Pewter of the Bronze Age in the Near East. The earliest piece of pewter found is from an Egyptian tomb from 1450 BC. The constituents of pewter were first controlled in the 12th century by town guilds in France. By the 15th century, the Worshipful Company of Pewterers controlled pewter constituents in England. This company originally had two grades of pewter, but in the 16th century a third grade was added. The first type, known as "fine metal", was used for tableware. It consisted of tin with as much copper as it could absorb, which is about 1%. The second type,
Ancient Greek funerary vases East. Images from vases can provide information about religion, beliefs, and how people lived, including burial rites. Burial customs included washing and dressing the body in ointments before wrapping the body in a shroud and outer cloth. The body would then be laid upon a bier, or funeral bed, which gives form to the Greeks' association between sleep and death. Thanatos, the god of gentle death, can be seen on Greek funerary vases taking away the body of the deceased to the underworld. The act of laying out the body for mourners to see, called prothesis, is painted on the