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In the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century in the United States, glass coffins were widely sold by travelling salesmen, who also would try to sell stock of the companies making the coffins. [19] Custom coffins are occasionally created and some companies also make set ranges with non-traditional designs.
A safety coffin or security coffin is a coffin fitted with a mechanism to prevent premature burial or allow the occupant to signal that they have been buried alive. A large number of designs for safety coffins were patented during the 18th and 19th centuries and variations on the idea are still available today.
Treetrunk coffins were a feature of some prehistoric elite burials over a wide geographical range, especially in Northern Europe and as far east as the Balts, where cremation was abandoned about the 1st century CE, as well as in central Lithuania, where elites were also buried in treetrunk coffins. [1]
Fisk metallic burial cases were patented in 1848 by Almond Dunbar Fisk and manufactured in Providence, Rhode Island. The cast iron coffins or burial cases were popular in the mid–19th century among wealthier families. While pine coffins in the 1850s would have cost around $2, a Fisk coffin could command a price upwards of $100.
Burial vaults originally emerged as a means of ensuring that grave robbers could not easily access a coffin and remove valuables, clothing, or even bodies from the coffin. [2] Early vaults were made of wood (the "rough box"), [3] although by the middle of the 1800s brick, [2] iron and later steel vaults were used.
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Specific slaves were assigned to prepare dead bodies, build coffins, dig graves, and construct headstones. Slave funerals were typically at night when the workday was over, with the master present to view all the ceremonial procedures. Slaves from nearby plantations were regularly in attendance. At death, a slave's body was wrapped in cloth.
Three coffins were used: an inner lead-lined coffin, which contained the body, and two outer coffins. [50] According to Julie Anne Taddeo, a research professor of history at the University of Maryland, lead helps keep out moisture and preserve the body for longer and prevent smells and toxins from a dead body escaping. [51]