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I'm a PhD student researching the role of the archaeological dead in contemporary British society. Think of this as a scrapbook of all the interesting links, snippets of information and random bits and bobs I come across pertaining to death, dying and the dead. Enjoy?!

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    Fantasy coffins: Meet the man who puts the ‘fun’ into funereal Fancy laying your head down one last time in a Coca-Cola bottle? Or an aeroplane? You name it you can be buried in it, says Paul Bignell His creations are of highly intricate and take months of intensive work to produce, yet when they are finished they are buried six feet in the ground, never to be seen again. >Meet Paa Joe: the 68-year-old Ghanaian master craftsman and grandfather of the ‘fantasy coffin’ trade. For almost 50 years, Paa Joe – whose real name is Joseph Ashong – has been burying people in anything from lions, aeroplanes, tanks and even Coca-Cola bottles – whatever the link to the deceased, the Ghanaian coffin maker will hand-craft it. But times have not been kind to the man who has produced thousands of coffins over the decades and who has had two US presidents stop by his workshop. (Source: The Independent)

    Fantasy coffins: Meet the man who puts the ‘fun’ into funereal

    Fancy laying your head down one last time in a Coca-Cola bottle? Or an aeroplane? You name it you can be buried in it, says Paul Bignell

    His creations are of highly intricate and take months of intensive work to produce, yet when they are finished they are buried six feet in the ground, never to be seen again.

    >Meet Paa Joe: the 68-year-old Ghanaian master craftsman and grandfather of the ‘fantasy coffin’ trade. For almost 50 years, Paa Joe – whose real name is Joseph Ashong – has been burying people in anything from lions, aeroplanes, tanks and even Coca-Cola bottles – whatever the link to the deceased, the Ghanaian coffin maker will hand-craft it.

    But times have not been kind to the man who has produced thousands of coffins over the decades and who has had two US presidents stop by his workshop.

    (Source: The Independent)

    Letter from Africa: Rites of the dead

    In our series of letters from African journalists, Sola Odunfa in Lagos pays his last respects.

    I love funerals.

    It is the only ceremony I know which confronts human beings with the stark reality of the transient nature of the individual and witnesses to the “great leveller”.

    When I sit at a funeral I look at the sealed coffin.

    I think of the body inside - former king or common citizen - and how it has become a decomposed or decomposing mass of tissue and bones which must be put deep inside earth or burnt to ashes for the sake of the living.

    Power or position has nothing to do with it.

    The “great leveller” has wrenched from the body that - call it spirit or soul - which qualified it to be regarded as a person.

    The spirit-person has flown away.

    To where - purgatory, hell, paradise or even another territory?

    I keep wondering, but I am not in a hurry to find out personally.

    Every culture has its answer.

    (Source: BBC News)

    Margaret Thatcher death parties held on day on former Prime Minister’s funeral MARGARET Thatcher’s death has been greeted with celebration by a small number of people who held ‘parties’ after her funeral in the UK today. While the former Prime Minister’s family gathered at St Paul’s cathedral to say goodbye, a minority took to the streets to welcome her passing.Gatherings were held in Northern Ireland and mining communities in Scotland with some people even bringing celebratory cake. Former miner Jim McMahon hosted around 100 people at his the Glenmuir Arms in the village of Logan, East Ayrshire. (Source: Express)

    Margaret Thatcher death parties held on day on former Prime Minister’s funeral

    MARGARET Thatcher’s death has been greeted with celebration by a small number of people who held ‘parties’ after her funeral in the UK today.

    While the former Prime Minister’s family gathered at St Paul’s cathedral to say goodbye, a minority took to the streets to welcome her passing.

    Gatherings were held in Northern Ireland and mining communities in Scotland with some people even bringing celebratory cake. 

    Former miner Jim McMahon hosted around 100 people at his the Glenmuir Arms in the village of Logan, East Ayrshire.

    (Source: Express)

    Editorial: Thatcher's death has unleashed an almost medieval public mood

    Neither the sycophantic supporters nor the vitriolic detractors can be taken seriously, but there is cause for comfort in the cacophony

    If Baroness Thatcher was divisive in life, she is proving no less so in death. Indeed, the proverbial Martian might conclude from the extremes of approbation and acrimony that have consumed Britain since the former prime minister’s fatal stroke on Monday that, in fact, two different people had died.

    One was the country’s saviour, a straight-talking political titan who restored an ailing Britain to health and hastened the end of the Cold War. The other sacrificed the post-war consensus to the idol of the free market, destroyed lives and livelihoods across swathes of the North, and fostered a culture of greed and selfishness, the deleterious effects of which we still suffer from.

    (Source: The Independent)

    Mining village 'celebrates' ex-PM's funeral

    The funeral of Baroness Thatcher has been marked by residents of a village scarred by pit closures.

    Banners and bunting were hung in Goldthorpe, South Yorkshire, in protest at her policies, as mourners gathered for the funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral.

    A horse-drawn, open coffin housing an effigy of the ex-prime minister was paraded through the village.

    The effigy was set on fire on waste ground at around 15:15 BST and fireworks let off.

    Heather Hopwood, landlady of the Rusty Dudley, in Goldthorpe, near Barnsley, said the village had “died” since the pit closure in 1994.

    (Source: BBC News)

    'Rent a Mourner' fills your funeral with fake friends

    It’s a niggling question familiar to anyone who has ever thrown a party; What if nobody shows up? 

    A new company in the U.K. is addressing - and capitalizing upon - that fear by promising to ensure your last gathering on earth is a very well attended one. 

    Rent-a-mourner, based in Essex, hires out actors at a rate of $70 Cdn per hour to attend funerals as “professional grievers.” 

    Their goal is help the deceased appear sufficiently popular and beloved, going so far as to cry openly and behave as if they knew the person in front of their friends and family. 

    “We are typically invited to help increase visitors to funerals where there may be a low turnout expected,” reads the company’s website. “This can usually be a popularity issue or being new to an area, or indeed, the country. We can supply professional, polite, well dressed individuals to attend funerals and wakes.” 

    Read more.

    Chinese Student Staged Her Own Funeral So She Could Enjoy It Zeng Jia, a 22-year-old student from Wuhan, China, shocked family and friends when she invited them to a rehearsal of her own funeral so she could take part in the festivities while she is still alive. The young student told members of the press that she got the idea for the morbid event after realizing that people spend a lot of time and effort on someone when they’re gone, and they never get the chance to appreciate and enjoy it. Determined not to let that happen to her, Zeng Jia used up all her saving to arrange an elaborate funeral service complete with a coffin, flowers and origami birds, as well as photographers and a crowd of mourners. She then invited her family and friends to take part in the unusual festivities. Believe it or not, some of them actually attended, and got the chance to look at the young girl as she lay in her coffin, with a Hello Kitty doll on her chest. To make the whole thing look and feel realistic, Zeng even hired makeup artists who specialize in working on dead bodies to give her that coveted past-away look. She spent an hour playing dead, as all her relatives and friends passed by her coffin to say their final goodbyes, after which she jumped out to attend the wake and even delivered a eulogy in her honor. Read more.

    Chinese Student Staged Her Own Funeral So She Could Enjoy It

    Zeng Jia, a 22-year-old student from Wuhan, China, shocked family and friends when she invited them to a rehearsal of her own funeral so she could take part in the festivities while she is still alive.

    The young student told members of the press that she got the idea for the morbid event after realizing that people spend a lot of time and effort on someone when they’re gone, and they never get the chance to appreciate and enjoy it. Determined not to let that happen to her, Zeng Jia used up all her saving to arrange an elaborate funeral service complete with a coffin, flowers and origami birds, as well as photographers and a crowd of mourners. She then invited her family and friends to take part in the unusual festivities. Believe it or not, some of them actually attended, and got the chance to look at the young girl as she lay in her coffin, with a Hello Kitty doll on her chest. To make the whole thing look and feel realistic, Zeng even hired makeup artists who specialize in working on dead bodies to give her that coveted past-away look. She spent an hour playing dead, as all her relatives and friends passed by her coffin to say their final goodbyes, after which she jumped out to attend the wake and even delivered a eulogy in her honor.

    Read more.

    • Posted 1 month ago
    • April 3rd, 2013

    10 Likes & Reblogs

    Taiwan’s most famous professional mourner Crying on command isn’t easy, but Liu Jun-Lin is hired to do it every day, at funerals for people she never knew. She’s Taiwan’s best-known professional mourner - a time-honoured tradition in her country that may be dying out. Crying for a living is controversial, seen by some as the commercialisation of grief, but mourners like Liu say their profession has a long history in Taiwan, where according to tradition the deceased needs a big, loud send-off to cross smoothly into the afterlife. “When a loved one dies, you grieve so much that when it finally comes time for the funeral, you don’t have any tears left,” says Liu. “How are you going to suddenly switch your mood to show all that sorrow?” Liu is there to help strike the right tone. Read more here!

    Taiwan’s most famous professional mourner

    Crying on command isn’t easy, but Liu Jun-Lin is hired to do it every day, at funerals for people she never knew. She’s Taiwan’s best-known professional mourner - a time-honoured tradition in her country that may be dying out.

    Crying for a living is controversial, seen by some as the commercialisation of grief, but mourners like Liu say their profession has a long history in Taiwan, where according to tradition the deceased needs a big, loud send-off to cross smoothly into the afterlife.

    “When a loved one dies, you grieve so much that when it finally comes time for the funeral, you don’t have any tears left,” says Liu.

    “How are you going to suddenly switch your mood to show all that sorrow?”

    Liu is there to help strike the right tone.

    Read more here!

    Let battle begin: should Richard III have a State funeral at Westminster Abbey? - Dan Cruickshank says State funeral would be ‘splendid’ - But royal historian Hugo Vickers said Richard should stay in Leicester Historians today called for the remains of Richard III to be buried alongside other monarchs in Westminster Abbey. They believe a State funeral and reinterment at the abbey would be a more fitting honour for one of England’s most controversial kings than a planned burial at Leicester Cathedral. Researchers this week solved a 500-year-old mystery by confirming that remains found under a car park in Leicester were those of Richard, who died aged 32 in 1485 in defeat by Henry Tudor in the Battle of Bosworth. BBC TV presenter Dan Cruickshank told the Standard: “My feeling is that a royal funeral at Westminster Abbey would be splendid. To lose a king is pretty damn careless but when you find him not to give him a proper ceremony and burial would seem deeply remiss. It is an astonishing discovery given the unlikelihood of him turning up. “A State funeral would be a real moment to reflect and ponder the person - another way of bringing another bit of remote history back to life.” Historian Andrew Roberts said Richard should be buried alongside 17 other monarchs in Westminster Abbey. “The bones of the last British monarch to die in battle must now be treated with dignity and venerated properly, as is only right for a former head of State,” he wrote in the Daily Mail. Dr Suzannah Lipscomb, senior lecturer and convenor for history at AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities in London, said: “ Monarchy has a special status in this country and by burying him in Westminster Abbey we would be treating those bones with the proper decorum.“We would also be taking him away from the place where he suffered his greatest defeat and was then humiliated. It would be a nice way to redress the balance.” As Richard III has already had a funeral, it’s really only a matter of re-interring the skeletal remains with ‘due dignity and respect’ in, as per the conditions of the license issued for this excavation, Leicester Cathedral. I can’t envisage the MoJ allowing him to be reburied elsewhere, but who knows, stranger things have happened! The MoJ certainly has prior form in chopping and changing its mind as to what is considered appropriate in terms of the excavation and retention of archaeological human remains, so I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens…You can read more on this story here and if you feel particularly strongly that Richard should remain in Leicester, you can put your name to a petition here!

    Let battle begin: should Richard III have a State funeral at Westminster Abbey?

    - Dan Cruickshank says State funeral would be ‘splendid’

    - But royal historian Hugo Vickers said Richard should stay in Leicester

    Historians today called for the remains of Richard III to be buried alongside other monarchs in Westminster Abbey.

    They believe a State funeral and reinterment at the abbey would be a more fitting honour for one of England’s most controversial kings than a planned burial at Leicester Cathedral.

    Researchers this week solved a 500-year-old mystery by confirming that remains found under a car park in Leicester were those of Richard, who died aged 32 in 1485 in defeat by Henry Tudor in the Battle of Bosworth.

    BBC TV presenter Dan Cruickshank told the Standard: “My feeling is that a royal funeral at Westminster Abbey would be splendid. To lose a king is pretty damn careless but when you find him not to give him a proper ceremony and burial would seem deeply remiss. It is an astonishing discovery given the unlikelihood of him turning up.

    “A State funeral would be a real moment to reflect and ponder the person - another way of bringing another bit of remote history back to life.”

    Historian Andrew Roberts said Richard should be buried alongside 17 other monarchs in Westminster Abbey. “The bones of the last British monarch to die in battle must now be treated with dignity and venerated properly, as is only right for a former head of State,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.

    Dr Suzannah Lipscomb, senior lecturer and convenor for history at AC Grayling’s New College of the Humanities in London, said: “ Monarchy has a special status in this country and by burying him in Westminster Abbey we would be treating those bones with the proper decorum.“We would also be taking him away from the place where he suffered his greatest defeat and was then humiliated. It would be a nice way to redress the balance.”

    As Richard III has already had a funeral, it’s really only a matter of re-interring the skeletal remains with ‘due dignity and respect’ in, as per the conditions of the license issued for this excavation, Leicester Cathedral. I can’t envisage the MoJ allowing him to be reburied elsewhere, but who knows, stranger things have happened! The MoJ certainly has prior form in chopping and changing its mind as to what is considered appropriate in terms of the excavation and retention of archaeological human remains, so I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens…You can read more on this story here and if you feel particularly strongly that Richard should remain in Leicester, you can put your name to a petition here!

    He had it his way: Father’s funeral stops at Burger King drive-thru so tearful daughter can bury him with one last Whopper Jr. A Pennsylvania man with a life-long passion for fast food got a whopper of a funeral when his procession made one last visit to a drive-thru Burger King. Marking 88-year-old David S. Kime Jr.’s love of the popular restaurant chain, family and friends picked up 40 Whopper Jr. burgers on the way to the cemetery - including one they buried with him. Described by relatives as a man who ‘lived by his own rules’, his daughter, Linda Phiel said, ‘His version of eating healthy was the lettuce on the Whopper Jr.’ Read more here!

    He had it his way: Father’s funeral stops at Burger King drive-thru so tearful daughter can bury him with one last Whopper Jr.

    A Pennsylvania man with a life-long passion for fast food got a whopper of a funeral when his procession made one last visit to a drive-thru Burger King.

    Marking 88-year-old David S. Kime Jr.’s love of the popular restaurant chain, family and friends picked up 40 Whopper Jr. burgers on the way to the cemetery - including one they buried with him.

    Described by relatives as a man who ‘lived by his own rules’, his daughter, Linda Phiel said, ‘His version of eating healthy was the lettuce on the Whopper Jr.’

    Read more here!

    Holy roller: Motorbike lover’s coffin carried to church in 24-foot-long trike hearse Motorbike lover Mark Nuttall made his last journey in style when his coffin was carried to an abbey in a 24-foot long trike hearse. Mr Nuttall, 58, who was passionate about motorcycles, died this month after a three-year battle with cancer. His wife, Sharon, rode his Harley-Davidson in a procession of around 50 motorbikes to the service near Romsey, Hampshire. His biker friends carried the coffin, which had his helmet and gloves on top along with floral tributes. The celebration of his life included AC/DC’s Thunderstruck and Bon Jovi’s Thank You For Loving Me. Mr Nuttall, who worked for the Ministry of Defence, was a member of various biker groups. He rode his bike to raise cash for disabled biker groups and children’s charities. What a fabulous hearse! Read more here.

    Holy roller: Motorbike lover’s coffin carried to church in 24-foot-long trike hearse

    Motorbike lover Mark Nuttall made his last journey in style when his coffin was carried to an abbey in a 24-foot long trike hearse.

    Mr Nuttall, 58, who was passionate about motorcycles, died this month after a three-year battle with cancer.

    His wife, Sharon, rode his Harley-Davidson in a procession of around 50 motorbikes to the service near Romsey, Hampshire.

    His biker friends carried the coffin, which had his helmet and gloves on top along with floral tributes. The celebration of his life included AC/DC’s Thunderstruck and Bon Jovi’s Thank You For Loving Me.

    Mr Nuttall, who worked for the Ministry of Defence, was a member of various biker groups. He rode his bike to raise cash for disabled biker groups and children’s charities.

    What a fabulous hearse! Read more here.