Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 January 14

= January 14 =

Ancient Greek cremation
Is there any reason why the Ancient Greeks started cremating their dreads dead instead of burying them like their Mycenaean predecessors that are hypothesized or known in the archaeological records? What form of burials did the Minoans of Crete practice and are their any archaeological finds of Minoan burials? Also did the Hellenistic Greeks who settled in Egypt and the native Egyptians have any incidences of idealogical conflict in each cultures alternate forms of burial practices. I'm aware Ancient Greek funeral and burial practices exist. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 05:25, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * If only we could cremate our dreads. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  08:09, 14 January 2017 (UTC)


 * Your first question can only be speculated upon. Cremation most probably spread to Greece from the East. It started in around 1000 BCE, peaking in the Archaic era, then declining through to the Classical era when burial and cremation were employed equally. A possibility is that it was first introduced during war, to enable a body to be easily returned to the family for interment. The Iliad features several heroic cremations, which may increased their popularity. More likely there were religious motivations (e.g. worship of Dionysus, whose mother, Semele, became immortal after incineration by Zeus; possibly an etiological myth) and links to purification rituals (the word comes from "fire"). Religious beliefs were not consistent throughout Greece and changed over time, which may help explain the fluctuations between burial and cremation, and geographical anomalies.


 * Minoan practices can easily be googled. Try here for starters: Minoan_religion.


 * There doesn't seem to be much evidence of ideological conflict between Greeks and Egyptians. Herodotus offers a dispassionate account of Egyptian mummification. (The Christians, however, took umbrage with the process and it was banned by Theodosius.) Greek communities in Alexandria were inconsistent in their funerary practices, some followed traditional Greek custom, others adapted to local norms. --Hillbillyholiday talk 09:41, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Hinduism deities names
what are the 108 names of Hinduism deities?--2001:B07:6463:31EE:1089:3E00:FCCF:529C (talk) 14:55, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Category:Hindu deities and the article Hindu deities will help you in your research. Rojomoke (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * See also Names of God, Divya Desam, and Shiva Sahasranama. 184.147.116.166 (talk) 17:01, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * 108 (number) may also be of interest. --47.138.163.230 (talk) 20:03, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Divya Desam gives names associated with 108 Tamil temples dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu. Blooteuth (talk) 22:40, 14 January 2017 (UTC)

Hawaii County Act 1903
I am trying to find secondary source summarizing the history Hawaii County Act 1903 (https://archive.org/details/countyactactses00hawgoog) which seemed to have been declared unconstitutional in 1904 by the Hawaii Supreme Court. The current day counties weren't created until 1905. I am looking for secondary sources, not law books, or newspapers please, something writing about the subject with some level of hindsight.--KAVEBEAR (talk) 23:39, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't see much of it, but County Government in Hawaii, published in 1935, looks like a great source. Warofdreams talk 03:00, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
 * I found a copy, however, I was wondering if a few more can be found to back the information up. It doesn't speak about the elections which were held in the latter months (c. October-December 1903) of the year before and the newspaper sources are too scattered for me to pinpoint when county elections were held in 1903. --KAVEBEAR (talk) 02:31, 16 January 2017 (UTC)