Death and Culture - Settlement of Dead Bodies

Settlement of Dead Bodies

In most cultures, after the last offices have been performed and before the onset of significant decay, relations or friends arrange ritual disposal of the body, usually either cremation or interment in a tomb. Cremation is a very old and quite common custom. For some people, the act of cremation exemplifies the belief of the Christian concept of "ashes to ashes". Other modes of disposal include interment in a grave, or interment of the body in a sarcophagus, crypt, sepulchre, or ossuary, a mound or barrow, or a monumental surface structure such as a mausoleum (exemplified by the Taj Mahal) or a pyramid (as exemplified by the Great Pyramid of Giza).

One method of corpse disposal is sky burial, which involves placing the body of the deceased on high ground (a mountain) and leaving it for birds of prey to dispose of, as in Tibet. In some religious views, birds of prey are carriers of the soul to the heavens. Such practice may also have originated from pragmatic environmental issues, such as conditions in which the terrain (as in Tibet) is too stony or hard to dig, or in which there are few trees around to burn. As the local religion of Buddhism, in the case of Tibet, believes that the body after death is only an empty shell, there are more practical ways than burial of disposing of a body, such as leaving it for animals to consume.

Since ancient times in some cultures, efforts have been made to retard the body's decay processes before burial (resulting sometimes in the retardation of decay processes after the burial), as in mummification or embalming. This process may be done before, during or after a funeral ceremony.

Many funeral customs exist in different cultures. In some fishing or marine communities, mourners may put the body into the water, in what is known as burial at sea. Several mountain villages have a tradition of hanging the coffin in woods.

Many cultures have locations in which graves are usually grouped together in a plot of land, called a cemetery or graveyard. Burials can be arranged by a funeral home, mortuary, undertaker or by a religious body such as a church or the community's burial society, a charitable or voluntary body charged with these duties.

A late 20th century alternative is ecological burial. This is a sequence of deep-freezing, pulverisation by vibration, freeze-drying, removing metals, and burying the resulting powder, which has 30% of the body mass.

Cryonics is the process of cryopreservating of a body to liquid nitrogen temperature to stop the natural decay processes that occur after death. Those practicing cryonics hope that future technology will allow the legally dead person to be restored to life when and if science is able to cure all disease, rejuvenate people to a youthful condition and repair damage from the cryopreservation process itself. As of 2007, there were over 150 people in some form of cryopreservation at one of the two largest cryonics organizations, Alcor Life Extension Foundation and the Cryonics Institute.

Space burial uses a rocket to launch the cremated remains of a body into orbit. This has been done at least 150 times.

In some nations whole body donations have been encouraged by medical schools to be used in medical education and similar training, and in research. In the United States, these gifts, along with organ donations, are governed by the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. In addition to wishing to benefit others, individuals might choose to donate their bodies to avoid the cost of funeral arrangements; however, willed body programs often encourage families to make alternative arrangements for burial if the body is not accepted.