Meanings
plural excarnations
- countableuncountableThe act of removing flesh.
- countableuncountableThe burial practice of removing (or causing to be removed) the flesh and organs of the dead, leaving only the bones, especially the practice of laying out corpses for vultures to strip bare.
Vultures seem to have been used for a funeral practice of excarnation: after the flesh had been cleaned from the bones, the bones were interred in the shrines.
1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 144
Cite this entry
excarnation. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/excarnation
“excarnation.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/excarnation. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “excarnation,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/excarnation.
Source: excarnation on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.