The Buried Soul: How Humans Invented Death

The Buried Soul is a worldwide exploration of the rites and rituals of death. Timothy Taylor's search spans all of human history and interweaves the author's own experience of bewildering deaths. By combining cutting-edge science, personal insight, and scholarship, The Buried Soul offers a radical voyage into sepulchral worlds.
"The Buried Soul, by British archeologist Timothy Taylor, is an extraordinary immersion experience . . . I had always supposed that archeology was as dry as the dust and bones it traffics in, as pedestrian as the catalogs it compiles. On the contrary, when expounded by a masterly storyteller like Taylor, it resembles psychoanalysis at its best...I haven't space to illustrate how ingeniously Taylor assembles his interpretations, patiently working out the barely intelligible motives and beliefs of the creatures who became us . . . Wherever else you travel, you should consider a trip into 'deep time' with The Buried Soul."
--George Scialabba, Boston Globe
"Taylor makes sense of the ghastly and the seemingly insensible--African muti killings, human sacrifice, vampires, and triple-killed bog bodies. Archaeology was never so entertaining, and entertainment never so edifying. Taylor rescues cannibalism from its P.C. detention hall. He hauls ghosts off the Halloween novelty racks and reflects on their ancient status as disembodied souls: dangerous, utterly terrifying entities that had to be trapped, served, tricked, placated. There is not a trite thought or lazy idea in this book. Taylor is blazingly smart and deeply human."
--Mary Roach, author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
"Learned and impassioned."
--Adam Kirsch, New York Sun