Статтю присвячено розгляду причин тривалого співіснування двох поховальних обрядів – кремації та інгумації – у некрополях античних центрів на прикладі раптового збільшення в елліністичному і зменшення у перші сторіччя нашої ери відсотка трупоспалень у некрополі Херсонеса
Таврійського.
The choice of inhumations could have been caused by the short term of the burial. If the ceremonies of
farewell could not have been finished at the second day after the physical death, because of too many
participants in elite’s burials or because of carting to the motherland, then it was a need to stop the decay
of a body and so to approach the physical and spiritual death. Therefore, the near absence of cremations in
the Classical period could have been caused by the simplicity of the burial ceremonies of elite, and 20 % of
cremations in the Hellenistic period could correspond to the percentage of the upper ten, which made the
burials with all the details of the ceremonies because of the importance for them of the cult of ancestors.
Decrease in the number of cremations in the first centuries AD indicated the spread of the new worldviews
where the ideas of the sole and body preservation played a significant role.
