Things you are just dying to know:
An east-west orientation for gravestones is the most common throughout the world. Early American settlers wanted their feet pointing east and their heads toward the west, so they were ready to rise up and face the sun of a new day when they hoped to be reborn.
Many famous people made the decision to be buried in unmarked graves for a variety of reasons. Among those who chose no markings are John Wayne, George C. Scott, Frank Zappa, Roy Orbison, Mozart, Bessie Smith and John Belushi.
Up until the 18th Century a lot of graves were covered by iron cages called “mortsafes” or were totally covered with stones. There are 4 reasons given for this tradition 1) to keep animals from digging up the corpse 2) to keep people from walking or sitting on the graves 3) to keep the deceased from becoming a vampire or zombie 4) to keep the grave from being ravaged by grave robbers.
Ben & Jerry’s has a “flavor graveyard” where there are tombstones for earlier flavors that are no longer sold.
Calvary Cemetery in New York City has the largest number of interments of any cemetery in the United States with about 3 million burials.
Inside the Capuchin Catacombs in Palmero, Sicily, lays the body of Rosalia Lombardo, entombed for eternity inside a coffin made of glass. Devastated by the loss of his two-year-old daughter to pneumonia in 1920, Rosalia’s father turned to Alfredo Salafia, a renowned Sicilian professor of chemistry and a talented embalmer to preserve his daughter. Her corpse was carefully mummified and encased in a glass coffin so they would still be able to see their little daughter. Considered to be one of the best-preserved mummies in the world, for years after her death, her skin retained a warm and pink complexion giving her the eerie appearance of sleeping peacefully. Earning her the nickname the “Sleeping Beauty”.
How about hanging coffins? Instead of burying the coffins, they are suspended off a cliff one above another. Originally, this was done to keep animals from getting to the bodies, but over time it has become a tradition. However, it is only practiced in a few regions of the world: several provinces in China, as well as Indonesia and the Philippines.
Congratulations to HaileyMurphy23, Gabbystreasures and jásper69 for making this their first geocache!