#burial

 Lenochka Nox Photography

The Kingston Anglo-Saxon Brooch, 600 to 625 CE, The World Museum, Liverpool

After his long and happy reign, Tjelvar died an old and content man. He was loved by all and buried in a ship-shaped grave. These stone ship burial sites, also called "ship settings" are found throughout Scandinavia and were usually built during the Viking era starting in the late 8th century. But Tjelevar's Grave on Gotland is unique in that it's more than a thousand years older than most stone ships, dating all the way back to the Nordic Bronze Age. Archeologists have dated the burial monument from between 1100 and 500 BC. In the 1930s, several pots were found inside the ship that contained the burned and crushed remains of the person buried there—whoever they may be.

The bones of some 5,000 souls cling to the walls and pillars of Évora’s Bone Chapel, raised in the late 16th century by Franciscan hands. Beneath its dim arches, hollow eyes seem to watch as the inscription above the door whispers its grim welcome: “We bones that are here, await yours.”- Évora, Portugal.

Scotland is making history in end-of-life care. As of this year, families there now have a third option alongside burial and traditional cremation: alkaline hydrolysis, more commonly known as water cremation. It’s already legal in the Republic of Ireland and across much of the United States, and the company leading its UK introduction is calling it the biggest change to cremation law since the practice was first regulated in 1902. [...] The numbers here are notable. A standard cremation produces the equivalent of roughly 320 kilograms (about 705 pounds) of carbon dioxide. Alkaline hydrolysis emits seven times less. For families weighing their environmental footprint as part of end-of-life planning, that gap is significant. It’s worth noting that water cremation was the method chosen by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, when he died in 2021. Public Health Minister Jenni Minto described the process as “an environmentally friendly alternative” to existing options, adding: “The choices people make about their remains prior to death are deeply personal, shaped by individual values, beliefs and the wishes of their families. The process will be subject to the same assurances and regulatory requirements as existing methods, giving bereaved families confidence that their loved ones are treated with care, dignity and respect.”

Stone-hewn graves at Heysham, Lancashire. Believed to be 11th Century.