the fixed residue of combustible substances which remains after they have been burnt.

Several religious ceremonies depend upon the use of ashes. St Jerome relates that the Jews in his time rolled themselves in ashes as a sign of mourning. To repent in sackcloth and ashes is a frequent expression in Scripture for mourning and being afflicted for our sins. A heifer being sacrificed upon the great day of expiation, its ashes were distributed among the people, who made from them a sort of lustral water, which they used in purifications, by sprinkling it on such persons as had defiled themselves by touching a dead body or being present at a funeral (Num. xix. 17).

The ancient Persians had a sort of punishment for some great criminals, which consisted in executing them in ashes. The criminal was thrown headlong from a tower 50 cubits high, which was filled with ashes to a particular height (2 Macc. xiii. 5, 6). The motion which he used to disengage himself from this place plunged him still deeper into it, and this agitation was further increased by a wheel which stirred the ashes continually about until he was stifled.