BONES. See ANATOMY and Index.
BONES of the Dead. 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, &c. Among the ancients, the bones of travellers and soldiers dying in foreign countries were brought home to be buried; but during the Italic war this was prohibited by the senate.
The Romans acknowledged a deity, called Ossipaga, or Ossipanga, to whom the care of the induration and knitting of the human bones was committed, and who on that account was invoked by pregnant women.