Old World
In countries where ground suitable for burial was scarce, corpses would be interred for approximately five years following death, thereby allowing decomposition to occur. After this, the remains would be exhumed and moved to an ossuary or charnel house, thereby allowing the original burial place to be re-used. In modern times, the use of charnel houses is a characteristic of cultures living in rocky or arid places, such as the Cyclades archipelago and other Greek islands in the Aegean Sea.
Read more about this topic: Charnel House
Famous quotes containing the word world:
“The places we have known do not only belong to the world of space in which we situate them for the sake of simplicity. They were but a thin slice between contiguous impression which formed our lives back then; the memory of a certain image is but the regret of a certain instant; and the houses, the roads, the avenues are fleeting, alas! as the years.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“Things of this world are in so constant a flux, that nothing remains long in the same state.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)