A burial plot is an expensive thing to buy, and I believe there’s a bit of a lack of space in many urban cemetaries. Why are people always buried lying down and taking up all that room? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and more space saving to drop em in feet first??
Any reason for this?
You would have to dig deeper.
You would also have to buy specialized equipment since a regular backhoe would have difficulty digging such a small hole (we’re talking what maybe 3’x3’ straight down for 8-10 feet).
Well, I can tell you that here in Boulder, for starters, that the bedrock is under only about 4.5 feet of soil, meaning that most coffins in my local cemetary are only about 2 feet or so beneath the sod. We are far enough above sea level that accidental resurfacing of the casket is not an issue, however if a family insists on the coffin being “6 feet under”, my favorite cemetary will blast into the bedrock, however, it’s extremely expensive. These things I know from spending a morning chatting up an enthusiatic and very sociable gravedigger who discovered Jett and I dancing on a beloved friend’s grave one excellent sunrise.
So, to bury standing up here in Boulder would mean extensive blasting to not have the top of the casket sticking up from the ground.
I don’t know why they wouldn’t do it elsewhere, though. It does seem to make sense.
We could make coffins a little shorter and fatter and put people in a sitting pose, but who want to embrace the supposed afterlife sitting on their ass?
Do you think ‘they’d’ mind if, when it’s my turn, I sort of posed on one leg. Somewhere between a soccer player pose and a muse look. I’d compromise though, a leaning-on-the-bar- pose would also work.
I think that its probably because the bereaved like to think of the deceased as lying comfortably and “resting”. Standing a “sleeping” person on their feet would conjure up uncomfortable images.
There actually was a guy buried standing up in Wesminster Abbey. Benjamin Something . . . I can’t remember the name. He was a writer or poet, and due to his somewhat worldly life, plus the fact that EVERYONE wanted to be buried in there and they were running out of room, the church leaders declined his request to be buried in Westminster. The guy struck a bargain with them-- he would only get a three-square-foot buiral plot in the Abbey and would be buried standing up. His grave was opened in the eighties and his bones still remained in an upright position.
Man, I have enough trouble standing waiting for the bus, now you want me to spend eternity that way.
It gives new meaning to the phrase, “My feet are killing me.”
Why not put more emphasis on cremation, that way virtually no room is taken up?
Jeffery
Ben Jonson. Not with an “h” - spelling it that way would be a mistake of Olympic proportions.
You occasionally get people requesting to be buried standing up. A 19th century Texas cattle baron requested that he be buried standing up, facing west, with his rifle and a filled jug of whiskey at his feet. Supposedly complied with, except that his widow didn’t think the jug of whiskey was proper.
At one time, I thought it would be original to request being stuffed and mounted. Jeremy Bentham beat me to it.
“Two feet by two feet will do for all I want”
Ben Jonson
I remember during the airlift era there was a great land shortage in “the Island of West Berlin” and people resented cemeteries. Cremation was encouraged, despite protests from the church, and I know upright burial was discussed in the newspapers, at least.
Sort of gives new meaning to The Specials song lyric, “You’re doin’ it right; you’re doin’ it JB style!”
It’s also a fairly universal sign of respect for a corpse, dating back virtually to when humans began burying the dead with ceremony, as opposed to simply hiding remains from predators. In fact, one primary way archaeologists use to determine whether a set of remain was buried or simply died in combat or alone is whether it’s face up or not.
Why face up? Well, most religions go with Heaven = up, Hell = down, so it makes sense to orient the dead facing the direction you want them to go. It also allows more of a “goodbye” when you can look the dead in the face.
I’m thinking there has to already be some sort of equipment that will do something of this nature. I’m thinking “post-hole digger” only on a grander scale. Don’t they use something like that to dig really deep holes for the footings of bridges, etc? (VV is thinking vertical is the way to go here, if one insists on being buried.)
Jeffery, don’t forget that in addition to cremation, you can avoid burial by donating your body to science. An even thriftier method because you don’t even have to pay for a funeral, much less embalming/cremation fees, etc. 
If you live in Hawaii you can just have a friend with a boat throw a weight belt on you, prop your mouth open (to allow decomposition gases to escape), and drop you in at least 5,000 feet of water.
“One small step for man, one giant leap off the top of the food chain”.
JSexton – 'bout time you chimed in! Sextons dig graves in churchyards, don’t they? Along with ringing bells and such?
tc - wouldn’t gases escape through other orifices?
Are you pulling our leg? I didn’t see a winkie smilie, so it’s hard to know, especially with you.
There is plenty of equipment that would do it. The drill rigs that they use for power and phone poles would wirk fine. Augers for them come in any size you like. Why don’t we forget about all the expensive trappings of a funeral. Dig a post hole 10’ deep and drop mother down head-first. Then throw the dirt back in. No need for a coffin at all. The worms gotta eat too.
I know. I am an enigma…
No, you need to either prop the mouth open or slit the abdominal cavity to prevent bloating. The anal orifice plugs because the expanding gas presses the lower bowel across it. In WW2, dogtags has a small “v” on one side. When you came across a dead soldier, you put the dogtag between his teeth so that the ‘v’ held his mouth open.