According to Babylonian belief, the dead who were not properly buried roamed through the streets searching for food, eating refuse and drinking impure water.

Prior to the period of ceremonial burials, the dead were interred in the houses in which they had lived—­a custom which has made it possible for present-day scientists to accumulate much valuable data regarding primitive races and their habits of life.  The Palaeolithic cave-dwellers of Europe were buried in their caves.  These were then deserted and became the haunts of wild animals.  After a long interval a deserted cave was occupied by strangers.  In certain characteristic caves the various layers containing human remains represent distinct periods of the vast Pleistocene Age.

When Mediterranean man moved northward through Europe, he utilized some of these caves, and constructed in them well-built graves for his dead, digging down through older layers.  In thus making a “house” within a “house”, he has provided us with a link between an old custom and a new.  Apparently he was influenced by local practices and beliefs, for he met and mingled in certain localities with the men of the Late Palaeolithic Age.

The primitive house-burial rite is referred to in the Ethiopic version of the life of Alexander the Great.  The “Two-horned”, as the hero was called, conversed with Brahmans when he reached India.  He spoke to one of them, “saying:  ’Have ye no tombs wherein to bury any man among ye who may die?’ And an interpreter made answer to him, saying:  ’Man and woman and child grow up, and arrive at maturity, and become old, and when any one of them dieth we bury him in the place wherein he lived; thus our graves are our houses.  And our God knoweth that we desire this more than the lust for food and meat which all men have:  this is our life and manner of living in the darkness of our tombs.’” When Alexander desired to make a gift to these Brahmans, and asked them what they desired most, their answer was, “Give us immortality".[249]

In the Gilgamesh epic the only ray of hope which relieves the gloomy closing passages is Ea-bani’s suggestion that the sufferings endured by the dead may be alleviated by the performance of strict burial rites.  Commenting on this point Professor Jastrow says:  “A proper burial with an affectionate care of the corpse ensures at least a quiet repose.

Such a one rests on a couch and drinks pure water;
But he whose shade has no rest in the earth, as I have seen and
you will see,
His shade has no rest in the earth
Whose shade no one cares for ... 
What is left over in the pot, remains of food
That are thrown in the street, he eats."[250]

Gilgamesh Epic.

By disseminating the belief that the dead must be buried with much ceremony, the priests secured great power over the people, and extracted large fees.

In Egypt, on the other hand, the teachers of the sun cult sold charms and received rewards to perform ceremonies so that chosen worshippers might enter the sun-barque of Ra; while the Osirian priests promised the just and righteous that they would reach an agricultural Paradise where they could live and work as on earth, but receive a greater return for their labour, the harvests of the Otherworld being of unequalled abundance.