Necrophilia in Myths and History

The first topic I'll be writing about is Necrophilia.

It occurred to me that I should first talk about what Necrophilia is, but as I went through many articles, a specific information caught my eye and my interest that I can't seem to stop wondering about. So, I thought that I should just start with that and follow up with other information later.

It turns out, the practice of necrophilia has an apparently, long and rich history, perhaps as old as civilization itself. Interesting, right? Once I found out about it, I immediately decided to do more research regarding past depictions of necrophilia, and surprisingly enough, I found more than what I expected. It was definitely an interesting read.

I found out that there are many recordings in myths and in history that narrates people committing necrophilia. I thought it was a modern thing, but I guess you never truly know things, huh. Anyway, let me share to you some stories I've read.

One is of Achilles and Penthesilea, in Greek Mythology. I read that, Penthesilea joined the Trojan War and fought against the Greeks. Being in the opposite side of the war, they fought each other. Although Penthesilea was strong and gave Achilles quite a challenge, she unfortunately lost against him.

Immediately after Achilles killed her, he removed her helmet and saw her face. He was dismayed when he learned that he had killed a woman but because Penthesilea was so beautiful, Achilles's grief was overcome by lust that he desecrated her dead body.

Other versions say that Achilles just fell in love with Penthesilea while others involved Thersites gouging Penthesilea's eyes with a spear while he mocks Achilles with her death so, Achilles killed Thersites to avenge her. I think that what Achilles felt wasn't just lust but there is love too, though, he was late to realize it since he had already killed her. I don't really know how to feel about this. It's a bittersweet feeling to love someone and then realize that you had killed her and then regret it, but making love with the dead body to show your love is a bit too much for most people.

Periander (625-585 B.C), the second tyrant of Corinth, who was known as a necrophile. It was said that he murdered his wife, Melissa, in an irrational rage of jealousy and then, in remorse, had sexual intercourse with her corpse. 

Whether or not he was in the right state of mind is another story. 






According to King Herod: A Persecuted Persecuter. A Case Study in Psychohistory and Psychbiography (pp. 170-172) by Aryeh Kasher and eliexer Witzum, M.D, King Herod had 10 wives but he loved his second wife, Mariamne 1, the most. Though he had executed her on charges of adultery, he still loved her so much that--according to legend-- he had her preserved in honey and had regular intercourse with her for seven years.

Although, it was said that he could no longer bear the tension, nor the intensity of his suspicions, he was drawn into paranoid delusions ultimately destroying the object of his love. But it seems he just caved in with all the pressure, grief, remorse, anger, jealousy and just snapped. This seems to happen with a lot of powerful people. King Herod's situation seems to fall in on one of the motives of committing necrophilia according to Rosman's and Resnick's research where it said that 15% of the necrophilia cases that they reviewed committed the act to gain comfort.

In King Herod the Great’s instance, a death of a love one can lead to these kind of practices. Love drives people to do things which are considered immoral. Though it seems that most of the time the grief that comes when you lose a lover can lead you to do it. It makes me wonder if what they did can be accepted because they were drowning in guilt and grief.

But, it seems that long ago, ancient civilizations had done certain procedures to discourage people from committing necrophilia.

 

 

In The Histories by Herodetus, it is said that in Ancient Egypt, after the death of the wives of men of rank or after the death of beautiful women, they are not immediately given to the embalmers. The Ancient Egyptians leave the deceased women to decay for three to four days, to discourage intercourse with a corpse.



Hinting, that there had been some instances that the embalmers had committed this kind of act. I think it's smart of them to do this, though I think they should have included not only beautiful women but all women, but it's the past so, not everything is equal.

These are only a few examples of necrophilia cases recorded in history. In fact, there are so many of them even though they are not wildly known. I believe that reading the history of these kind of practices can help find out more on why this exist and learn how it affects the society we live in today.