Grave goods

[2] Funerary art is a broad term but generally means artworks made specifically to decorate a burial place, such as miniature models of possessions - including slaves or servants - for "use" in an afterlife.

[6][7][8] Also closely related is the custom of retainer sacrifice, where servants or wives of a deceased chieftain are interred with the body.

Examples of these items include pots, shells, combs, stone vessels, animal figurines, and slate palettes.

[11][12] Beads made of basalt deposited in graves in the Fertile Crescent date to the end of the Upper Paleolithic, beginning in about the 12th to 11th millennium BC.

[14] It is also possible that burial goods indicate a level of concern and consciousness in regard to an afterlife and related sense of spirituality.

In the Theban Necropolis in Ancient Egypt, the pyramids and the royal graves in the Valley of the Kings are among the most elaborate burials in human history.

An example of an extremely rich royal grave of the Iron Age is the Terracotta Army of Qin Shi Huang.

Similarly, the presence of grave goods in the Early Middle Ages in Europe has often been taken as evidence of paganism, although during the period of conversion in Anglo-Saxon England and the Frankish Empire (7th century), the situation may be more complicated.

Because of their almost ubiquitous presence throughout the world and throughout prehistory, in many cases the excavation of every-day items placed in burials is the main source of such artifacts in a given prehistoric culture.

Because of their ritual context, grave goods may represent a special class of artifacts, in some instances produced especially for burial.

[20] Also, in a 2001 study on an Iron Age cemetery in Pontecagnano Faiano, Italy, a correlation was found between the quality of grave goods and Forensic indicators on the skeletons, showing that skeletons in wealthy tombs tended to show substantially less evidence of biological stress during adulthood, with fewer broken bones or signs of hard labor.

In contemporary English and American culture, bodies may be buried with goods such as eyewear, jewelry, photographs, and letters.

The gilded throne of Pharaoh Tutankhamun is but one of the treasures found within his tomb.
Reconstruction of an elite burial of the Varna culture , Bulgaria , c. 4500 BC
Conical loaves of bread as grave goods exactly as laid out in the Great Tomb, North Necropolis, Gebelein , 5th Dynasty (Old Kingdom), 2435–2305 BC. Excavations by Ernesto Schiaparelli , 1911. Egyptian Museum, Turin, S. 14051–14055
Model of the warrior's burial 'Hamburg-Marmstorf Grave No. 216', dating to circa 50 A.D., Hamburg-Marmstorf, Hamburg, Germany. At the upper edge are turf and the plough horizon. Below are the burial in a ceramic urn and beneath that the grave goods.