How Did They Settle on Six Feet Deep for Graves?
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- Опубліковано 18 вер 2024
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In this video:
In truth, despite “six feet under” being synonymous with the very idea of death, it has little to no relevance in burial customs. For starters, the rules on exactly how deep you’re legally supposed to bury someone when they die are by no means universal. One of the few general rules today is that a coffin can be covered by no less than 18 inches of dirt, which you may notice means you can technically bury a person less than two feet deep in many areas, if you discount the amount of space displaced by the coffin itself. However, it’s often standard practise to bury people deeper than this so that there’s room to bury another person in the same grave, often loved ones. As such, in some regions, even as deep as twelve feet isn’t unheard of.
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Now that you know why graves are six feet deep check out this video and find out about The Last Laugh- Millionaire Charles Vance Millar and His Practical Jokes from Beyond the Grave:
ua-cam.com/video/z-DXcEenXHI/v-deo.html
Q. Why do they bury lawyers 12 feet deep instead of 6 feet like everyone else?
A. Because deep down they are good people.
I thought they just took a wrench and screwed them into the ground. Around here lawyers have to have flashing red lights on their cars. People wait for an ambulance to go by then try to cross the street, and get run over by 6 car loads of lawyers chasing the ambulance.
lel
NOT SO PRO GAMING laughing elittlebit loud
1riwa XD
***** i dont get it
The new minister in town was called to do a graveside service, but on the way he lost the directions. Frantically he drove around town until he spotted two men with shovels beside a hole and pile of dirt. Even though he was late, he parked his car and ran over to the site. He read several scriptures, sang some hymns, and preached a brief sermon before getting in his car and driving away. The two workmen looked at each other and one said "I've been installing septic tanks for 20 years, but I've NEVER seen anything like that!"
I assumed that it was because that's about the deepest a man with a shovel can dig and still climb out
That's actually it, or at least that's it here in the U.S. I worked in the funeral industry for several years and we learned all the history of various practices. You simply dug the deepest hole you could within reason. In some places the gravel is very difficult to dig in so you may only get two feet deep. Other places the soil is softer so you can go fairly deep. Though it's not so much an issue of climbing out. The issue is that it is darn difficult to throw a shovel full of dirt out of a hole that is deeper than you are tall. I know, I've tried it.
so why do they still do it? they use backhoes now!
You need a certain amount of weight above the casket so that when it starts to decompose the compacted dirt above is thick enough and stable enough to prevent a sinkhole from forming, kind of like how you need a certain amount of ice on top of a lake before you can walk on it. It's also a liability thing: even if you just went ahead and filled in the depressions, sinkholes tend to form when weight is put on them, so if you forget there's a grave there while you're driving the backhoe, or if some emo kids want to get drunk in the graveyard and park their car on top, you need as much thickness as is feasible to keep them from getting stuck when the ground literally gives way underneath.
It's also just a convenient depth if someone drops their cell phone in or something (which happens a lot more than you might think); then you can just hop in and grab it instead of getting a ladder and moving the casket and all that.
+Daniel Gehring Oh. I did not do that to you.
Juanito G
Actually, funny story about that. Of course cell phones weren't an issue, but there are a number of stories about how the plot diggers themselves would often have to jump into graves during funerals to go get their liquor. The story goes that since grave diggers were related to the clergy but not a member of it, they had access to the stronger types of liquor you could only get from monasteries back then. Thus, either while digging the holes or waiting to fill them in, there was a pretty good chance the people who dug the dirt were just smashed out of their minds (since it was their payday, after all)... and therefore pretty likely to 'misplace' their bottle in the hole.
I can't verify any of that, I see that Google has some evidence for it (including some graphic woodcuts), but consider it just a funny story about how much worse the problem was back then instead of that I'm saying it's absolutely proven.
A few years ago I retired from mortuary work. The first thing I would like to clarify is that a coffin has 6 sides. They are still used, but not as commonly as you may think. But the CASKET is a 4 sided box. That is pretty much universal in the US. The moderator of this video is right about the average depth of ground over the casket top. About a foot and a half. This applies to all of California, where I worked. However, there is a required grave liner, usually of concrete, heavy redwood, or a composite (a type of very durable plastic.) So there's no silliness about animals digging through anything. It's much easier to catch your cat for a free meal if you are a hungry predator. In modern times graves are dug by back-hoe, unless they can't get it in there for some eeason, such as too many big trees, monuments, etc. that crowd the grave site. Then they must be dug by hand, which takes one man about 7 hours, if there are no boulders or too many large roots. Also, many caskets are made of various metals. So there is no digging through them either.
We don't mind a bit of dark humor, but never around people whose heart we don't know. They may be in grief. And we are not cruel. But what we DO mind are STUPID rumors. If you want the truth about anything, just ask us. True & discreet answers are one of our duties.
If it's easier in Britain to legally bury someone than to build a garage, I would expect some soul troubling their council by claiming, "No, it's not a garage, it's a mausoleum. There's a cat under there, you see."
ROFLMAO want a garage, build a mausoleum on your property, but one dead body in it and leave just enough room to park your car in it. Boom, job done.
I like you style of thinking
I live in Connecticut, just throw me in my back yard and cover me with some leaves.
I had opted for becoming food at the local zoo. But, my attorney informed me, when writing my will, that there was actually a law against that. So, I changed my mind in favour of cremation.
I've always wanted to give my body to a body farm to help teach forensic investigators how to better solve murders.
HojoOSanagi Better yet, let them have someone murder you so their forensics students can practice! 😁
Brian Battles I love in Indiana, you get leaves, I get a coffin with a basketball on it
Person. Tell that to people with heart failure. Lung disease. ........
Could it be the practicality of digging a hole no deeper than the person digging it can climb back out of? Or perhaps using a spare coffin lid as a measuring stick for depth?
Or that any deeper and the digger won't be able to throw the dirt out on their own.
PongoXBongo I like your way of thinking, very logical.
PongoXBongo one of my local grave diggers is 5ft 2 tall ,the other is 6ft 7
PongoXBongo use the shovel handle as length or just but the higher of yourself
I just assumed it was because gravediggers are around 6 feet tall and they stopped when their head was under the ground's level.
hole. eeee. shit. so simple, why I not think of that?
Average height of men were around 5'6-5'7 as I recall, around 100 years ago. 250 years ago, probably more like 5'4 for men. If gravediggers over the centuries had to be 6' tall, then they REALLY had to be picky about who was digging the graves lol
Your assumption is actually correct. Six feet isn't a set rule as they said in the video. The practice has always been to dig the hole until the grave diggers could no longer see out of the hole or it was difficult to throw a shovel full of dirt out of the hole and as it happens, that is roughly five to six feet deep. Basically they simply dug as deep as they reasonably could dig. I have dug a hole that deep and it is incredibly difficult as soon as you get deeper than your shoulders.
I worked in the funeral industry part time for several years and the cemeteries in our area all have concrete vaults and the top of the vault lid needs to be no less than four feet below grad and that means the bottom of the coffin is roughly six feet three inches below grade. The hole is six feet six inches deep, the vault is two feet deep and then the vault is three inches thick so that leaves a space of four feet above the vault lid to fill with dirt.
There are cemeteries in New England where the remains were put only a couple of feet deep and with no coffin. they merely dug a hole about two feet deep, put the wrapped body in and then covered in the hole. So to this day there are 350 year old graves with mounds of gravel shaped like the bodies under them. It actually makes it easier for researchers who often have to probe the earth or use expensive ground penetrating radar to map out cemeteries.
Because you never asked "The Gravedigger" himself.
*****
it's to keep away scavengers in general, but still, I can't see 6' as being necessary. Surely having 3' of soil would be too deep for animals to be able to get through; the smell probably couldn't even get through at that deep. Another option is, if you don't want to dig deep, find a bunch of large stones to pile over the shallow grave.
In Kentucky we only bury people a foot deep. It's so poor here, we have to put a can of baking powder in the casket so they can "RISE" on judgement day.
It's actually because the average height of people when it was started was well under 6' and if they awoke as zombies they couldn't get out.
As a former resident to my hometown of Monroe Louisiana. We have several graveyards that when a good rain comes it does make the old bones rise. Normally when it happens the grounds keeper will dig a hold on the grave and return them. There is no waterlogged bodies that I've heard of rising to surface. There were times as a child where I wanted to keep some bones of a cemetery I lived by. I found a finger bone at the grave of a man named "James Hat" I thought for some reason the name was hilarious (I was 8,sue me!) and wanted James hat bones. Well.. My parents were pissed I took dead man's bones ( They are extremely superstitious) and my mother and father hopped into the old Station Wagon and we drove down. I had to apologize to the funeral home and the daytime grounds keeper (the funeral home lived on the same land as the graveyard). They told me to stay out the cemetery because the nighttime grounds worker is *"rumored to be a dead man"* and walks the graveyard catching kids playing with Graves and snatching them up. They went on to say that he keeps them in his basement and feeds them moldy bread and dirty water. My evil -fucking- parents was the culprit to the lie the funeral home owner told me. Aparently my mom called in advance and they thought of a way to teach me a lesson.
People wonder why I'm -fucked- up!
Oh a really quickly there is a story that was made up for visitors of Louisiana. Specifically tourist. That the graveyard of Marie Laveau the infamous voodoo Queen is said that if you take from the graveyard she rests in that she will make the ghosts of the dead spirits haunt you forever. It may be a urban legend. I am pretty sure it was a tale to stop people from stealing from Graves etc.. But people always return things and believe in the curses.
Dem bones! ..."feeds them moldy bread and dirty water." My god, they send you to Alabama?!
***** indeed (slow claps)
being from new orleans, we're used to cemeteries. I grew up in the Carrollton area across from St. Mary's Cemetery. We called the area "graveyard " as reference. as kids we'd play hide and seek around the graves. in the past when there were heavy rains in 2016 there was a cemetery on the North Shore that was flooded and coffins started popping out of the ground. it isn't unusual but not often.
I would imagine that cremation would become very popular in that region for reasons of practicality if nothing else. The ashes would help to fertilize the soil when sprinkled, and no floaters to worry about when the rains come.
We had a cemetery get washed away in hurricane Gloria when i was a little kid . it took weeks but several bodies washed up in the bay. Surprisingly some were well preserved .
I had read somewhere that 6 ft was the minimum depth to bury someone because shallower than that, wild animals could smell the dead body, and so be inclined to dig it up. Don't know if that's true or not
depends on what animals you have that may dig up a body... here in scotland thats a fairly limited list
The combined problems of extremely rocky or hard soil and foxes, coyotes, or wolves, prompted western settlers in the US to bury the bodies as deep as they could scratch a hole in the soil, & then cover the grave site with heavy rocks (as shown @1:53, but not explained in the video).
No, even with the most sensitive noses an animal wouldn't be able to smell anything deeper than a few inches, maybe a couple of feet at best. Dirt is actually really amazing at trapping air.
Daniel Gehring Oh, really? Care to explain why cadaver dogs can find the bones within Mound Civilization burials that are over 800 years old, then?
www.charlotteobserver.com/news/science-technology/article9113855.html
"There’s not a known time limit, but there’s some interesting work going on in the Mississippi Delta where dogs are helping find bones and remains from Mound civilization burials (a Native American culture) that go back 800 or 1,200 years. There is very little scent associated with these old bones. There’s much to be learned here in terms of exactly what the dogs are detecting in these bones. But there are enough positive alerts and recoveries that we know dogs are capable of doing this..."
And from a different source: www.independent.co.uk/news/science/the-csi-death-dogs-sniffing-out-the-truth-behind-the-crime-scene-canines-835047.html
"In one study involving four dogs and their handlers, Jacobi says the dogs were able to detect remains at all stages of decomposition. Performance varied between dogs, but some could locate skeletonised remains buried in an area of 300ft by 150ft. "The few single human vertebrae I used in the study were well over 25 years old, and dry bone," Jacobi says. "This made the discovery of one of these vertebrae, which we buried in dense woods 2ft deep, by a cadaver dog pretty remarkable."
*****
Uh, it says right in your article. The dogs are trained not only to find bodies by smell but by various other clues that the location gives that it contains a body.
Also, while this is kind of beside the point, I did say "dirt," not mud, rocks, caves, or any of the other various materials that the article talks about. I do apologize for being ambiguous, but I was talking about cemetery dirt, the kind that's packed and molded by heavy machinery and has grass growing over it specifically to avoid giving off any smells. There's a big difference between that and the landslides and corpse mounds your article refers exclusively to.
The frost line can also be a factor. frost has a funny way of pushing large things (boulders, coffins, etc, ) out of the ground. You want your dead buried below the frost line.
In most of Europe (even Eastern) the frost line rarely exceeds 3-4 ft. depth.
It about 4 feet in southern canada which mean we tend to bury things at least 5 feet for good measure.
And, in areas with heavy rain, the dirt can be eroded away from the top of the grave.
I can't fathom (2 yds.) how six feet became standard.
Alan Bishop got to be that deep or they won't stay buried furlong.
Good one!
6' is not standard anymore 54" is typical in virtually every privately owned cemetery at least in the States.
A good friend of mine once told me that if you don't bury a body 6 feet or more, then on certain nights you'll see a glowing, shrieking skeleton lying on top of the grave. Good enough for me.
I think the answer is fairly mundane. About six feet is as deep as you can dig with a shovel without requiring a ladder to get out of the hole. So I think it just became a custom based on the maximum practical depth without giving extra work for the grave diggers. While many modern graves are dug using machinery the custom continues out of tradition.
I also think that six feet is the maximum depth of a grave-shaped hole from which you can sling dirt with a shovel.
In Arkansas, the top of the vault or casket must be at least 16 inches below the surface. In National Cemeteries internees are buried nine feet deep to allow the spouse to be buried atop them. In rural Arkansas, especially in the Ozarks, the soil is so hard and rocky that before the day of backhoes, slabs of field stone were cut and placed around the coffin. In old cemeteries, these ancient cairns are still a common sight. You can bury a body on your private property (in Arkansas) but you are required to file the location with the county clerk . In Arkansas, if a cemetery is not maintained for seven years, the property can be reclaimed by the land owner for private use. Typically, there are announcements in the local newspaper each spring for cemetery workings where interested persons bring tools and such to the cemetery to dress it up for the coming year. If there has been storm damage we cut up, pile, and burn the fallen branches/trees. Sometimes there's a potluck. I keep an eye on the paper s that I can work at the cemeteries where my people are buried. It's a satisfying social exercise. We country folk take care of our own.
Which of the spouses is buried deeper? The one who died first? I realize that this would make the most sense, but if they are in the wrong order, they could just change it when the surviving spouse dies too.
The wisdom that came down to me growing up in Texas in the 70's/80's, was, if possible, a grave should be 6' long by 6' deep by 3' feet wide. These dimensions would fit the size of most people, and the depth would keep the smell from coming up out of the grave & various critters from digging up the body. (dogs, coyotes, possum, etc.)
If you just pile rocks over it like in alot of movies, within 24 hours or less animals will have spread the remains all over the place.
FUN STUFF HUH KIDS??? :>)
I believe that 6' was used as a rule because before backhoes were used, 6' was the deepest one man could physically dig a hole deep enough for a casket. Also, digging a hole in a cemetery might produce a big surprise if you found an unmarked grave shallower than 6'. Then, you would move the grave to another spot.
6 feet is the minimum depth that an animal can't smell a corpse (and thus "exhume and consume" the body).
teller of truth because not all bodies can be cared for so extensively. 6 feet is the minimum depth that an animal can't smell decaying corpse. Advances in modern technology make it a moot point, but that's still the main reason why *traditionally* it's six feet under.
teller of truth cool story, brah.
+Tristan Toole Hey, did you get that parcel that you were waiting on?
+Tristan Toole That is nice of you because I really hate my mom
weirdo freak I was talking about the box of chocolates.
...wait, dafuq you talking about?!
I used to work in a cemetery. our rule of thumb was that the grave to be deep as the length of a shovel.
and a typical shovel length is around 5 to 6 feet long. makes sense. as back in olden times that would be how deep you can go before you can no longer throw dirt out.
I don't think I've ever seen a 6 foot long shovel. That would be a bit unwieldy for most people.
@@sterlingodeaghaidh5086 It is impossible to use a 6 foot shovel. To dig because for the initial digging you would be operating it with your arms up. A shovel that is as tall as human. Not possible. Until n unless u r over 10 feet tall. You wouldn't find it comfortable. Shovels are half of human height. They are at waist level. Just like trousers. Now you can't say that trousers are 6ft long. Or they would end up looking like body bags.
@@Wilbur-em1hw You just reminded me I answered that, I was half dazed, no shovels arent typically 6 feet, I meant to say around 3 -4 feet or 48 inches to be exact. I cannot believe I said that.....
@@sterlingodeaghaidh5086 It is fine man. 6ft would ve the human height. Making it easy for people to get out. Most people are around the 1.83 (6ft) height. There are many theories around this. But taking the grave diggers perspective. Some say that the grave diggers stopped when his head was even with the ground. Which wouldn't be the case because not everyone is over 6ft tall. But yeah it is mostly because of human height (the shorter side being 5'8" to 5'10" and taller side being 6'-6'4" making it easy for people of all heights to dig a hole).
Ring Worm is the reason graves are 6' deep. Ring Worm was a big problem in the South, which cause Southerner to be lazy and mentally slow.
Ring Worm can dig their way to the surface if buried less then 6' deep.
Ringworm is a fungal infectiion of the skin, not an actual worm. The disease manifests itself as somewhat of a ring on the skin and, was originally thought to be a worm under the skin. It is treated with anti fungals. Sorry.
Why was that grave yard fenced in? Are people dying to get in?
As a former gravedigger, my experience was we dug 4 ft holes, on a rare occasion we would dig a 6 ft grave. Animals digging bodies up in modern times is a non concern, caskets are placed into concrete burial vaults that contain a plastic liner that supposedly seals when the lid is placed on it, and I say supposedly because nobody knows for sure that it seals since the lid is placed on the box then covered with dirt.
Oh for heaven's sake. The reason the hole is six feet, is because when the guy digging it went any lower, he couldn't climb out; he'd have to start digging into the side of the hole in order to escape. So digging deeper was just a stupid thing to do.
I always thought and was told by older family member that it was to stop them climbing back out of the grave, like a superstition
my family thought this from way back
so is it a helth problem for them to be near a river
because in the uk we have a graveyard right next to a river and it floods the graveyard every year with 4 ft of water and it sits there for weeks going in to food shops and homes
In Washington State, you cannot bury someone on your own property although it used to be legal- they outlawed it in 1943.
my grandfather was a grave digger back in the Thirty's in wellsburg wv and he had told me that before they started using concrete vaults after a hard rain the coffins freshly buried would float up out of their graves
Fun fact: In Brazil the expression equivalent to "six feet under" is "sete palmos abaixo da terra", which can be translated as "seven palms under the earth" (palms as the palm of your hand). I guess as hands are slightly smaller than feet we added one more to compensate. Seven also sounds more ominous than six, I think.
2:47 What's there in Britain that isn't archaic? 😦
Jeffrey314159 everything between 1960-1990, but they got weird again after then.
As a child I once buried a much loved cat who died of a brain cancer in a grave 2 feet deep, traditional cardboard box coffin. No one could go into that corner of the yard with out smelling it decomposing for around 3 or 4 years. Maybe the bury them deep mind set also had a practical reason.
please increase your volume. these videos are very quiet.
otherwise love your content
sound is fine.
I have no experience with digging graves, except for one hamster named HamIsture, but I have attempted to plant gardens and such and I always am impressed with how many roots, rocks and generally difficult work it is to even dig one decent hole to put a potted plant. My advice for anyone thinking they'll just easily dispose of that body to forget about it.
Now that I think of it, I remember a few funerals where I looked at the hole and thought "That's not six feet, I could climb out of that."
I recall seeing the graves of my great grandparents, there was actually a depression in the outline of their caskets in the dirt.
John Beauvais Some cemeteries don't require a concrete box to contain the caskets so the dirt stays stable. You can ask the cemetery to fill it in. That would bother me.
Not A Beauty Guru Actually I found it deeply satisfying, to know that even the earth has been altered by their presence just felt kinda peaceful.
Don't know about other states but WA and TX no have laws that require a concrete vault over the casket.Plus there is a requirement for a certain amount of soil over the vault,which would determine the depth of the grave.My brother-in law's grave looked about five feet to me.He is buried in WA.
It all has to do with the soil quality and as stated proximity to water table. The depth again is dependent on soil density because of the risk of collapse of the sides and this relates to health and safety.
I learned about this from working as a trainee administrator at a cemetery.
Usually the depths of 18" are reserved for cremains, if it is a coffin then the grave has to be capped with a capping stone.
How do you tell when Dracula is sick? By his coffin! (coughing).
Alan Bishop Hey that was clever.
Simon, the prevailing reason that a person was buried six (6) feet s it was to prevent wild animals from digging the remains for food. This philosophy has a history of over a hundred years.
What? How could you ignore the very basic notion that animals can smell the buried dead but six feet tends to obscure the smell and deter them.
It started in colder areas. If you bury less than 6 feet the frost could push the caskets up causing quite the scare in the winter months.
Also depth of grave is determined by the depth that the backhoe can dig the hole. I worked as a gravedigger at a community cemetery and standard practice was to dig as deep as the machine could go. Cemetery space being finite, multiple casket burials are not uncommon. Especially plot is owned by a family. Imagine casket stacking. And, plots are leased for 100 years with the option of the cemetery to remove remains and resell space.
My dad always says he doesn't care if we bury him in a box in the backyard lol
I thought it was a widely known fact that the reason people are buried 6 ft deep is because that's the depth you can't smell a decomposing corpse at. Depending on climate and soil composition, you can bury deeper or shallower if needed
I think 6 feet deep comes from that depth being the deepest you can dig without needing a ladder to climb out of the grave. With most men being between 5-6 feet tall, gravediggers could climb out of the grave without help or at most someone above ground to grab their hand to help them out of the grave.
There is also the issue of frost heaving. If a coffin or body is buried above the frost line in cold climates, the freeze/thaw cycle will push it to the surface in a few years.
i used to work as a grave digger, we dug our holes 5ft deep ( as deep as a shovel is tall ). but then the coffin and cover are about 2ft tall so you're only burried 3ft in normal graves.
i once lived next to an above ground cemetery. Also some places have the coffins encased in concrete as ballast in high water tables.
Simon, I adore your voice. The pitch, accent and cadence are, for some reason, particularly pleasing for me. As a confirmed documentary addict, I can wholeheartedly recommend that you narrate docs as a sideline. Just a suggestion...
Some funny replies. It was always my understanding that it was that depth because any deeper makes it much more difficult for the digger to get out.
Hate to be pedantic here, but most graves(in the U.S.) are not opened to 6' deep anymore. Most states only require a minimum of 12" of soil on top of the outer burial container(vault) these are typically 36" - 40" in height. However, company(SCI, Northstar, Carriage) policy is 18" of on top making a minimum grave depth of 54-58" with the only exception being double depth graves(two vaults stacked) would be 90".
Four fucking minutes later they answer the question with.
"I don't know maybe this"
10/10 -please waste my time again
I had friends in NC who had a small cemetery in their yard- original owners of the house and two of their kids. House was built in 1800's.
ha! I knew I would find you answering this question!....nice!
I kinda like the idea of popping out of the ground and going for one final adventure. Maybe I will request my grave be near water. :) Kinda morbid but fun video. I recall I was shocked at how shallow my grandmothers grave was. After the casket was lowered it was no more than 3 feet or so. I always thought the funeral home wasn't doing their job but I guess there really is no "standard" depth.
+shananagans5 i thought that idea was kind of fun too. I could just see some poor tourist toddeling along and a casket jumping out of the ground. Sprey paint the casket with "I told you I'd be back" LOL....I need to go change my will now. LMBO
Some people were buried with air tubes and strings connected to a bell by the grave just in case they were buried alive. Given the poor state of medical knowledge and practice at the time this was not so far fetched.
+Stu Bur I've also heard that the word 'wake' came about because of peoples' fears of being accidentally buried alive. Certain cultures would have the family gather around the deceased as they lay in their coffins to periodically check for signs of life. Many of these wakes were three days long so the family could be sure that their loved ones was truly deceased before burial. Since very few people actually ever woke up, three days could be a very long time to stand vigil without getting bored. So to pass the time, people drank a lot. And of course they ate because 3 days is a long time to go without food. And they also talked a lot about the impact the person's life had made on them and they did some singing and dancing, because they were happy to see people at the wake that they had not seen for a long time. The wake took on a party atmosphere at times. It had some aspects of what we today call a Celebration of Life. Only their celebration was a bit noisier.
Between the low volume & this fellow who looks & sounds like he's constipated when he speaks, it was almost impossible to here what was said. I've noticed several of your other videos suffer from the same issue. Please take note & rectify the volume issue so that we can all enjoy the content. Thanks.
Quite interesting! Thanks!
My father was buried and when my mom died it was suggested that she be buried on top of my father. I would never do that because he was oppressed by her during his lifetime and to do it in death would be horrific.
It was explained on one of the forensic shows on TV (I forget which one) that the 6-foot "standard" originated in ancient times as that is the deepest a burial needs to be to avoid the body being detected and dug up by scavengers. Many cultures still follow this tradition even though in many developed countries bodies are now interred in animal proof underground vaults (metal or concrete) making it unnecessary to bury them so deep.
Because 4 feet is the bare minimum against frost heave. That is in the building codes.
For plumbing and cabling it is 5 ft.
For a body that is much lighter than concrete, you need 2 more feet to be safe.
There's an interesting historical connection between the development of municipal cemeteries and the first public parks, as presented in Bill Bryson's book "At Home".
All you really need is a large gunny sack, a couple of large *cinder blocks, and a large body of water. Say a few kind words, a prayer, and SPLASH!!! *or a large tomb stone.
I always just figured 6 feet was approximately the most reasonable depth before throwing the dirt with a spade became overwhelming. Eventually you're throwing it back on yourself. There's not a good enough reason to rig anything up to go deeper than that, either. Usually.
Here in Vienna it's 1,50 m (~5") for single coffin graves and 2,70 for 4 coffins. iirc there's kind of a compacting procedure before the 3rd coffin goes under.
of course there is someone from Vienna in the comments with such a grave topic. Like the chronic morbidity of my hometown.
I have a family that has seen a coffin that was raised during a flood in New Orleans
Why were suicides buried at a cross roads and not in hallowed ground?
Because in medieval times it was believed the souls of the damned would rise from the dead if not buried in consecrated ground - - the choice of cross roads was to confuse the damned spirit
I thought it was so they could add family members afterwards. In a local burial ground near me the coffins rise every time there is a storm.
No. I've seen way too many zombie movies to have bodies buried anywhere near me.
i'm getting creamated so zero feet under ground for me..
Pat Brennan You do realize that a lot of people still bury cremated remains, right?
It'll be up to Pat to decide if he makes a will. Most people seem to like having their ashes spread over a body of water. I guess they enjoy being fishfood? Obviously not, but I can see the appeal. I hate the idea of being buried, and even hate the idea of being filled with formaldehyde, so it'll probably be cremation for me as well. What to do with the ashes? Well I heard that SOME people had their ashes made into bullets, and so those bullets are made into actual cartridges, and thus the cartridges can be fired. Maybe I could have a 21-gun salute, while being the very bullets being fired by the 21 guns :) OH! Perhaps I could be shot out to sea. There we go; a nice mix of the old fashioned, and badass modern. Whatever is left over, perhaps my ashes could be made into some 12 Gauge birdshot so that I can be used for some fun skeet shooting! Just wait, maybe one of the shells will be left behind, someone ends up trying to hunt ducks with it, just ends up wounding one that flies away, and thus I have a portion of my afterlife spent in a friggin' duck. That actually sounds pretty awesome, though I imagine the quacking (or in the case of geese, honking) would get annoying after a while. Still, it'll die eventually. We all die eventually :)
Norman M I just feel like a lot of people want to be cremated because they don't like the thought of decomposition. To me, decomposition is very natural, to dust we return, etc. I do not wish to be embalmed through. I don't think it's necessary.
Angeline Productions
Then you might want to advise in your will to have the funeral VERY soon after death.
Norman M Not necessarily. You can keep a body preserved very well by keeping it refrigerated or stored in a cool and airtight place. What do you think they did before embalming was popular and people had home wakes?
As you have found out, "six feet under" was not referring to a settled on depth for graves. To find the origins of the term we would have to look elsewhere. The act of burying large boxes of rotting meat can attract scavengers. If an animal that was well equipped for digging, like bear or a badger, were to scent such a prize, then digging down even to a depth of six feet would not be too great a challenge for them. However, the depth of six feet does prevent their ever scenting that prize to begin with. So the term "six feet under" was an expression of finality, like "dead and buried", it meant dead and no chance of ever coming back.
In the state of Michigan, most cemeteries require vaults to prevent caving in and water tables.
I thought it had to be as deep as a six foot shovel handle
skip to 3:21 for the answer to be "it's not agreed upon".
never really wondered about this subject but now I know .
At the sunset , all Graves are 6ft deep .
I Assumed it was because that's how deep the average worm digs
You'd make a really good salesman. The answer to the video's question is ultimately, "I don't know," but you manage to spend nearly five minutes beating around the bush. Good job.
Heard a story once of a big storm causing a freshly buried casket to ride to the surface and go sliding down a hill through the main street of the town.
This one?
www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/08/31/casket-slides-down-hill/14916069/
The six foot depth from a Dale Carnigie medical study. He noticed farmers in the northern states worked very hard yet there crops didn't large yields. In comparison farmers in the southern states where the soil was much better appeared not to work as hard yet they produces do about the same amount of food from their farms.
Carnigie felt there must be a medical reason why southern farmers were "lazy" compared to their northern farmers. The doctors found southern farms had a fine much looser les rocky soil, had a tendency to not wear shoes while farming or going to the privy and because they lived in a warmer climate the ground never got extremely cold which would freeze and kill worms living in the soil.
The doctors found a parasitic intentional worms living in the body of now the deceased would now seek a new host, (human). These worms could easily live for about a week tunnel through the soil looking for a new host human to infect. They found consistently the worlds could only tunnel just about 5 feet (through the rich southern soil) before dying.
If the bodies were buried less than five feet the parasitic worms would tunnel out of the soil and wait for human host to "step" on them. Once these tiny parasitic worms were stepped on they would bite their new human host enter the blood stream and set-up a new home in the digestive track.
The teams of doctors Carnigie hired found the parasitic worms would "rob" the farmers of their energy making them tired and appear to be lazy and not work as hard as the farmers in the north.
So, the reason bodies are buried 6 feet underground is to prevent the spread of a parasitic worm that lives in the gut of infected humans and making them week.
Interesting piece of research.
There was also the practice of grave diggers, know as cadavers, who would dig up the coffins to harvest the bodies for use and experimentation by medical colleges in teaching anatomy. A medical school would pay a lot of money to buy corpses from the diggers since these were always in short supply. Having the coffin buried six feed under would put more difficulty for such retrieval.
Six feet is deep enough that the average zombie can't dig it's way out.
not true! lol
I remember reading six feet was to prvent grave robbers from stealing the body. A person would not be able to dig down to that depth by sunrise.
Actually the standard depth here in the UK is five feet, I was a grave digger but had to give it up as I found the infant funerals to up setting, I only lasted two months in the job.
Please do one on why its a foe-pa to wear white after labor day.
Lawyers get buried 12 feet under, because really deep down they are quite nice.
6 feet is the depth at which the body can no longer be smelled by animals so it won't be disturbed. At least that is what I have been told and have found with a tiny bit of research back in high school.
generally here in Australia it's 6 foot but that depends also on water table and soil type
I don't remember the exact reason, but there was some complications in digging my Grandpas grave, so much so they had dig the grave about 12 feet deep.
thank you for the links
I always assumed that it was 6 feet because if the corpse came back as a flesh-hungry zombie, it will be very challenging for it to get out since many people are shorter than 6 feet.
fireaza n there r many people way taller than 6 feet I am 6feet 2in lol.
Several local victorian cemeteries would put the first coffin up to 20ft down! to allow more on top as more family members are put in on top... i have seen a number of victorian price lists that list cost of digging a grave by the foot depth!
I was in nj and ivworked close to a grave yard and there was a flood and yeah they all came up including a few revolutionary war graves
I like to think that the "6 feet" term came about from when graves were dug a long time ago. This is because any deeper than 6 feet and the person digging the grave would not be able to get out. It would also give rough standards that needed to be adhered to.
James Morris any deeper than 6 feet and the grave digger would not be able to dig further he would end up throwing the mud on himself as he wouldnt have enough force to throw it out.
these videos always feel like awkward school presentations but the topics are so well chosen that I haven't found one single video yet that I found not worth watching
that happened during the Katrina hurricane, Graves got flooded and literally people see coffins floating down this river that the hurricane started.
At 6ft the top of the coffin is below the frost line. Freezes and thaws can cause the coffin to move upward. R.I.P. (A Canadian perspective)
I live in Connecticut! THIS IS WONDERFUL information, ya know for a friend HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
3:23 = answer