Manorfire

Source - BBC - Click on the link for a picture of the teeth, if you're interested!

The St Pancras excavation was something of an archaeological cause celebre, as the archaeologists were only able to remove some of the bodies before the contractors moved in to bulldoze the site. This lead to protests of disrespect, which forced them to agree to re-inter the remaining bodies. The problem wasn't a lack of regulations protecting the site, but that the contractors were deliberately ignoring them to save time and 'you guessed it'... English law states a statutory obligation that excavated/exhumed remains are always respected, regardless of how old they are.

Anyway, given the finite quantity of land available for new developments, plots such as disused graveyards are being sold off and redeveloped in the UK (by disused I mean their populations are no longer being added to). The first part of my pondering is just how unused should a graveyard be before it is OK to build on it?

Secondly, when a cemetery is redeveloped, usually the previous occupants are relocated to an ossuary in another cemetery. While this disturbance takes place, is it alright for any grave contents to be removed and handed or sold to museums etc? After all, I guess the Archbishop isn't going to need his false teeth anymore! Does your opinion depend on how old the grave is or how important the grave's contents are?

Some would argue that we have learned greatly from the foreign culture grave goods now littering museums (Egyptian, Greek, Roman etc). Indeed, some museums exhibit the ancient remains, tombs and burials themselves. I have to say, I winced when I saw the body of one Egyptian King on display in 'The Louvre'. He was laying awkwardly on a small platform, protected by glass, nude but for a bit of cloth draped over his hips. I kind of felt sorry for him, stripped of his ornate wrappings and all of his treasures. I would not want my Grandma on similar display no matter how much could be learned...

Seaver

I never liked the idea of sanctity of graves. Why? Because at best it's a made up sanctity.

Historically in Europe graves are only allotted for about 40 years (long enough for people who knew said person IRL to effectively die (or at least lose interest in visiting said person). Then their bodies were dug up, put in a crypt and a new person was laid in the place.

Here in America we have gravesites sold which are intended to last hundreds of years, with waterproof concrete emplacements. This is retarded, IMO, as it is a waste of space and funds which would be put to much better use as college funds or something.

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"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

Gilda

I've never quite understood the idea of being so vigilant about preserving bodies. Embalming, airtight caskets, concrete lined graves. Sure, we should be respectful in how we handle the dead out of respect for those who were close to them, but long term preservation seems a bit silly to me, as does treating graves as sacred. Once a person dies, the body is no longer that person, but more like an empty container.

I've never been to my sister's grave. What's left of her body in that casket isn't her. When I need to feel connected to her, I revisit the memories of the two of us together, sometimes using pictures, and sometimes artifacts like drawings or craft projects we made together. I suppose it's a bit easier for me to feel connected in this way because we were twins; I get to see a big part of her in myself every time I look in the mirror.

If someone were to retask the graveyard where she's buried for some other purpose, it wouldn't bother me. That thing in the ground isn't Katie; she's gone and always will be.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

ShaniFaye

if you're a person that doesnt care about that kind of stuff then be cremated and dont take up the space.

I was brought up to respect graves, I think digging someone up is not right...but them im still one of those that tries really hard not to step on the grave when I visit them for my genealogy research.

it could also be I've had a very emotional weekend concerning some of my long dead relatives and the thoughts of someone digging up graves pisses the ever living hell out of me

Its obvioulsy still very important to a lot of people as evidenced by the "decoration" weekends where older cemetaries are cleaned and weeded and cut back and flowers and decorations are replaced

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Willravel

Slowing the rate of flesh decay is a waste of time and also isn't great for the environment. Let the decomposers do their work and let the person's body reenter the cycle of life faster. I like the idea of being put in the ground, covered in cloth, and have a tree planted above me (a la The Fountain).

As for the sanctity issue, who cares? It's not like Deady McDeadson is going to complain to the concierge if someone scrolls across their grassy surface. Whether you are religious or not, the person is no longer alive.

Ourcrazymodern?

The dead need no further protection unless their survivors are fantasizing about (something). I think cemetaries are a shameless waste of valuable real estate and that morticians are creepy.
I guess everybody needs to make a living.
I'll be ashes when I'm done with this shell.

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BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Cynthetiq

If you look at a map of NYC and look in the borough of Queens you'll find Calvary, New Calvary, Mt. Zion, Mt. Olivet, Lutheran, St. John's, Mt. Hebron, Evergreen, Mt. Carmel, Mt. Lebanon, and Cypress Hills Cemeteries. The value of the land is quite high and total acreage is astounding.

The cemetaries are quite close to the city depriving many from reasonable commutes to work in exchange for those possible loved ones the ease of nearby graves to visit several times a year.

Personally, I don't get it and see it as an extension of vanity of self trying to preserve the last bits of their humanity.

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Daniel_

The Victorians ran out or grave sites in London, and started burrying people on top of those already dead.

It lead to all manner of public health problems, and so they designated HUGE out of town cemetaries - designed to be big enough for "all time", like Highgate Cem'y (final resting place of Karl Marx I seem to recall).

Guess what - they're full, and after only ~150 years.

As far as I'm aware, there is no clear statement in scripture that you MUST have your body to get salvation, although there are some passages that rest on interpretation.

I think we should revere the graves of the fallen in war and so on, as they are markers for their sacrifice. I revere the symbols of their life, not the evidence of their death.

I have no faith in any supernatural entities (God, the Devil, Cookie Monster, etc) but I have respect for those that do, and out of that respect I try to honour the rites that are expected - such as not walking on graves, taking my hat off in Church, putting my hat on in Synagogue, taking my shoes off in a Mosque and so on.

Oddly enough, the last vestige of my Church school upbringing causes me to light candles "in memoriam" whenever I visit a Church that has the facility - but I do that to help me focus on their memory, not to carry my prayers to heaven...

The dead are dead. Treat their remains with respect, but move them to a place where nobody needs the land for a railway line.

When I'm dead you can bury me at sea - it'll show my ex-wife that I mean business - she threatened to dance on my grave.

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╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

ziadel

I like to think that the dead now see things in a way that makes them not really care what happens to their mortal remains.

It's really for our sake, not for theirs, I personally dont feel much sanctity to a grave... other than for living relatives, I dont think they mean much.

__________________
Ron Paul '08
Vote for Freedom
Go ahead and google Dr. Ron Paul. You'll like what you read.

little_tippler

Until recently in Portugal, you were not allowed to take your loved ones' ashes home. They had to stay in a vault at the Cemetery. That's what happened to my dad's ashes. So there was no space saving going on here as a result of cremation.

Now that it's finally allowed, I suppose cremation saves space. I would like to be cremated myself. From a young age, the thought of my loved ones or myself slowly decomposing and being eaten by "things" in the ground gave me the creeps. It still does. I think nowadays cremation makes a lot more sense.

I think though, that cemeteries that have existed for a long time, as a result of the more traditional practice of burial, should not be built over. Yes I know they are "valuable real-estate" and all that, but I just think it's wrong. I'm not religious and it's nothing to do with sanctity of the place to me. I just findi t disrespectful. Yes they're dead bodies, shells of people who were once living and loved by others. Call me old-fashioned or corny but cemeteries are really pleasant and peaceful places and it's actually nice that there is somewhere in the middle of our busy and driven lives that we can go to and contemplate things or just stand near to where our loved ones are buried.

Even though my father was cremated I found it reassuring that he was in the cemetery and I could go there to be alone with my thoughts and close to him, in a sense. Because if you are cremated and your ashes are spread somewhere, you don't really have a "place" to go to.

I've never been a very spiritual person but I feel that I would not like to be living in a place that is built over a former burial ground. How about you?

All my arguments may be irrational, but there they are.

__________________
Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.

Fernando Pessoa, 1918

Charlatan

Once you are dead the body is just a shell. I could care less what happens to my flesh once I am dead. Why should I? Death is the end of the line. There is no afterlife. The only remaining value is nutritional. Feed it to the worms and larvae... or better yet, the Tiger at the zoo.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

warrrreagl

I'm with you on this one. Graves are as much a reflection on our culture as any human expression - asking the purpose of a grave is like asking for the purpose of music. Logically, both of them are wastes. Yet graves are what they are, and some of us feel strongly about them.

Grancey and I used to spend a lot of time exploring cemeteries, and we uncovered several things about them.
1) Almost everyone in our explored cemeteries is buried facing east - a grave turned north-south depicts someone who died in severe disfavor.
2) Seashells are symbols of freedom and can be found as decorations on slaves' graves
3) Other grave decorations include toys that represent what the person was fond of doing in life
4) People who don't have much money learn how to "make do" with whatever grave decorations they can find - including upsidedown coke bottles buried around graves as a border
5) Historical epidemics are easy to track by looking at the clustering of infant death dates in old cemeteries

And so on and so forth. Every cemetery we explored yielded tons of insight into an earlier time. I'm sad that Western culture keeps hitting a point where heart and humanity must be apologized for and explained.

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

Bill O'Rights

Ah...a fellow taphophile.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

Charlatan

Another key point to think about is that graves are really there for the living and not the dead.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

ShaniFaye

hey now....I didnt get that comment lol

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

highthief

For some people that is true, however mankind has gone to great lengths over the last few thousand years, in many cultures, to preserve the body in as intact a fashion as possible.

But as far as graves being for the living and with respect to ancient graves - I personally get more out of seeing history (as evidenced by many ancient graveyards, especially in Europe) than I do from seeing another car park or shopping mall.

So in that respect, I agree.

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Si vis pacem parabellum.

Willy

*IS* there a religious motivation for treating corpses as sacred? I don't recall any Christian doctrine about corpses. The idea of Christianity is that when someone dies their soul leaves their bodies and goes to heaven, so who cares what happens to the corpse? I know some native Americans believed that corpses were sacred, but is there any modern religion with strong beliefs about the treatment of bodies?

I have never understood the preservation of bodies either. It always seemed like the funeral home industry preying on the emotions/guilt of the families of the departed to me, but maybe that's just me being cynical. Spending thousands of dollars on a casket and a concrete vault and embalming etc. just seems wasteful and silly to me.

Val_1

I do care about what happens to my body once I die. I specifically do NOT want it preserved. I want it to rot away and not take up space. I'm not holy now that I'm alive, I'm certainly not going to suddenly become holy once I'm dead. .

__________________

I feel sorry for people who don't drink. When they wake up in the morning, that's as good as they're going to feel all day.

-Frank Sinatra

Seaver

Depends. According to Medieval Catholic interpretation the body could not ascend to heaven if it were not A) Intact, and B) Facing East towards the rising sun on Judgment day.

And the whole immediate spirit journey to heaven is pretty recent. Until fairly recently your spirit still went to hell regardless of how holy you were. If you were just and right, however, the ribcage of Abraham would encase you preventing the torment to which the damned would be subject to.

__________________
"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

host

<b>Pardon me....I'm presenting the following in an attempt to persuade some of you to consider my "conversion" regarding the study of my familoy history, in the last two years. Prior to that time, I had only a mild interest. Consider seeking information about your ancestry, and leaving a grave and a headstone for your descendants to come across at some distant, future date.</b><br>

My ancestors left me a legacy that I've only become of aware of in the last few years. For my first 37 years, I lived near the graves of "great great" through gggggggggg-grandfathers who I had no knowledge, of, and now, I do. I was fortunate enough to remember the bits of info about my late mother's family that she passed along to me, and use it to discover that an unknown third cousin had researched most of our family tree on my mother's side.

I never knew that I would have a greater and more settled sense of who I was and where I was going, if I had more knowledge of those who had come before me. Now, because I dicovered and visited these amcestors' graves, just a year ago and paid my respect as I stood in the same spots where they once mourned the losses of their father's and their children, I feel more centered, humbled, part of something. I'm trying to pass this newly acquired awareness to my own son, and he seems receptive.

My ancestors left me with roots, I see no reason to do differently than they did:
<center><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/johncurt.jpg"><br>Memorial Stone of my GGGGGGGGGG-grandfather and grandmother, John (1577 - 1639) & Elizabeth<br>
<a href= "http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/b/r/i/Cathy-F-Brinkman/BOOK-0001/0003-0008.html#ENDNOTEREF100">Link to 1736 Last Will and Testament of the son of John Curtis (1611 - 1707) & Elizabeth Wells, my GGGGGGGG-grandfather, Thomas Curtiss (1648 - 1736) </a><br><br>
<b>THe following is a picture of the cemetery where Benjamin Curtiss, son of Thomas Curtiss's son, Nathaniel (1677 - 1763) is buried:</b><br><br>
<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/bencurtis.jpg" HEIGHT=500 WIDTH=650><br>Broken dark tombstone in left center of field is my GGGGGG-grandfather's Benjamin (1703 - !754) He was GG-grandson of John, above. His grave was the first that I visited. <b>His was one of the first graves in the cemetery. No one was buried there in the last 150 years because the water table was too high. The burying ground was maintained all those years, allowing me the opportunity to "discover" it and to pay my respects, in 2005.</b><br><br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/firstp008.jpg"><br><br>My GGGGG-grandfather, Abel (1729 - 1797) , son of Benjamin, and a patriot who fought in the revolutionary war:<br>
<img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/firstp021.jpg"><br>My GGG-grandfather, Orrin, (1800 - 1881) he was Grandson of Abel, and my GGG-grandmother, Sally<br><br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/secndp003.jpg"><br>
Sally's father, Thomas Bristol Jr. (1769 - 1814), My GGGG-grandfather<br><br>
<a href="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/johnhull.jpg">Link to tombstone picture of Sally's GGG-grandfather, my GGGGGGGG-grandfather, Dr. John Hull, (1640 - 1711) "A Beloved Physician"</a>
<br><br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/hillside.jpg" HEIGHT=487 WIDTH=650><br>Grave of Thomas Bristol Jr. is on the left, about three tombstones from the far brownstone gate. His father, my GGGGG-grandfather, Thomas Bristol (1741 - 1808), a patriot who fought in the revolutionary war, and his wife, my GGGGG-grandmother, Eunice Parker, are buried directly across the road, in the second row.<br><br><img src="http://home.comcast.net/~qvc/williamo.jpg"><br>William (1839 - 1908) Orrin and Sally's son, my GG-grandfather, and his second wife, Nellie</center>

<b>Connecticut is the third smallest state in area, just over 5000 square miles. A full inventory of the cemeteries in the state was conducted in the 1930's as a WPA project, and the microfilm of the records is available to order, free, at the Mormon histroy centers located all over the US. You can also search for ancestors at their free site, here: www.familysearch.org. I found the genealogy of my family that led me to the information in this post, here: http://wc.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi / You can search for graves and cemetery info here: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gs& My ancestors were buried in graves in cemeteries, they've left a rich heritage for future generations, and when I die, my wish is to follow their examples. </b>

ShaniFaye

host, Im really glad to see that someone else has expressed feeling the exact same way I do, I hope you took the time to read my family history post in the tilted living forum

GREAT pictures and great links.....isnt it just THE most fantstic thing when you find things like that?

Along with the genealogy sites you posted I would just like to add that a membership to ancestry.com is worth every single solitary penny I've spent on them. I remember back in the days when you actually had to go to the county where you thought they lived and spend days with the microfilm machine to read the census reports hehehe

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

warrrreagl

host, I thank you, too.

One glorious, sunny afternoon several years ago, Grancey and I followed my now-deceased grandmother and her sister through a family cemetery and I learned WWWAAAYYY more about myself and my family's roots than I could have ever imagined. We were totally captivated listening to the two of them tell stories that were unparalleled. It was a day that I can never reproduce and I will cherish always (I am forever indebted to Grancey for arranging it). As Carl Sagan would have said, that day solidified my voice in the cosmic fugue, and it left me with more of a sense of belonging than anything else I can think of.

Grancey and I will soon build a new home near an old, tiny cemetery that interns many of her ancestors going back to the 1700s, and it feels - right.

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Living is easy with eyes closed.

Glory's Sun

For me, it's a waste of space. I understand where others are coming from, but for me I couldn't care less about my family history. They were who they were and they died. Some of them may have done something significant but that will have no bearing on how I live my life. It certainly won't have any bearing on my death either.

ShaniFaye

Well for the people that ARE interested I just made this thread

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=112118

please, if you're NOT into this kind of stuff just ignore it, there is no need to tell everyone you have no respect or interest in your family history. To a lot of people this IS a passion.

(just for clarification...the above remark pertains to the thread I started, not THIS one)

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Charlatan

Shani

That's not quite fair. This thread posed a question that people are answering in their own way. There are a many differing opinions and I would hate to see any of those opinions squashed just because someone didn't agree with them.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

ShaniFaye

(I said in the OTHER thread I made....not this one)

__________________
I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Charlatan

Fair enough... Just striving for clarity.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke