the.com/burial mound
A hill built so death would have better real estate than the living.
means An earthen or stone mound raised over one or more graves, often marking a site of ceremonial or social importance.
from The practice is ancient and widespread — found independently from the kurgans of the Eurasian steppe to the barrows of Britain to the mounds of the American Midwest — so the thing predates any single word for it. 'Mound' itself traces to Old English 'mund', meaning protection or hand, later drifting to mean a raised heap of earth; 'burial' comes from Old English 'byrgan', to hide or conceal, kin to 'bury' and 'borrow' in the old sense of shelter. So the compound literally means a heap built for hiding the dead — though the people who raised them were usually more interested in remembering than hiding.
- origin
- Predates writing on every inhabited continent
- status signal
- Bigger mound meant bigger ego in life
- archaeology gold
- Often undisturbed, so grave goods survive intact
- other name
- Barrow, tumulus, or kurgan depending on continent