Burial, also called interment and (when applied to human burial) inhumation, is the act of placing a
person or object into the ground. Usually, this is accomplished by digging a pit or trench, placing the person or object in it,
and refilling it with the soil that was dug out of it.
Objects are sometimes buried in order to hide them against removal or tampering. For cables and pipelines, burial provides protection and allows the convenience of
walking or driving over them.
People are often buried after they die, for a variety of reasons. The rest of this
article discusses human burial.
Reasons for human burial
Rotting corpses emit unpleasant odors (due to gases released by bacterial decomposition) and look gruesome. Burial prevents
the living from having to see and smell the corpses. However, contrary to conventional wisdom, the WHO advises that corpses are not actually dangerous
unless a person died from an infectious disease; corpses
resulting from death by trauma (for instance, from natural disasters) are unpleasant but are not a public health issue. [1] (http://slate.msn.com/id/1003473/)
[2] (http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/29/quake.corpses/index.html)
Many cultures insist on respect for the dead. This has
several facets to it:
- Respect for the physical remains is considered necessary. If left lying on top of the ground, animals may eat the corpse,
which is considered highly disrespectful to the deceased in many (but not all) cultures.
- Burial can be seen as an attempt to bring closure to
the deceased's companions. By interring a body away from plain view, the pain of losing a loved one to death can likewise be
lessened.
- Many cultures believe in an afterlife. Burial is often believed to be a
necessary step for an individual to reach the afterlife.
Burial practices
In many human cultures throughout history, human corpses were usually buried in soil. Burial grounds have been uncovered all over the world. Mounds of earth, temples, and underground
caverns were used to store the dead bodies of ancestors. In modern times, the
custom of burying dead people below ground with a stone marker to mark the place is used in almost every culture.
Different cultures bury their dead in different ways. Some of these practices are heavily ritualized; others are simply practical.
Prevention of decay
Embalming is the practice of preserving a body against decay, and is used in
many cultures. Mummification is a form of embalming that is often more extensive, further
retarding the decay process.
Bodies are often buried wrapped in a shroud or placed in a coffin (also called a casket). A larger container may be used, such as a ship. Coffins are usually covered by a burial liner
or a burial vault, which protects the coffin from collapsing under the
weight of the earth.
These containers slow the decomposition process by (partially) physically blocking decomposing bacteria and other organisms from accessing the corpse. An additional benefit of using containers to hold
the body is that if the soil covering the corpse is washed away by a flood or some other
natural process, the corpse will still not be exposed to open air. This is a great help to maintaining hygiene.
In some cultures however the goal is not to preserve the body but to allow it to decompose - or return to the Earth -
naturally. In Orthodox Judaism embalming is not permitted, and the
coffins are constructed so that the body will be returned to the Earth as soon as possible. Such coffins are made of wood, and
have no metal parts at all. Wooden pegs are used in the place of nails. Followers of the Islamic faith also prefer to bury their deceased so as not to delay decomposition. Normally, instead of using
coffins the deceased are buried in a shroud, and the bodies of the deceased are not normally embalmed.
Inclusion of clothing and personal effects
The body may be dressed in fancy and/or ceremonial clothes. Personal objects, such as a favorite piece of jewelery or
photograph, of the deceased may be included with the body. This practice, also known as the inclusion of grave goods, serves several purposes:
- In funeral services, the body is often put on display. Many cultures feel that
the deceased should be presented looking his/her finest.
- The inclusion of ceremonial garb and sacred objects is sometimes viewed as necessary for getting to the afterlife.
- Though not generally a motivation for the inclusion of grave goods with a corpse, it is worth considering that future
archaeologists may find the remains. Artifacts such as clothing and objects provide insight into
how the individual lived. This provides a form of immortality for the
deceased.
Body positioning
Burials may be placed in a number of different positions. Christian
burials are made extended, i.e., lying flat with arms and legs straight, or with the arms folded upon the chest, and with
the eyes and mouth closed. Extended burials may be supine (lying on the back) or prone (lying on the front). Other
ritual practices place the body in a flexed position with the legs bent or
crouched with the legs folded up to the chest. Many cultures treat placement of dead people in an appropriate position to
be a sign of respect even when burial is impossible.
In nonstandard burial practices, such as mass burial, the body may be positioned arbitrarily. This is a sign of disrespect to the deceased, or at least
nonchalance on the part of the inhumer.
Marking the location of the burial
Most modern cultures mark the location of the body with a headstone. This
serves two purposes. First, the grave will not accidentally be
exhumed. Second, headstones often contain information or tributes to deceased. This is a form of remembrance for loved
ones; it can also be viewed as a form of immortality, especially in cases of
famous people's graves. Such Monumental Inscriptions
may subsequently be useful to genealogists and family historians.
Multiple bodies per grave
Some couples or groups of people want to be buried together, for example, a husband and wife. Since (in many cases) people die at different times, the exhumation of the first to die
is often necessary. In other cases, the bodies may simply be buried side by side. Or if there was advanced planning the first
person buried will be at a greater depth so that the second person can be buried on top at a shallower depth.
Mass burial is the practice of
burying dozens, hundreds, or thousands of individuals in one massive pit, much like a landfill for human remains. Most cultures view mass burial as a way of objectifying corpses, and is often viewed as a form of gross disrespect to the individuals being buried.
Civilizations attempting genocide often employ mass burial for the people they kill
in the genocide, as it coincides neatly with their goals of dehumanizing and destroying a segment of the population.
However, in some cases, mass burial is the only practical means of dealing with a number of corpses sufficient to overwhelm
local resources, as in a disaster.
In cases of mass burial, it is commonly of importance to survivors to later have the bodies exhumed, identified, and buried
properly.
Cremation
In cremation the body of the deceased is burned in a special oven. Most of the
body is vaporized during the cremation process, leaving only a few pounds of bone fragements. Often these fragments are processed
into a fine powder, which has led to cremated remains being called ashes. In recent times, cremation has become an
increasingly popular option in the western world.
There is far greater flexibility in dealing with the remains in cremation as opposed to the traditional burial. Some of the
options include scattering the ashes on the ground or in a body of water, or keeping the ashes at home. Ashes can also be buried
either underground or in a columbarium niche. For followers of some
religions, such as Roman Catholicism, cremation is permitted but the
ashes must be buried or entombed following services.
Live burial
Live burial sometimes occurs, in
which individuals are buried while still alive. Having no way of escaping interment, they die in place, typically by asphyxiation, dehydration, starvation, or (in cold climates) exposure. People may come to be buried alive in a number of different ways:
- An individual may be intentionally buried alive as a method of execution or murder.
- In Ancient Egypt, servants were sometimes intentionally buried alive
with their Pharaoh in order to serve him/her in the afterlife.
- A person or group of people in a cave, mine, or other underground area may be sealed underground due to an earthquake or other natural
disaster.
- People have been unintentionally buried alive because they were pronounced dead by a
coroner or other official, when they were in fact still alive. Scratch marks have
been found on the inside of coffins, attesting to the fact that unintentional live
burials do occasionally occur in cases where the body has not been embalmed.
Burial of animals
By humans
In addition to burying human remains, many human cultures also regularly bury animal remains. This is often necessary for
hygienic reasons when the body cannot be disposed of in another way.
Pets and other animals of emotional significance are often ceremonially buried. Most
families bury deceased pets on their own properties, mainly in a yard, with a shoe box or any other type of container served as
a coffin. The Ancient Egyptians
are known to have mummified and buried cats, which
they considered deities.
-
By other animals
Humans are not the only species to bury their dead. Chimpanzees and elephants are known to throw leaves and branches over fallen members of their family
groups.
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Exhumation
The digging up of a buried body is called exhumation, and is considered sacrilege by most cultures that bury their dead. However, there is often a number of circumstances in which
exhumation is tolerated:
- If an individual died under suspicious circumstances, a legitimate investigating agency (such as a police agency) may exhume the body to determine the cause of death.
- A body may be exhumed so that it may be reburied elsewhere.
- Once human remains reach a certain age, many cultures consider the remains to have no communal provenance, making exhumation acceptable. This serves several purposes:
- Many cemeteries have a limited number of plots in which to bury the dead. Once
all plots are full, older remains are typically moved to an ossuary to accommodate
more bodies.
- It enables archaeologists to search for human remains in order to better
understand human culture.
- It enables construction agencies to clear the way for new
infrastructure.
Frequently, cultures have different sets of exhumation taboos. Occasionally these
differences result in conflict, especially in cases where a culture with more lenient exhumation rules wishes to operate on the
territory of a stricter culture. For example, United States construction companies have run into conflict with Native American groups that wanted to preserve their ancient burial grounds from any form of modern
construction.
In folklore and mythology, exhumation has also been frequently associated with the performance of rites to banish undead manifestations. An example is the Mercy Brown Vampire Incident of Rhode
Island, which occurred in 1892.
Alternatives to burial
Not all cultures bury their dead, and many of those that do bury their dead do not
do so in all cases. Alternatives include:
- Burial at sea is the practice of depositing the body in an ocean or other large body of water instead of soil.
- Cannibalism is the practice of eating the remains.
- Cremation is the incineration of the remains.
- Cryopreservation is the cold storage of the remains.
- Ecological funeral is a proposed method of increasing the
rate of decomposition in order to help fertilize the soil.
- Excarnation is the practice of removing the flesh from the corpse without
interment.
- Butchering the corpse by hand to remove the flesh.
- Sky burial involves placing the
body on a mountaintop.
- Gibbeting is the practice of publicly displaying remains of criminals to deter
others from becoming criminals.
- Space burial is the practice of firing the coffin into space. The coffin may be placed into orbit, sent off into interstellar space, or
incinerated in the sun. Space burial is still largely in the realm of science fiction as the cost of getting a body up into space is currently prohibitively large.
In most cases, these alternatives still maintain respect for
the dead. In fact, some of the more elaborate alternatives are employed by some cultures to show increased respect for
the deceased. Gibbeting is a notable exception, showing a complete lack of respect.
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