perception of death is therefore about the soul's migration after death and before the soul enters the kingdom of death.
“During this migration, the soul is exposed to dangerous and dark forces such as sorrow, hunger, distress, sickness, fear, and even war,” says Brandt.
"That means that people who were involved with the burial rituals had to help the soul move on,” he says.