Mourning

When someone died, there were a variety of rituals that allowed people to mourn.

As a sign of mourning, people would tear their clothes, sprinkle sand or ash on their heads and go barefoot.
Sometimes special mourning clothes were worn, a kind of sack made of rough material, or mourners wore other plain clothes, often made of a dark material. No jewellery was worn during the mourning period.
From the story of Tamar in Genesis 38 we can deduce that there was also special clothing for a widow.

Besides wearing mourning clothes, there were other rituals. People would sometimes fast, and would wail loudly while beating themselves on the breast. There were even special professional mourners in ancient times.

People in neighbouring cultures sometimes carved symbols into their skin or tattooed themselves. This was forbidden for the Israelites (Leviticus 19:27-28). Neither were the Israelites allowed to cut off their hair or beard as a sign of mourning.

The length of the mourning period was not fixed. It is likely that mourning lasted until the bones were collected for the ossuary, which was around a year after burial.