Ideas, practices and rituals associated with death are a classic area of study in the social sciences and humanities. The anthropology of death, as a specific sub-discipline of anthropology, examines how individuals and societies around the world respond to death, how they conceptualise ideas about death and the afterlife, and what practices and rituals they carry out after the death of group members. Rituals are the building blocks of all important parts of the lives of societies and individuals. One of the most important moments governed by rituals is undoubtedly death, which has been surrounded by rituals since time immemorial. The aim of this text is to reflect on selected classical approaches to the study of rituals in the anthropology of religion and their application to the study of rituals related to death and burial. I will discuss some of the classic works and approaches to the study of ritual, such as the work of Arnold van Gennep, Robert Hertz and Victor Turner. I will also try to outline how these classical approaches can inspire contemporary research into funerary rituals, practices and the ideas that surround them.
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