BONES. See ANATOMY.
Bones in Funeral Solemnities. Different usages and ceremonies relating to the bones of the dead have obtained in different ages; as gathering them from the funeral pile, washing, anointing, and depositing them in urns, and then into tombs; and translating them, which was not to be done without the authority of the pontiffs. Among the ancients, the bones of travellers and soldiers dying in foreign countries were brought home to be buried; till, by an express senatus-consult, made during the Italic war, it was prohibited, and the bodies of soldiers ordered to be buried where they died.
The Romans had a peculiar deity, under the denomination of Ossilago, to whom the care of the induration and knitting of the human bones was committed, and who on that account was an object of worship by all women in a certain situation.
Fossil or Petrified Bones. See GEOLOGY.