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Death is accompanied by rituals in every culture. It seems universal that we symbolically approach this life transition. This study focuses on experiences of bereaved who could not physically attend a funeral during COVID-19. Ten Dutch bereaved were interviewed. Disembodiment in terms of (1) not participating in ritual time and place, (2) experiencing live-stream funerals as lonely, and (3) feeling a disruption of one's grief, were revealed as main themes by thematic analysis. Without physical participation the respondents felt (partially) disconnected from the ritual and isolated from the community. The physical absence impacted ritual transformation and meaning making after a loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 1944 seventy-six Allied prisoners of war escaped from Stalag Luft III. Nearly all were recaptured; fifty were later shot. This article examines what happened in the period between recapture and the interment of the dead prisoners' cremated remains at Stalag Luft III. It positions what came to be known as 'the Great Escape' as an event of deep emotional resonance for those who grieved and reveals the dual narrative they constructed to make sense of their comrades' deaths. In discussing the iconography of the vault constructed by the camp community to house the dead POWs' ashes, this article also suggests a dissonance in meaning between that arising from personal, familial grief and the Imperial War Graves Commission's standardised memorial practice. Focusing on the Great Escape's immediate aftermath from the perspective of the POWs themselves provides a more nuanced understanding of the emotional impact of this infamous event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multidisciplinary research on human remains can provide important information about population dynamics, culture diffusion, as well as social organization and customs in history. In this study, multidisciplinary analyses were undertaken on a joint burial (M56) in the Shuangzhao cemetery of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 AD), one of the most prosperous dynasties in Chinese history, to shed light on the genetic profile and sociocultural aspects of this dynasty. The archaeological investigation suggested that this burial belonged to the Mid-Tang period and was used by common civilians. The osteological analysis identified the sex, age, and health status of the three individuals excavated from M56, who shared a similar diet inferred from the stable isotopic data. Genomic evidence revealed that these co-buried individuals had no genetic kinship but all belonged to the gene pool of the ancient populations in the Central Plains, represented by Yangshao and Longshan individuals, etc. Multiple lines of evidence, including archaeology, historic records, as well as chemical and genetic analyses, have indicated a very probable familial joint burial of husband and wives. Our study provides insights into the burial customs and social organization of the Tang Dynasty and reconstructs a scenario of civilian life in historic China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the ongoing debate surrounding the interpretation of Stonehenge as a calendar. The debate began in the 1960s with the publication of "Stonehenge Decoded" and has resurfaced in 2023 with a new proposal suggesting that the arrangement of sarsen stones represents a solar calendar. Archaeoastronomers have critiqued this suggestion, calling for a multidisciplinary relationship with archaeologists. The article argues for transdisciplinary collaboration, highlighting the increasing recognition of the value of skyscapes within the cosmologies and lifeworlds of past peoples. The issue also includes research on the Nebra Sky Disc, Jewish religious practices, and the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, as well as book reviews and a conference review. [Extracted from the article]

Aizanoi, one of the important cities of Phrygia, had experienced a transformation by 3rd Century Crisis which was felt throughout Roman Empire. Local elites lost their economic privileges because the transferring Temple Lands income to the imperial treasury now, and their political dominance for the increasing pressure of central bureaucracy upon the provinces, so they withdrew from the urban life. Aizanoi lost its autonomy, and its council became dysfunctional. The public buildings, which are the symbols of the Greco-Roman urban tradition, were either abandoned or lost their functions. In this process, the use of classical necropoleis ended and cemeteries around new churches appeared. The burial customs changed, and tombstones were not produced anymore. Use of writing had also dramatically decreased. Finally, Aizanoi transformed to a medieval settlement at the end of Late Antiquity. It was also disintegration of classical urban culture and the ideal of Polis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the necropolitical significance of the posthumous biographies of the inmates who were executed in the repression of the Santa Barbara, Lurigancho, and El Front_on prison riots of 1986 in Lima. Of the estimated 250 victims, only 22 have been handed over to their families. The path taken by the bodies is traced, along with the means employed by state agents to conceal them. We then analyze the modalities of their recovery, identification, and return (or otherwise), beginning in the 2000s. We coin the concept of "thanatoscape" to evoke the places and dynamics of a landscape in flux, encompassing the physical circulation of the deceased and the associated imaginary. The material dimension of the body is considered, along with how it is created symbolically by society and power relations. We discuss the means used to justify and legitimize whether these mortal remains deserved to be properly mourned or would remain missing and deprived of the opportunity to receive funeral rites. The management of these undesirable bodies can be better understood by studying the process of "de-citizenization" to which prisoners held for terrorism-related offenses were subjected, and which also extends to their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995 caused the death of around 100,000 people, the majority of whom were civilians. More than 25 years later, the process of search, identification, and burial of these victims is still not over, as a significant number of them were initially buried clandestinely or had their body moved and hidden in secondary, and sometimes tertiary, mass graves. These coverups bear a long-lasting legacy, as they have directly impacted funerary practices. The concealment and fragmentation of dead bodies have indeed delayed funerals and led them to be repeated numerous times. Focusing on the example of the annual collective burials, exhumations, and reburials occurring over the last two decades in Poto_cari cemetery, this article aims to show how the delay and repetition of burials may prevent families and society from finding closure but also contribute to the consolidation of a collective identity based on the shared experience of lasting mourning and resilience building. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 8 May 1842, the deadliest French railway disaster of the nineteenth century occurred in Meudon, near Paris. The derailment of a train and the resulting fire caused the death of several dozens of people. Studying the mortuary and funerary management of this disaster is of twofold interest. First, in the early days of the railway, this type of collective death was still rare and strongly marked by its industrial character; it was therefore necessary to improvise. Second, a new funerary regime was emerging at the time that placed great importance on the body of the deceased, but the violence of the accident led to mortuary chaos. How could the growing imperatives of the cult of the dead be reconciled with industrial death? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the management of human remains (handling, trajectory, fate, status) and the compromises made by the experts involved in the context of an air disaster that took place in France in 2015. Advances in identification techniques are shown to have had concrete effects on applied practice. On the one hand, the presence of human remains enables: victims can be identified and their deaths formally registered, following which the body can be returned to surviving relatives for a proper funeral. On the other, it obliges: human elements or debris, however small, require experts to decide on their status and legitimate destiny. The tradeoffs between technical, economic, legal, moral, and cultural considerations are forging a new way of working with human remains. A trend can be observed whereby principles that previously applied only to the corpse are being extended to human remains that would have otherwise been excluded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper opens by establishing a fact through fieldwork: a 70-year-old mass grave containing the remains of several hundred communist fighters who died in the battle of Florina (12 February 1949) was recently marked by a monument commemorating the fallen combatants. The erection of the monument (inaugurated in 2016) bypassed other sequences typically present in similar cases. None of the steps conventionally encouraged by post-conflict peacebuilding initiatives: exhuming the human remains in order to identify them, dignify them, move them (or return them to their families), and finally reinter them--was undertaken. A central piece of the memorial site built around the (quite large) spot of the mass grave, the monument de facto seals the human remains underground. In order to understand the ethnographical facts, we follow several trends of explanation. After looking at the conflict (the Greek Civil war), we show the intricacies of local panorama in which political struggle was underpinned by long-standing ethnic conflict. The nexus of memory-and-history is analyzed under two angles, the hidden memory of the defeated and the various claim on the "historical truth" laid by historical and new political formations. The struggles over "historical truth," in relation with the extremely sensitive issue of the unity of the nation (and the blame laid on some populations for "national treason") are viewed as one of the reasons for the lack of any demand for, or the practice of, transitional justice. Political agendas, along with the continuing marginalization of the most directly concerned group, are in fact obstacles to exhumation: if not feared, the identification after the removal of the dead from the mass grave was not supported by any social force or group. Other elements: specific ritual treatment of the dead in Greek culture, issues of land property and land use--are brought in line to suggest that, instead of exhuming the dead bodies, the field containing them could be more easily transformed into burial ground. The local response, as well as the initiatives taken by political actors, did all meet in one point: transforming the mass grave into a funerary site by granting it the legal status of a "green space." It is this consensus that explains why a monument to the dead was erected--so as not to have to exhume them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In July 1975, a month after Mozambique's independence from Portugal, the state nationalized all health care, schooling, and legal counsel, so that all Mozambicans would have equal access to these key services – at least theoretically. The fourth, seemingly anomalous sector to be nationalized on the 'Day of Nationalizations': funeral services. The inflationary costs of burial in the capital, Lourenço Marques (today's Maputo) came to the attention of cabinet ministers only during the few weeks they had been ministers. Reacting with disgust, they decided there would be no 'commercialization of death' in the People's Republic of Mozambique. Based largely on interviews with the former minister of health and with Isaac Araújo, whose family ran perhaps the first African-owned funeral services business in Lourenço Marques, this article uses the episode to discuss the nature of government decision-making during the very earliest days of independence, a period that I argue deserves special attention. Emphasized is the role that Lourenço Marques played as context: how for neophyte ministers, learning to wield the levers of state was also a process of discovery about life in the capital city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-sectional survey was aimed to explore the features of later life security and their related factors among Thais using the WHO Active Aging Framework. Data were collected from 1,129 adults aged 18–59 years in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand using a self-administered questionnaire consisting of three sections measuring demographic data, factors related to the active aging concept, and preparedness for later life. Logistic regression analyses were applied to determine the associated factors. The results showed that all the three later life preparedness variables were rated at medium levels; and setting aside funds for later life and managing inheritance were reported more frequently than having made funeral arrangements. Preparation for later life was strongly associated with community participation (odds ratio, 4.6; 95% CI 3.1–6.8) and financial security preparation (odds ratio,3.5; 95% CI 2.3–5.2). Further research is needed to promote later life preparation during the new normal period when community engagement and financial planning are more difficult and also to understand the features of later life preparation among aging population because lives of older persons are also more vulnerable and uncertain due to the pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Settler literature is haunted by the colonial past. Motifs found in the Australian literary tradition signify this haunting-Aboriginal spectrality, uncanny Aboriginal ceremonial grounds, and taboo massacre sites being the most common. Settler authors typically use these literary devices in moments of social and political upheaval that disturb the foundational myths of settler belonging. Australia's Reconciliation agenda brought realities of colonial frontier violence and the scale of Aboriginal deaths to the fore of mainstream socio-political consciousness. Literary scholars have adapted Freud's concept of the uncanny to argue that settler belonging feels imperiled or strange when confronted with the distressing knowledge of Aboriginal modernity. Overwhelmingly, the manufacture of Aboriginal haunting in Australia's Reconciliation—era signifies settler anxiety and attempts to reclaim the authority unsettled by Indigenous alterity. Works by Henry Reynolds—Why Weren't We Told? (2000)—and Alex Miller-Journey to the Stone Country (2003)—are representative of a broader literary response to Reconciliation, after which depictions of Aboriginal death and burial, as well as new settler quests for belonging, proliferated. The essay concludes by reading Noongar writer Kim Scott's novel Taboo (2017) as a subversion of works like those by Reynolds and Miller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 death toll is staggering and has impacted the funeral industry more than any other event in recent memory. Funeral service providers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic doing the work of the dead--transporting, storing, and disposing our dead. They have performed a critical service during uncertain times. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the funeral industry was beginning to adapt to the changing personal preferences about death care and increasing concerns about sustainability, technology, and cost. The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the changing norms and practices in American funerals and succession law and accelerated a shift toward digital funeral practices and digital testamentary instruments to meet the demands of a quarantined public. This Article is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on funeral practices and the funeral industry. It explores how funeral practices have shifted and adapted to pressing events in the past, tracing how the system we know today is an outgrowth of practices developed during the Civil War and the twentieth-century transition from home care to hospitalized care. This Article argues that COVID-19 gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our practices, laws, and regulations concerning the work of the dead. It explores how death practices have evolved with the desires of each generation. Our current funeral and cemetery laws and regulations are built on outdated assumptions that most Americans want to be embalmed and buried. Many Americans today, however, want a more environmentally friendly and less expensive disposition and are using technology in unprecedented ways to dispose and memorialize loved ones. This Article proposes that the industry disruption caused by COVID-19 provides an opportunity for state and federal lawmakers to promote more sustainable burial practices while still maintaining individual choice in bodily disposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the epitaphs produced for the unburied dead in the Ming and the Qing. These epitaphs were the product of a popular custom called delayed burial (tingzang), the practice of leaving a dead body without permanent interment until a suitable burial site was arranged. The period of unburial varied depending on family circumstances, often spanning years and decades, during which the unburied body symbolized an uncertain place of the deceased within the family. The epitaphs show how families coped with the precarity caused by the delay of burial through creating a literary space where they could explore, construct, and contest the value of the unburied. The epitaphs, in other words, were a strategic tool for building a bond with the deceased when the ritual and material logistics for ancestor-making remained incomplete. Engaging several practical, tangible, and contentious matters pertaining to death and burial within elite households, such as inheritance, financial troubles, official career, and property management, the epitaphs helped family members negotiate ancestorhood in response to the shift of family circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Burial and funeral practices are important customary mortuary rituals, especially in rural areas as people are likely to have different values and interests than people who live in larger cities. However, little is known about rural post-death practices in Canada. Aims: This review gathered information on funeral and burial practices in rural Alberta, a western Canadian province with a diverse rural population. Methods: A literature review of community print sources, including obituaries and funeral home websites, was conducted for select representative rural communities. Findings: This review found that cremations outnumber burials, and mortuary ceremonies more commonly occur in non-religious settings. Furthermore, personalised post-death rituals were identified as highly significant to rural people as they allow the dead to remain connected to their rural land, family and community. Conclusion: It is important to understand rural mortuary rituals to help prepare dying rural people and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following is an historical fiction about a burial that took place in Sunghir, Russia, circa 32,000 B.C.E. It is historical in the sense that it is based on archaeological evidence of the grave. It is fiction in the sense that it invents a story around the grave that has no substrate in an archive. Since the grave's excavation in 1969, many archaeologists have interpreted it as an early example of the unearned status of elites, though some other interpretations exist. My aim is to describe, in Saidiya Hartman's phrasing, 'what might have happened or what might have been said or what might have been done' where archive and artifacts do not go. Even if such a fiction does not recover an 'unrecoverable past', it might nevertheless succeed at what historical fiction does best: making us feel, through force of detail, as though it were real and as though we were there. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accessible Summary: What is known on the subject: Nurses working at nursing homes can play a pivotal role in mental health as a high proportion of residents diagnosed with dementia are in these facilities.Many institutionalized residents diagnosed with dementia develop clinical complications and symptoms that reduce the quality of dying.A mixed‐methods approach can help nurses with the difficult task of assessing the quality of dying among these residents and identify inconsistencies that cannot be found using scales alone, but no studies were found in this topic. What the paper adds to existing knowledge: Through the Quality of dying in Long‐Term Care Scale (QoD‐LTC), nurses described symptom management, quality of care, and end‐of‐life appearance as adequate and end‐of‐life communication as lacking.Generally speaking, the scores on the scale were consistent with the data from semi‐structured interviews conducted with nurses.In the semi‐structured interviews, some of the concepts on the scale, including 'dignity', 'holistic' care, 'good relationships with healthcare professionals', and 'a peaceful death', are complex and not fully incorporated into nurses' practice in nursing homes when assessing residents diagnosed with dementia. This could be improved by using the SENSES Model or person‐centred care frameworks. What are the implications for practice?: There is evidence of shortcomings among professionals in the correct use of concepts linked to psychological wellbeing, communication, therapeutic relationship, safety and participation, preservation of dignity, decision‐making, and resident autonomy, which can be addressed using specific theoretical approaches developed in the field of mental health nursing. Introduction: The complex nature of end‐of‐life assessment of individuals diagnosed with dementia would benefit from a mixed‐methods approach that simultaneously assess the perception and response of nurses to standardized tools. Aim/Question: To examine nursing professionals' perceptions of the quality of dying among residents diagnosed with dementia using the Quality of Dying in Long‐Term Care settings (QoD‐LTC) questionnaire and to identify consistencies and inconsistencies in their narratives. Method: Mixed‐methods study using concurrent triangulation with data integration for results and interpretation. Nurses from eight nursing homes assessed 117 residents diagnosed with dementia who died in the previous 3 months using the QoD‐LTC scale. After informed consent was obtained (nurses/caregivers), 17 semi‐structured scale‐based interviews were conducted. Results: Symptom management, quality of care, and end‐of‐life appearance were found to be adequate, while end‐of‐life communication was deemed insufficient. The qualitative and quantitative data were consistent for most of the items on the QoD‐LTC. Discussion: Concepts such as dignity, holistic care, good relationships, and peaceful death are complex and not fully incorporated into professional practice. Implications for Practice: The results highlight the need for greater involvement of mental health nurses as well as improved communication, training, and specific tools tailored to residents diagnosed with dementia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the course of a salvage excavation in the centre of the Negev highlands, near Tlalim Junction and Kibbutz Tlalim, a unique burial site dated to the middle of the first millennium BCE was discovered. The site appears to be located at the head of an ancient crossroad, and it seems that for generations it was used for communal graves and associated burial rituals carried out by travellers. Dozens of burials were found in the structures, along with an extraordinary wealth of special finds, most of which date to the middle of the first millennium BCE, from the end of the Iron II and the beginning of the Persian period. The site opens a gateway to multidisciplinary research related to identifying the origin of the finds, identifying the source of the burials and those interred, understanding its ritual significance, understanding the manner of burial and identifying ancient trade routes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay "Burying the Heroes: Identifying the Archaeological Background of the Homeric Burial" by Antonis Kourkoulakos discusses the historical and cultural significance of Homeric burial customs. The author argues that Homeric burial customs are the result of a mixture of traditions, contemporary customs, and collective memory. By examining archaeological findings and written sources, possible origins of Homeric burial customs are proposed. It is noted that burial practices in Anatolia show similarities to Homeric traditions, particularly regarding cremation and the use of urns. There are also similarities between the burial tradition in the Iliad and archaeological findings in Greece, the Aegean, and the Balkans. It is speculated that these similarities could indicate a connection between the Mediterranean and Central European regions. The western Balkan region appears to have been the area where the tumulus tradition originated and spread over a large area in the following centuries. Therefore, the epics are not only a marvel of early Greek poetry, but rather an example of the first truly "European" (and indeed Anatolian) literary work. [Extracted from the article]

The authors examine funeral reform in the second half of the 20th century in Central and Eastern Europe via the historical comparative analysis approach. Examining the case studies of Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the article argues that although the newly-developed civil (socialist) funeral ceremonies in the two countries followed a similar pattern, in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia, civil funerals followed by cremation became the norm during the forty years of communist rule, whereas in Hungary they did not become the popularly accepted approach, in a similar way to the Slovak part of Czechoslovakia, where Roman Catholic funerals and inhumation remained dominant. The significant difference in the results of efforts toward reform was due principally to differing cultural histories, attitudes toward both religion and cremation and the availability of the infrastructure required for conducting civil funerals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this study is how the power, sex, and status in Anatolia could be determined in the light of burial traditions. In this study, the skull cult dated to Neolithic Age; simple earth graves, chamber tombs, ceremony in royal tombs, different burial groups such as collective burials with traces of violence dated to Early Bronze Age according to the tomb types and their finds; and rock-cut tombs and tumuli in the Iron Age were studied as samples in Anatolia, ranging from the Neolithic Age to the end of the Iron Age. The literature on burial traditions to identify power, status, and sex, bioarchaeological studies and social anthropological literature are researched. The aim of the study is to develop an approach to determine gender, power and status in the identification process of the individual in the light of burial traditions. The importance of burial customs in understanding past communities and identifying the individual has been evaluated in the light of skull cult, grave types, prestige objects, mass burial (traces of violence), evidence of burial ceremonies, bioarchaeology, archeothanatology, osteobiography, and aDNA analysis. As a result, it is of great significance to observe the grave finds correctly in determining the identities. Each grave or individual has different characteristics. A good understanding of the culture to which the grave belongs is significant in commenting on the grave finds. Comparison of burial type, location, and finds in the same culture help indicate the differences between individuals. In addition, ethnographic data are significant sources for understanding some practices in light of similar practices in archaic communities. It seems that an interdisciplinary approach is essential to archaeological sciences and anthropology. It has significance in better understanding its processes before, during, and after burial in a grave in the identification of the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 death toll is staggering and has impacted the funeral industry more than any other event in recent memory. Funeral service providers have been on the frontlines of this pandemic doing the work of the dead--transporting, storing, and disposing our dead. They have performed a critical service during uncertain times. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the funeral industry was beginning to adapt to the changing personal preferences about death care and increasing concerns about sustainability, technology, and cost. The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the changing norms and practices in American funerals and succession law and accelerated a shift toward digital funeral practices and digital testamentary instruments to meet the demands of a quarantined public. This Article is the first to provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of COVID-19 on funeral practices and the funeral industry. It explores how funeral practices have shifted and adapted to pressing events in the past, tracing how the system we know today is an outgrowth of practices developed during the Civil War and the twentieth-century transition from home care to hospitalized care. This Article argues that COVID-19 gives us an opportunity to reevaluate our practices, laws, and regulations concerning the work of the dead. It explores how death practices have evolved with the desires of each generation. Our current funeral and cemetery laws and regulations are built on outdated assumptions that most Americans want to be embalmed and buried. Many Americans today, however, want a more environmentally friendly and less expensive disposition and are using technology in unprecedented ways to dispose and memorialize loved ones. This Article proposes that the industry disruption caused by COVID-19 provides an opportunity for state and federal lawmakers to promote more sustainable burial practices while still maintaining individual choice in bodily disposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guy Hepp examines how heterarchical complexity formed the conditions in which hierarchical complexity emerged. DeLance's introduction brings order to the unwieldy concept of complexity and research into its origins. [Extracted from the article]

This article presents a new reading and interpretation of the Aramaic burial inscription from the "Abraham's House" complex. Rather than representing a curse, we propose that the inscription records the year in which the loculus was completed. Moreover, we suggested that year 99 is counted not from Hyrcanus' death but rather from the time of his accession to high public office, either as king or as high priest. The use of a continuous numbering system extending back to a foundation date rather than the regnal years of an individual ruler is paralleled by the Seleucid calendar, and also echoes traditions found in Hebrew and Greek sources that such a system was current amongst the Hasmoneans. The identity of Hyrcanus and the implications for the dating of the inscription are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

He points out that the southern Levant, unlike other provinces of the empire, could not be conquered to provide additional sources of agricultural surplus for the empire's core as the transportation costs would have been too high due to the area's lack of a proper riverine system. However, concluding that the Assyrians completely neglected the southern Levant, leaving the provinces in a state of disarray and ignoring the reach revenues of the Mediterranean trade, seems far-fetched. Finally, Faust argues that the impact of the Assyrian empire in the southern Levant was more limited when compared with other provinces. While the Assyrian provinces of north Mesopotamia and north Syria were included in the empire's orbit quite early at the start of the Assyrian expansion, the Kingdom of Israel, and the southern Levant in general, became part of the imperial provincial and client state systems much later. [Extracted from the article]

In the context of violence and enforced disappearance in Mexico, the concept of mourning is recontextualized from a psychoanalytic perspective. Two themes of the psychoanalytic theory of mourning are considered: 1) the impossibility to confirm the death of the missing person and 2) the availability and purpose of symbolic resources (rites, community activities). The private and public aspects of mourning are reviewed in relation to the afflictions of the relatives of the missing. Without a body to mourn, the rites that are performed around the disappeared have a different function than funeral rites. Nuanced by repetition, these rites attempt to work through the traumatic loss. The role of search groups in working through the pain of loss is also explored. The notions of intrapsychic crypt and endocryptic identification are reviewed, to better understand the encrypted mourning -the particular state of prolonged grief- endured by the relatives of the disappeared. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it has been widely discussed in the literature, no scale has yet been developed to measure the consumption aspect of death. This study aims to develop a domain-specific death-related status consumption (DRSC) scale to bridge this gap in the field. Results reveal the following three dimensions of the scale: conspicuousness, planning, and showing respect. In four studies, which collate the views of 1,302 participants, both students and adults, the DRSC demonstrates internal consistency and validity across cultures (Turkey, the U.S., and culturally diverse sample). The importance of such a scale for the field is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the preservation of Jewish historic heritage in the Caribbean, with a focus on two Jewish cemeteries in Curaçao. The first cemetery, Beth Haim Bleinheim, is the oldest continuously used Jewish cemetery in the Americas, but has suffered significant deterioration due to environmental damage from an adjacent oil refinery. Efforts to preserve the cemetery have been hindered by financial constraints and ongoing emissions from the refinery. The article also discusses the history and physical aspects of the Beth Haim Berg Altena cemetery, which was established in 1864 as a result of a schism within the Orthodox congregation Mikvé Israel. The cemetery reflects changes in burial practices, tombstone inscriptions, and the secularization of the Jewish community in Curaçao. The text highlights the importance of preserving Jewish historical heritage in the Caribbean and calls for global support in this endeavor. [Extracted from the article]

The Traumatic Grief Inventory Self-Report (TGI-SR), which aims to assess both Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder and Prolonged Grief Disorder, has been validated in several languages. This study sought to validate the French-Canadian version. We conducted an online survey exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on grief. With data from 728 participants, the scale demonstrated high internal consistency, correlated significantly with three other scales known to measure similar concepts, and distinguished between groups known to be different. This study supports the use of the TGI-SR French-Canadian version by clinicians and researchers to assess complications of grief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many young women were believed to die due to pregnancy and childbirth in the past, yet few cases of pregnant female burials have been reported in bioarcheological literature. Therefore, this paper reports the burial of an adult female (H49‐1) and her infant (H49‐2), who were buried together in an early Western Zhou pit at the Sanbulijia site, Jiaodong Peninsula, Shandong Province, China. It is the first reported case of obstetric death in thePre‐Qin Period in Shandong Province. The mother–child relationship was proved by ancient DNA evidence and archeological context. The infant's remains were placed between the adult's lower legs. Skeletal histological evidence suggests that the infant died during or shortly after childbirth. Sacroiliac fusion of individual H49‐1 may have resulted in dystocia. Furthermore, a special postmortem burial ritual—pit burial, was carried out for both the infant and the mother. H49 is the first Zhou Dynasty pit burial (multiple burial) with an exact radiocarbon date in the Shandong Peninsula. The case under review suggests that both the adult and the infant may have died due to special events, which may be related to obstetric death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative study analyzed suicide notes left by 591 decedents in Shanghai and Wuhan, in China. General guidelines and detailed requests with regard to funeral service were coded. In general, suicide decedents preferred untraditional funerals, which were simple and speedy rather than grand and costly funeral arrangements. These choices suggested that suicide decedents could fear stigmatization and discrimination. Some suicide decedents regarded suicides as vicious deaths, and thus wished their families to dispose of the cursed bodily remains and tombs as swiftly as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ritual of the double burial consists of a first temporary burial followed, some time later, by recovery of the remains and their definitive placement in a second burial site, generally different from the first, often accompanied by a second funeral ceremony. The practice has survived to the present day in the modern cemeteries of Naples, directly derived from an ancient ritual widespread until the second half of the nineteenth century which took place in subterraneous chambers, under the floor of churches and convents. These hypogea were structured according to two organizational models: the terresante and the scolatoi, both of which aimed at favouring the decomposition of the corpses and reaching the state of a skeleton. According to the procedure, once skeletonization was accomplished the skulls were displayed on a cornice present along the walls of the hypogeum, while non-cranial bones were placed in a common ossuary. At the base of the ritual there was an idea of death perceived not as a sudden event, but instead as a long-lasting process, during which the deceased went through a transitional phase, gradually passing from the earthly state to the hereafter. Indeed, the ultimate purpose of these funerary rituals was the liberation of the bones from the earthly element of the flesh, an indispensable condition to allow the definitive passage of the soul into the afterlife. This process also wanted to be exhibited and, therefore, in these hypogea the decomposition of the corpse was displayed to visitors. Through the progressive corpse's decay, the ritual was intended to visually symbolize the various stages of purification faced by the soul on its path towards the kingdom of the dead, a destination considered reached only when the skeletonization was complete, and the definitive burial carried out. These practices provided the basis for establishing close relationships between the living and the defuncts, and fostered the development of cults that dealt with the dead. This article briefly reviews the structural organization of these underground sepulchral chambers, the funerary practices they housed and the forms of worship centered on the cult of the dead which took root and developed within them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unanticipated outbreak of Coronavirus had proven detrimental to human existence. It had created waves of panic, anxiety, and fear among people hence facilitating stigmatization toward an infected person. This stigmatization further influences patients health-seeking behaviour due to the trust deficit in the public health system. The virus had placed the world in an impotent situation as people helplessly watched their loved ones pass away in the absence of effective treatment. Dead bodies are denied a dignified death due to mandatory guidelines prescribed by countries to control the pandemic. This article attempts to understand the process of stigmatization of Coronavirus and its mechanism of influencing the health-seeking behaviour of people. Moreover, the way this stigmatization, accompanied by fear and anxiety, led to the denial of having a dignified death in India. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic has put a hold on the Silent Mentor Programme (SMP); this pause has not only caused unprecedented challenges for the delivery of medical education but has forced changes in the programme ceremony sessions. We aimed to describe the psychological impact and experiences of family members of silent mentors during the COVID-19 pandemic using qualitative interviews. Many expressed feelings of remorse and unrest about the unprecedented delay of the SMP. The delay increased negative emotions particularly among some elderly family members; however, there was no prominent negative effect on their functional health and well-being. Several participants relayed the belief that the soul cannot rest until the body receives a proper burial while some worried about the deterioration of the physical condition of the mentors. In conclusion, findings provide insights into the importance of not overlooking the mental health implications of delaying the SMP in future outbreaks or crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses articles within the issue on topics including role of experts in forensic medicine or forensic anthropology in mortuary and funerary practices in mass death situations, funerals of exhumed victims of the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and use of medico-legal techniques in the care of human remains.

The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a need for people and communities for death preparation. Few studies have examined community-level interventions for death preparation and education. This scoping review scrutinized the relevant literature following PRISMA 2018 guidelines. Six databases were searched for articles published between 2010 and 2020. We found that cultural, socioeconomic, and individual values affected death preparation and that online courses and life-death education were effective preparation methods. Additional research is needed to identify the population-specific effectiveness of interventions. To fully investigate death preparation and education at the community level, theory-based studies employing quantitative and qualitative methods are also needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Memorials of the lay dead in late medieval English churchyards were constructed from perishable materials, with the exhumation and reuse of burial plots suggesting that a timely forgetting of the individual was an accepted part of the commemorative process. From the 13th century onward, remains exhumed from old graves were increasingly redeposited in specific structures known as charnel houses. The collective redeposition of disarticulated skeletal remains in charnels anonymised the deceased, generating mortuary spaces which foregrounded communal rather than individual memory. In this paper, charnelling and its relation to memory in late medieval England is theorised and explored. Following this, early modern developments are investigated, employing the charnel of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, as a central case study. As the country's largest late medieval charnel, its extreme treatment following the Dissolution of the Monasteries renders it a potent example of how religious reform affected mortuary practice during the period. Through the violent ejection of its contained remains and the structure's secular repurposing as a print shop, treatments of the ancestral dead were employed to enact and manifest ideological change. This produced changes in London's mortuary landscape which in turn memorialised the reformatory process itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American colonization of the Philippines restyled local civilization's character. One notable transition prompted by American colonial rule was the adoption of new public health conventions. In spite of these practices being introduced to elevate the well-being and life expectancy of the Filipinos their implementation was met with resistance. Accordingly, this paper focuses upon the creation of the Philippines' first crematory facility, namely the San Lazaro Crematorium (opened in 1903, in Manila). The work, thus, grants an overview of how Filipinos responded to a societal modernization project initiated by the American colonial regime. The paper discusses three matters: first, what American colonial policymakers sought, with reference to public health, to accomplish; second, how the American colonial framework directly challenged Filipino culture with regard to disease prevention and death management; and, third, why the construction of the San Lazaro Crematorium offers a unique entry point to grasp the nature of America's initial governance of the Philippines. Such clarification has twofold value: it helps to deepen comprehension of the administration's operation and, in association, native opposition to it; plus, given that the crematorium is presently derelict this paper can underscore its value as a dark heritage object worthy of preservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Death among the Igbo is not the end of existence but is seen as an access road to the otherworld. Hence it is seen as the spin-off of the send-forth of the dead to the next phase of existence more commonly known as ancestry. This send-forth, defined in the framework of funeral encodes a chain of creative and spontaneous acts and actions which tend to democratise the pain of death and the burden of attendant funeral in line with the principles of Igbo thanatology. Furthermore, if art can be spontaneous, then some of the activities that characterise the funeral arena can be seen as creative actions arising from the agency of death. But even at that, they are not a frivolous affair devoted to mere jolitty and fanfare. Rather, Igbo funerals help to demonstrate the interface of this life and the next through culturally coded actions and performances that approximate some of the essences of art in their outlook and content. This paper examines the processes of dying and death and the politics of after-death in Igbo land with the attendant renegotiation of reality as well as the evolution of funeral in Igbo land in the mill of postcoloniality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmentalists target their own behaviour choices as part of their identity, including recycling, transportation, and clothing. Based on interviews with older adult environmentalists, we investigate whether their environmentalism extends beyond their lives. That is, do they want to be disposed of or dispersed upon their death? In terms of environmentalism, then, considering the materials involved, including one's body, how might we explain older adult environmentalists' thoughts on their own death care? Is there a gap between one's identity as an environmentalist and one's anticipated choices about death care? We examine the death care discourse of 20 older adult environmentalists to examine Rumble et al.'s 2014 debate between disposal and dispersal. We conclude that environmental activists maintain their identity as environmental activists through their death care deliberations, but that both the ecological science of burial choices and the knowledge about green burial options is evolving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human bodies are typically buried underground, horizontally 'in repose'. To the extent that this orientation has become the standard; it is a non-choice that is under-interrogated by scholars. In this paper, we discuss innovations which allow for the vertical orientation of the body within the earth and for the vertical stacking of remains above the earth in high-rise structures. Both of these boundary-pushing forms of disposition address imminent shortages in the land allocated for cemeteries in the context of intense urbanisation and a peaking death rate. They also promise to transform the necrogeography of contemporary cities and intimate relations between the living and the dead. This paper is a collaboration between the DeathTech Research Team and the Managing Director of Upright Burials, where the dead are 'stood to rest' in shaft graves. The pragmatic advantages of vertical burial are easily explicated, but in this paper, we focus on the cultural and symbolic dimensions of this largely unfamiliar spatial relation and the challenges of 'reorienting' the public towards this new form of disposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how the human corpse can function as an aesthetic-therapeutic for the deceased, the bereaved and for death care professionals. It understands the human corpse as a liminal entity that is characterised by a specific materiality, biography and self-referentiality. Because of these attributes the corpse can be employed as an aesthetic-therapeutic by the bereaved and by death care professionals in response to a death. On the basis of participant observation in the death care industry and qualitative interviews with bereaved people and funeral professionals in the Netherlands, the paper discusses four engagements with the dead body in the period prior to the funeral: i) caring, ii) sustaining, iii) restoring, and iv) disregarding the dead body. Crucially, it shows how such engagements can contribute to the well-being of those involved, including the deceased, who is often understood to be sentient. Furthermore, by focusing on cases where the corpse is disregarded, the paper argues that an aesthetic-therapeutic understanding of the human corpse is hegemonic in the death care industry. The analysis and conclusion offer insights to scholars in the interdisciplinary field of death studies, as well as reflections for practitioners in end-of-life and death care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]