been to a funeral

...no-one terribly related, it got me wondering.

Why do we bury them 6 foot in the ground in a coffin.

ie why not just drop them in.

or cremate them?

why not stuff them and mount them or simply keep the skeleton in your living room?

seriously...what's the rationale behind our rituals? wot do people think?

 

It probably stems back to some spiritualism in our deep past, around the time of the long barrows.

In today's day and age, I say cremate.

 

I believe the idea of 6' down in a box came around because of disease such as bubonic plague. It was believed the disease lived on in the dead body, so burying deep in a box would keep the disease away.
Burying vs burning is now a personal choice, but i think religeous belief played a part in the decision in previous times.

 

No doubt there are religious reasons for burying, or internment as its called but really for most of the human existance planting someone was the only safe method of disposing of a body and ensuring it decomposes pretty quick. Cremating is a modern development in general terms due to the extraordinary heat needed to break a body down. Burying methods do change depending on religion ie kneeling to Mecca. Even throwing you overboard has its dangers, after WW2 bodies kept turning up on the beaches of France for years afterwards, still reasonably intact. I even found an article about an ex-US mafia don turning up on a beach in the US many years after he went to sleep with the fish, theres a pic on the net and he looked reasonably complete!

 

You can actually boil a body to a pulp but its a lengthy process.

 

Good question and a fascinating subject.
http://www.deathonline.net/disposal/burial/index.cfm

 

The strict RC doctrine that I was brought up on held that bodies had to be buried intact so that when the souls of the dead were reunited with their bodies on Judgement Day, the constituent parts of said bodies were in the same place, rather than scattered about the place. Thus RC's could not be cremated. But in these more liberal times (and also probably because RC graveyards are getting full) cremation is OK. Not sure about the coffin part of it though. As my late mother used to say if one of had a cough 'It's not the cough that carries you off, it's the coffin they carry you off in'.

 

apparently in the local cemetary here, the graves get waterlogged!! doesn't that mean the water could be polluted by goodness knows what?

I would have thought in this country in the cold earth the body doesn't break down that quick, probably quite cold 6 ft down? the police still get samples years later?

 

I wouldnt of thought it would be too bad 6ft down to be honest, I bet if you lived under 5ft of earth you wouldnt need central heating.

It would depend on what sort of waterlogging it is I would have thought, surface water wouldnt be a problem and if it was a rising water table then they would have to put drains in.

Taking sample is pretty easy these days. The wierd thing is that we never truely die (or at least not thought too for 100,000s of years), by that I mean the actual chemical structure stays around for many many many years. Its quite possible to get a full dna profile from the soil around a decomposed body. Scarey.

 

I had my dog cremated a few months ago. After keeping his ashes in the house for a while in a cupboard the wife and I decided to go and sprinkle him along the side of our favorite walk in the local forrest. Neither of us took our new dog down that particular path for quite some time. Several weeks later Imagine my wifes horror to see bits of our old dogs ashes, larger than life , sitting on top of the earth surrounded and intertwined with the lushest clump of green grass you ever did see.

 

This is somthing I am only willing to think about when I die.

 

We burried one of our cats that passed away age 7 in 2003. It was some how one of the most upsettings I have ever seen. Its amazing and frightening how close we get to our pets.

 

My previous cat was my mate for 18 years. I broke my heart at the vets, really bad, more so than when my mum died (very odd i know, but how it happened). I think for people who like cats/dogs its a strange effinity, they are a loving friend with no questions asked and no assumption or preconception.

 

think you hit the nail on the head there mate
________
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My Nans ashes were sprinkled around a tree in our back garden, boy did that tree grow. It actually went a bit too fast and was weakened so half got blown off in a storm, however it survived and is looking good. It's a reminder of her for the rest of the family and much nicer we think than a plaque or stone somewhere.

 

It seems to be a belief that continued for a long time, during WW2 an area of central Bristol was quite heavily bombed. It had been built over a mass grave from the bubonic plague. There was apparently, panic because people thought the plague would return due to the grave site being disturbed.

 

Someone told me that burial plots in Germany can be re-used after 100 years. Does anyone know about this?

 

Anyone seen "The big Lebowski"?

 

You'd have to put them on top, after 100 years in the ground you'd still be quite intact. Its quite common over here to be planted above your other-half, thats why they go 6ft. In ye-olde worlde the original use of a brass plate on the coffin lid was to identify how deep they were. Grave diggers would have a reasonably good idea of where the plate would be and would use an iron rod to drive through the ground to hit the plate, thus finding how close they were getting!

 

This thread is actually depressing beyond believe. Its hobsons choice really, I hate the idea of being burn't, but on the other hand I hate the idea of being burried as I would be rotting.

I really really really don't want to have to think about it, at my age you live for ever when I get older I will probably find it easier to accept to death.