13 hours ago, Mallard said:

Ah, now  - you Danes (if you call us Irish Brits, than I can call you Swedes Danes) 😉 also have a rich heritage! Thing is, you exported quite a bit of it all around northern Europe...

Ah, sorry about that mix-up. See now that your location is EIDW.. which isn't exactly the same as EGLL.. 

14 hours ago, birdguy said:

There are two graves under the runway at Savanah Airport,  The gravestones are embedded into the runway.

I think many roads and highways are built over grave sites along the Oregon and Santa Fe Trails.  People wo died along the way or were killed in Indian attacks were just buried on the spot with no caskets or permanent markers.  They just became part of the soil.

Noel

https://savannahairport.com/business/about/graves/

they are  still there

Central Expressway in Dallas Texas runs right over a cemetery:

https://dallascityhall.com/departments/sustainabledevelopment/historicpreservation/Pages/freedman_s_cemetery.aspx

a quote from the historical marker text : 

Construction of the Central Expressway through here in the 1930s virtually eliminated all physical above-ground reminders of the cemetery.
 

Edited October 17, 20214 yr by sightseer

This is a pretty timely post.  This evening I watched a 40 year old horror flick called Poltergeist.  About a modern subdivision built over a grave yard and in the end all the decomposing bodies a coffins spilling rotting bodies rise to the surface.

Which brings me to ask why we still put bodies in a coffin and put the coffin in the ground for the bodies to decay and rot in.  

"Hey Betty, some of the apples are turning rotten.  Put them in box and bury them in the back yard OK?"

Cremation is so much cleaner and space saving.  The ashes can be scattered to become one with the earth again and you don't need a few acres of real estate for a cemetery.

Both of my parents opted for cremation.  So did my brother.  And so will Betty and I when our time comes.

When my brother died last year he was cremated according to his wishes.  He was fully clothed in the clothes he was wearing when they picked him up at the long term care facility.  And he was put into a cardboard box fully clothed with a blanket over him from the chest down and fed right into the crematory.  A couple hours later he was scraped into a box and mailed to his sister-in-law who was going to hold a small service for him with his running friends in attendance and scatter his ashes in the Marin headlands overlooking the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Golden Gate Bridge to the east.

When one of my daughters died I had her cremated and scattered her ashes up in the Sacramento Mountains.

Of course some prefer the pomp and circumstance of a motorcade to the cemetery, pall bearers, a graveside service, an the lowering of the coffin into the ground with an entourage of mourners standing around.  Personally I don't attend such services anymore.  And morticians and undertakers tallying up the fees on their palm pilots.  "But, sir, this brass lined, water proof, 7,500 dollar coffin with hand carved angels on the side will keep your loved one looking fresh for at least two weeks.  And won't those hand carved angels look lovely as the casket is lowered into the ground."

Face it, a dead person is waste.  The person is long gone.  They left with the last gasp of air and beat of the heart.  We should treat body as that.  Waste.

I'll probably take some flak for this opinion but I think cremation is cleanest, least wasteful, way to go.  Burial is an archaic, barbaric, ceremony whose time has come.

Noel

 

Edited October 18, 20214 yr by birdguy

Burial customs and rites are just that. They always fit in the context of the society at the time. It used to be highly formalised who could go where and in which cirumstances, and most of that has been relaxed/abandoned in the western societies.

In your partictular case you might believe that one should simply tip the remains of grandma on the rubbish dump and be done with it all (environmental issues aside), but there are others who may want to take other measures - and why deny them that? Oh, and by the way - the remains I dug up after 1500 years had to most of the part also "become one with the earth" again, so that's no argument against a full-body burial. (And before anyone asks - almost 100% of the remains unearthed during archaeological excavations are reburied in a modern cemetery after anthropological examinations, especially if we know that they came from a society that followed Christian traditions).

Cheers

Mallard

I suspect, Mallard, that the remains you dug up after 1500 years were not in a coffin.  How does a corpse become one with the earth if it is boxed up?

Funny you should mention rubbish dump.  When the young lady from the funeral home to the house and sold my wife and I our burial expense insurance asked what we wanted done with our ashes my wife wanted hers scattered in the desert outside of Tucson where she was born.  I told her for all I cared my ashes could be sent to the local land fill.  That's all they are anymore, ashes.

Cremated remains are mostly dry calcium phosphates with some minor minerals, such as salts of sodium and potassium. Sulfur and most carbon are driven off as oxidized gases during the process, although about 1% -4% of carbon remains as carbonate.

I think it's the cleanest way to go.  Although some people are now opting for a biodegradable bag instead of a coffin so the indeed do become 'one with the earth' again.  We know a lady who was buried this way.

Noel

In several of the graves there were still traces of the wooden coffins, which actually had us quite excited and were a pain to document and retrieve. Of course they rot and decompose in the soil, just like the human remains do. Even the base of my garden fence is almost completely gone, and that's only 20 years old 😉

In fairness - arid/desert environments are naturally something else, but as soon as there is a fair amount of moisture in the ground, then wood's a gonner (and another "unless": unless the ground is thoroughly saturated with water, then it preserves wood and other organic material - which is why it's a mixed blessing, when we get to excavate medieval latrines. Fantastic things to be found there, but - man! - the stink!)

 

Cheers

 

Mallard

How long ago did they start to use coffins?

Noel

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

How does a corpse become one with the earth if it is boxed up?

It should happen naturally with a wooden coffin but I don't know about the plastic (polyurethane?) caskets or those buried inside a concrete liner. I have seen several of these concrete liners at our local cemetery. 

Edited October 18, 20214 yr by dmwalker

10 hours ago, birdguy said:

I'll probably take some flak for this opinion but I think cremation is cleanest, least wasteful, way to go.  Burial is an archaic, barbaric, ceremony whose time has come.

I agree Noel. My wish is to be cremated, and then have my mom's, dad's and my ashes scattered together. There's absolutely no point in spending the money for a casket and burial plot, given that there's no one left to care one way or another! 🙄

24 minutes ago, n4gix said:

given that there's no one left to care one way or another!

I think, for most folks, there would be children, grandchildren, close relatives, etc, who would care and would like there to be a formal place of remembrance. I have seen small groups of people at our local cemetery gathering and bringing collapsible camping seats and having a small meal at the gravesite. I am not sure why burial would be considered barbaric.

I saw a service advertised on local news about being cremated and then mixed with cement or something similar to turn your ashes into a decorative shape which then gets dropped into the water just off coast to become a place for coral to grow and fish to enjoy.  Sounds awesome to me.

Eternal Reefs I think it must be from a quick Google search.

Edited October 18, 20214 yr by sightseer

While cremation is the cheapest way to go it's not that cheap Fr Bill.  It cost over 2700.00 dollars to cremate my brother.  The state cremation permit was 150.00.  Sales tax 180.00.  Everyone has a piece of the action even in death.

Dugald, a body rotting away in a coffin seems barbaric to me.  But it certainly is big business for undertakers. There's no reason a remembrance dinner could not be held at home or some nice outdoor setting.  It doesn't need to be over a rotting corpse.  

Noel

 

Edited October 18, 20214 yr by birdguy

7 minutes ago, sightseer said:

then mixed with cement or something similar to turn your ashes into a decorative shape

Or you could turn them into a statue of yourself and stick it in your back garden, or even at your front door.

I think it was Carol Burnett who once said she'd like to be cremated and have her ashes scattered over Steve McQueen, who was still alive and very popular at that time.

Edited October 18, 20214 yr by dmwalker

1 hour ago, birdguy said:

While cremation is the cheapest way to go it's not that cheap Fr Bill. 

Well, fortunately for me, the VA will handle this on my behalf. Alternatively, whoever undertakes the disposition of my remains can sue my non-existent estate!  🤣