The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1857026993 ISBN 13: 9781857026993

Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd

Synopsis

From the author THE PREHISTORY OF SEX, a coruscating, insightful history of the human soul Cannibals, burials, vampires, human sacrifice, bog people -- throughout history our ancestors have responded to death in numerous ways. The past has left us numerous relics of these encounters between the dead and those they leave behind: accounts of sacrifices in early histories, rituals that have stood the test of time, bodies discovered in caves and bogs, remains revealed by archaeological digs. Through these insights into the past, Tim Taylor pieces together evidence of how our ancestors created their universe and asks how we have dealt with the idea of the end and slowly come to create not only a sense of the afterlife but also the soul. Tim Taylor's investigation in the invention of the human soul, from the earliest remains of burial to funeral rituals in ninth century Steppes and the mummification of Lenin in Moscow, is a breathtaking combination of research, insight and scholarship that has profound resonance today. Combining history, archaeology, philosophy, cutting edge science and autobiography, THE BURIED SOUL is a radical and unique adventure into the sepulchral world. Constantly illuminating and insightful, it is not only a fascinating investigation into popular science but also a thought provoking and discursive examination of ourselves.

About this title

About the Author

Timothy Taylor is a lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Bradford and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA). His previous book THE PREHISTORY OF SEX was high acclaimed in the UK, Europe and US. He has worked on numerous television projects including CANNIBAL (Channel 4).

From Booklist

Taylor's entertaining, if grisly, interpretative history turns the raw gleanings of two centuries of archaeology on their head. Referencing his own experience, as well as others' documented discoveries, he expounds on the pervasiveness of such practices as funerary cannibalism, vampirism, and human sacrifice, and he poses the question, Which came first, the notion of the soul or the ceremonial burial of remains? His conclusions, as he acknowledges, may be somewhat unsettling. Caches of bones, pottery shards, and tools reveal only the most basic clues, and the majority of archaeologists, filtering those clues through their modern "visceral insulation" from things pertaining to death, are, by Taylor's lights, unable to acknowledge how prevalent cannibalism and ritual sacrifice were and are. Furthermore, while widespread popular thought maintains that humans acquired belief in the soul first and then developed ritual burial, Taylor considers the reverse to be more accurate: the immortal soul was invented as a result of the first burial ceremonies. Taylor demonstrates, albeit in highly scholarly style, the value of postulating well-developed, opposing points of view. Donna Chavez
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Edition details

• Publisher: Fourth Estate Ltd
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1857026993
• ISBN 13: 9781857026993
• Binding: Paperback