# Do they really bury you six feet deep? Why? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 21, 2001, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801 "2001-03-21T01:55:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![rudejester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85e7bf/32.png) [@rudejester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rudejester)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/1 "2001-03-21T01:55:00Z")
Are people really buried six feet deep? If so, why? ---
**Author:** ![Ross](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e274bd/32.png) [@Ross](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ross)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/2 "2001-03-21T02:02:34Z")
Because clawing your way out, all bloody fingernails and swallowed earth, and trudging zombified into the funeral reception to start on the canapes with not so much as a by-your-leave, might be considered a trifle au fait at some of the more civilised cemeteries. ---
**Author:** ![Enola\_Straight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dec6dc/32.png) [@Enola\_Straight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enola_Straight)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/3 "2001-03-21T03:16:06Z")
I think its because six feet is a common midway point between the frost line and the water table. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/4 "2001-03-21T03:21:58Z")
Maybe the average gravedigger is a little over six feet tall and has to scramble out of the hole he just dug. ---
**Author:** ![5CentCigar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/5/ea5d25/32.png) [@5CentCigar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/5CentCigar)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/5 "2001-03-21T03:22:38Z")
If they only buried you five feet deep they’d be making a grave mistake. ---
**Author:** ![Mikahw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Mikahw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mikahw)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/6 "2001-03-21T04:22:58Z")
hahaha Hahaha HAHAHAHA! Okay, that just wasn’t funny… ---
**Author:** ![Badtz\_Maru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e36b37/32.png) [@Badtz\_Maru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Badtz_Maru)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/7 "2001-03-21T04:50:38Z")
Depends on where you are buried. Most graveyards in Louisiana keep the coffins above ground. ---
**Author:** ![scampering\_gremlin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@scampering\_gremlin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scampering_gremlin)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/8 "2001-03-21T05:08:44Z")
So far as I’m aware, all human cultures have traditions for disposing of their deceased. Archaeological evidence indicates that burial customs are as old as homo sapiens. Methods vary. Virtually all of them ensure that the bodies don’t spread disease to the living or get consumed by wild carnivores who could develop a taste and decide to hunt us. My WAG is that six feet is too deep for wolves to dig. ---
**Author:** ![frobozz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed8c4c/32.png) [@frobozz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frobozz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/9 "2001-03-21T12:14:08Z")
Don’t they bury more than one person in a grave in some places? Maybe six feet leaves room for one or two future coffins on top. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/10 "2001-03-21T13:06:49Z")
Used to work in the funeral industry here and can tell you that you aren’t planted 6 feet deep (at least not in most places). In Louisiana and in coastal areas with high water tables you’re just as likely to be interred in an above-ground crypt. Most other burial are about 4 or 5 feet. Here in VA most nearly everyone goes into an in-ground crypt (think of a big cement box) that serves as a liner for the grave (one advantage is that it keeps the soil from settling - another “advantage” is that it gives the funeral director something else to charge your family for). You go in the casket, the casket goes in the crypt, they cover you up with a backhoe. Everyone cries, the funeral director and crew goes on to the next gig. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2001, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/11 "2001-03-21T13:19:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by frobozz \* > \*\*Don’t they bury more than one person in a grave in some places? Maybe six feet leaves room for one or two future coffins on top. \*\* This is, or was, typical in many cemetaries. In doing geneological research, I located a single family grave in which seven people were buried between 1885 and 1891: four adults and three children. I don’t know how they were stacked up, or how close to the surface the last one was buried. These were poor Irish immigrants in New York City. I don’t know what tyical practice is these days, but AFAIK two or sometimes more people may be buried in the same grave. ---
**Author:** ![Speleophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@Speleophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speleophile)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/12 "2001-03-22T00:59:10Z")
In a certain suburb of Cincinnati, and I am NOT making this up, there’s a funeral home called **“Chambers and Grubbs”**. Personally, I’d have chosen something else, no matter how cool it would have seemed to have my name on the sign. ---
**Author:** ![OxyMoron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9a140/32.png) [@OxyMoron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OxyMoron)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/13 "2001-03-22T02:34:34Z")
Mr. Steinhart? Please? A yeshiva-educated friend of mine has said that Jewish law requires burial at a depth that in modern terms equals about six feet. I tried to look this up - he’d remembered that it had to do with the burial of Abraham. I performed a couple of searches in (English-language) Bibles and no luck - the bits about the burial of Abraham didn’t mention a particular depth. It is, however, a Big Deal for observant Jews - apparently in New Orleans, where you can’t dig, Jewish graves will be above ground with six feet of earth placed on top. (All within a pretty marble sarcophagus.) ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/14 "2001-03-22T03:16:33Z")
Does anyone want me to ask my father? ---
**Author:** ![Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Milton\_De\_La\_Warre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Milton_De_La_Warre)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/15 "2001-03-22T11:42:46Z")
“Buried in a shallow grave” is considered el-cheapo for a lot of reasons mentioned before --being dug up by four and two leggfed scavengers, etc. Possible 6 feet more or less was an easy measure of a decently deep hole that still allowed the gravedigger to climb out. The hole should be about one man’s height deep. ---
**Author:** ![Alonist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e68b1a/32.png) [@Alonist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alonist)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/16 "2001-03-22T12:19:53Z")
Ross is right about the zombie question. G.I. Gurdieff, in _Meetings with Remarkable Men_, relates an incident in his home town in the Kars region of Central Asia in which a Tartar horseman was thrown from his horse and “twisted his intestines”, and despite having been given a whole glass of mercury to readjust them, had died anyway, and had been buried quickly and in a shallow grave, according to Tartar custom. Unfortunately his body was possessed by a _gornahk_, an evil spirit, which dug itself out and tried to drag the body to the home of the deceased, so that the neighbors had to cut the throat of the body and return it to the cemetery. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/17 "2001-03-22T12:49:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by JCHeckler \* > \*\*“Buried in a shallow grave” is considered el-cheapo for a lot of reasons mentioned before --being dug up by four and two leggfed scavengers, etc. Possible 6 feet more or less was an easy measure of a decently deep hole that still allowed the gravedigger to climb out. The hole should be about one man’s height deep. \*\* “Buried in a shallow grave” implies to me that the deceased is the victim of a criminal who tried to hide his deed, not the relative of an el-cheapo executor. A bit of a Catch-22: if the criminal takes the time to dig a 6 foot grave, he’ll probably be discovered. And if he doesn’t, the aforementioned scavengers will dig up the body and perhaps pull it out for the authorities to find. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2001, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-they-really-bury-you-six-feet-deep-why/58801/18 "2001-03-22T13:11:18Z")
My dad used to like to tell this joke when I was a kid: A man was crossing a graveyard one dark, moonless night. He fell into a newly-dug grave. He tried and tried, but he couldn’t get out. Finally he sat down in a corner. Later, another man fell into the grave. He tried and tried, but couldn’t get out. The unseen man in the corner said in a gloomy, dreadful, hopeless voice, “You’ll never get out.” But he did! (Hey, it was funny when I was little…) And from _The Young Ones_ “Nasty”: > [@](#): > > **RICK:** Help! I’ve just fallen in to a grave! > > **VYVYAN:** Brilliant! Let’s fill it in! [Grabs the shovel from Neil] > > **NEIL:** No! No! You can’t bury Rick alive! > > **VYVYAN:** That’s absolutely correct, Neil. We’ll have to kill him first! > > [Vyv mashes the shovel with a rude, dull, clang] > > BRILLIANT!!