Chamber Fragment, Domestic Site 44, Late Screen Age.
Excavation of the smaller sealed rooms has at last confirmed what we long suspected: the Ancients practiced a daily rite of ritual weeping, conducted alone, in a chamber built expressly for it. We designate this chamber the lacrimatorium.
Note the construction. A stall barely large enough for one standing body, walled in a translucent panel the Ancients called shower-glass, so that the weeper might be seen in silhouette but never clearly, a privacy of grief. From above descends the falling-head, a metal bloom pierced with many holes, through which the sacred waters were released. The floor slopes toward a single drain, engineered to carry the sorrow away. Nothing here was built for comfort. Everything was built for release.
We know the rite was solitary and frequent, likely performed at both the waking hour and the sleeping hour, for the residue analysis reveals traces of scented unguents, applied to the hair and body as offerings. The Ancients did not merely weep; they anointed themselves first. The small niche in the wall held these ointments, arrayed by rank, the largest vessel closest to the falling-head, marking the household's chief mourner.
Most telling is the wear. The floor is worn smooth in exactly one place, the size of two standing feet, proving that generation upon generation returned to precisely the same spot to grieve. We have found singing residue too, a curious acoustic quality to these tiled chambers, and we believe the Ancients raised their voices here, alone, where no one could judge the song.
Picture them, then: a people so burdened by their glowing rectangles and ceremonial exhaustion that they required a private room, warm water, and daily sanctioned tears simply to remain upright. They were not a hardened race.
They were a people who wept on schedule, and built shrines to make the weeping bearable.