thumb|right|Title-page of 1658 edition of Urn-Burial together with The Garden of Cyrus

Hydriotaphia, Urne-Buriall, or, A Discourse of the Sepulchrall Urnes lately found in Norfolk is a work by the English polymath Thomas Browne, published in 1658 as the first part of a two-part work that concludes with The Garden of Cyrus.

The pretext for the book is the archaeological discovery of Anglo-Saxon pottery in Norfolk, with Browne describing the antiquities. He then provides a survey of funerary customs, both ancient and those current to his own era. In describing human nature, Browne notes the tendency of humans to solemnize both births and deaths, using their "pompous" graves to establish their self-importance.

Meaning of the title

The title is Greek for "urn burial": A hydria (ὑδρία) is a large Greek pot, and taphos (τάφος) means "tomb".

Survey of funerary customs

Its nominal subject was the discovery of some 40 to 50 Anglo-Saxon pots in Norfolk. The discovery of these remains prompts Browne to deliver, first, a description of the antiquities found, and then a survey of most of the burial and funerary customs, ancient and current, of which his era was aware.

Description of human nature

The most famous part of the work is the apotheosis of the fifth chapter, where Browne declaims:

George Saintsbury, in the Cambridge History of English Literature (1911), calls the totality of Chapter V "the longest piece, perhaps, of absolutely sublime rhetoric to be found in the prose literature of the world."

American nonfiction writer Colin Dickey compares some of Browne's writing on death in Urn-Burial to the fate of Browne's skull in his book Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius.

References

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  • , an 1835 edition edited by Simon Wilkin
  • Text of Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus
  • Recordings of Hydriotaphia and Religio Medici at Librivox (public domain audiobooks)