In the anthropology of religion, a funerary cult is a body of religious teaching and practice centered on the dead, in which the living are thought to be able to confer benefits on the dead in the afterlife or to appease their otherwise wrathful ghosts. Rituals were carried on for the benefit of the dead, either by their relatives or by a class of priests appointed and paid to perform the rites. These rituals took place at the tombs of the dead themselves or at funerary temples appointed to this purpose. Funerary cults are found in a wide variety of cultures.