Funeral Clowns Brought the Dead to Life
I heard “funeral clowns” and envisioned the grim reaper’s hood with a red nose poking out. Something smiley with too many yellow fangs and a scarlet afro. A...
Graveyard Dirt: Encountering the Collectors
Graveyard dirt is exactly what it sounds like: dirt taken from a grave, often for the purpose of serving as an ingredient in spiritual and religious rites. It’s...
Prosecuting the Dead
Posthumous prosecutions! We’re such a litigious people it’s almost believable of 2025 America, but no: this is another one of those incredible feats of folly that history holds...
Do More People Die During a Full Moon?
The full moon gets blamed for all kinds of nonsense: spates of weirdness or bad luck, general craziness, psychosis. Busy emergency rooms. Increased fatalities. Freak accidents. People are...
Medieval Funeral Directors, Hellmouths, and Churchyards
Before cemeteries had gates and grave liners, the dead were protected from hell itself. This was necessary because Medieval Europeans believed that hell’s many front doors were literally...
Repositories of Bones, Part Two: The Winding Underworld of Catacombs
Narrow subterranean corridors interlace for miles, linking vestibules, chambers, and hidden entrances. Ceilings and temperatures down here are chilly, and damp dimness pervades the disorienting, psychologically confrontational environment....
Guillotine Deaths Were Way Creepier Than We Thought
Decapitation by guillotine was popular during the French Revolution, and was thought to be a merciful method of execution. Believed for centuries to be instantaneous and thereby humane,...
Repositories of Bones, Part One: Ossuaries
Ossuaries can be, of course, elaborate and ornate places, sites of unique tribute to the deceased. The artistic displays of relocated human bones in ossuaries are often stunning...
Buried Before Death: The History Behind a Cultural Nightmare
Gruesome tales go back centuries—exhumed coffins with bloodied scratch marks, mangled fingers, even corpses found entirely outside their caskets. It sounds almost too horrible to be believed. Has...
The Odor of Imminent Death
Final responders know that death has its own particular odor, unique as a fingerprint. Once experienced, it’s not often forgotten: decomp-specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) make the scent...