Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Extraordinary Burial Sites





I'd be curios if any of these actually appeal to anyone out there.

Mental_floss points us to 8 extraordinary burial sites. I've included photos of just a few:

*The Capuchin Catacombs in Palermo, Italy. Yes, those are preserved, mummified remains.
*The hanging coffins on limestone cliffs in Sagada, Philippines.
*The underwater Neptune Memorial Reef off the coast of Florida.

I get chills just looking at them ... but they are fascinating. And I would be quite curious to visit some of the sites. Especially the hanging coffins in the Philippines.

Thanks to Christian Sinclair for the link!

2 comments:

Gail Rae said...

I'm just guessing, but having been raised in the deep tropics, my guess is that the Philippine burial site is constructed in order to preserve both the coffins and the remains from water (the universal solvent).
Here's an interesting, ubiquitous little myth about a popular Catholic mausoleum on Guam (where I was raised) that was built on the coast: It was said that it was constructed so that bodies on the bottom were dropped into the ocean to make room for new bodies at the top. I don't know if it was true, but I do know that for the 13 years I lived there the mausoleum, while maintained, was never expanded.
I think my choice of visit would be to the burial chamber in Italy with the mummified remains.

Jessica Knapp said...

I think I'd be most interested in the hanging coffins. Dethmama sent me an email about one of the people preserved in Italy. I need to post that.

Wow, that's quite a story about the mausoleum in Guam—whether it's true or not, that would really get your attention. Especially as a child.