I posted a thread recently (last week), there were a lot of replies but oddly it seems to have disappeared now!
It was about the best way to safeguard a loved one’s buried remains. I know nothing preserves a body indefinitely once buried - but anything that slows down the process would help me cope.
As it will be a burial in the ground (i.e. not a mausoleum or cremation), and the cemetery does not offer a grave lining/concrete vault in the ground, I am going to get a good metal casket. The question is - should it be sealed or unsealed?
There was also some info that zinc lining would help, but I gather that it is more for transportation/infection control - not what I am looking for.
Well I’ll be. It is gone. Either the gophers or the Mods got it.
Once again, just out of curiosity, can you please explain what your objective is and why? A buried body is going to decompose unless, as you were told in the original thread, you do something extreme or weird to it.
Sealing the casket will not achieve the objective you seek.
Nothing will do that, but a hermetic casket is probably the worst option if, for some reason, you desire the body to remain in a recognisable form for the longest time.
I think actually something like a woven wicker casket would be the best option in terms of the limited maximum success of this venture. Drainage is your friend.
In your second post in the original thread you posted a link to a blog. It was suggested that the whole reason you started the thread was to post that blog link. It appears that the mods believed that and deleted it as spam. The really odd thing is that you weren’t immediately banned as a spammer. So apparently they either gave you the benefit of the doubt, or else it was an oversight and you (and this thread) will soon disappear in a puff of smoke.
I have Stiff, by Mary Roach. It’s been a very long time since I read it, but ISTR that she wrote the same thing: That a body in a sealed casket would putrefy and turn into goo.
Taking the O.P. at face value and ignoring any spam/blog shenanigans …
I hate to say this to anyone grieving and trying to cope by fighting off the decomposition process, but the alternative is generally, well, liquefaction. You’ll have either aerobic bacteria (rot, decay) or anaerobic bacteria (goo, ooze) and a sealed casket will feature the latter. For me personally, that’s far more disquieting and disturbing.
You might look into “green burials” which are pretty much the opposite from a sealed, metal lined casket as the O.P. seems to want … but they hasten the return of the deceased to the local trees and flowers.
Far better than liquified into a putrid slime, in my very personal opinion. But O.P. should understand that this will be the result of what they want.
An ‘unsealed’ casket lets a bit of air circulate, lets moisture out and lets small bugs/worms in. A sealed one doesn’t.
An unsealed casket will allow the corpse to decompose, as normally as possible given the conditions. A sealed one is going to putrefy, it’s going to turn into a mass of slime.
Think of burying a dead animal vs putting it in a plastic bag.
If it’s about coping, do whatever makes you feel better. As you’re not likely to ever see the remains, what they look like really doesn’t matter, it’s only about how you’re picturing them.
If it’s about, really, anything else, a sealed casket exists for one single reason, to charge you more. Even if a sealed casket really did preserve the body better or for longer or kept it in pristine condition, does it really matter? The deceased doesn’t care and the survivors will never see it again, there’s literally no good reason to weatherproof a casket. It’s just an easy upsell when someone is grieving and has a million things to do in very little time.
Imagine how easy it would be to upsell a bride on random things that make no difference if their wedding is in 3 days and they’re just starting to plan it now.
dennisdreams, it’s not about the casket. If you want to preserve the body a bit longer, you want it embalmed. Morticians can do that. They often do for open-casket funerals (not that we are doing a lot of big funerals these days.) But that’s independent of whether the casket is open or closed in the ground.
My personal preference is to rot and have the nutrients that were tied up in my body recycled to feed a tree or some such. When an especially beloved cat has died, I have buried it under a tree or shrub (sometimes buying a shrub for the purpose) so I can look at the tree and remember my cat.
But everyone mourns differently, and will find comfort in different things.
If you really want long term preservation what you want is mummification. I’m not sure if anyone is doing that commercially these days or not. Some examples have lasted thousands of years. Sure, they’ve had some cosmetic changes, but the bodies are largely intact. For best results, store mummies in a very dry place after the process is complete. Cold also helps. Occasionally natural mummies form from people dying in deserts or other environments conducive to dehydration.
Plastination is a modern option. It hasn’t been tested for thousands of years like mummification but looks promising. Can also result in a better looking corpse.
I might add that both the above techniques are likely to be quite expensive.
Regular embalming also preserves the body. Not perfectly, and with most procedures not as long as the first two options I mentioned although if you really want it you could probably get an embalming that provides more lasting protection.
Open vs. sealed caskets: a lot depends on the environment in which the casket is placed. An open casket in some place like, say, Ancient Egypt, will provide a desiccating environment that promotes natural forms of mummification. And open casket in damp or even wet soil not nearly so much. Sealed caskets promote some types of rot, but whether or not the body inside has been embalmed and to what degree also has an effect.
I forgot to mention in my previous post, I’ve always told people that when I die, just get something cheap. I see zero reason to spend thousands of dollars on a box that people look at for 45 minutes and never, ever see again. It doesn’t need to be made of expensive wood, it doesn’t need to be lined with satin, it doesn’t need to have a special pillow.
I mean, I don’t care, it’s your money, I just never understood spending so much on it.
Again, if you are not a naughty person or are at a sensitive moment in your life, listening to this sketch would probably not be advisable. I certainly would not advise it. In fact, I would go so far as to specifically advise against it.
Anyone listening to this sketch has only himself / herself to blame.
It was reported as spam, so I started to delete it. However, after investigation I decided it wasn’t, but due to board glitches wasn’t able to restore the original thread. My apologies to the OP.
Is freeze drying an option? Freeze with liquid nitrogen and draw the moisture off in a vacuum. It will probably take some time, but I’m assuming it’s not a “need answer fast situation”.
Thanks for all the replies so far. It was not spam, I have no interests in the blog I linked to other than that it was one of the scarce pieces of info I could find on the topic.
As to why I would seek what I am seeking - it does seem a little odd to be asked this. Why do people put letters in the coffin that no one will read for example? You do what eases your fears or heartache.
I’m with you- as is Jewish teaching and tradition. A traditional Jewish casket is a plain, unvarnished pine box with rope handles. I’ve told my own mother that she’ll get a plain pine box. But, at the memorial everybody will be encouraged to share a happy memory (an easy thing. Mom is a sunshiny optimist who is universally beloved) and then put a happy face sticker on the casket.
I genuinely don’t understand the OP. Again, in Judaism the idea of the body returning to the earth and the cycle of life continuing is very strongly stressed.
Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, who was buried in St Albans Abbey, was found, several hundred years later, to be in a remarkable state of preservation (body liquor, in sealed lead coffin) and was exhibited to the curious, for a fee.