THE CRAZIEST GRAVEYARDS IN THE WORLD
K. Thor Jensen Apr 28, 2016 Mandatory
Why do we humans insist on locking our dead bodies in boxes and putting them in the ground forever? The rest of nature is content getting eaten by vultures and contributing their nutrients to the soil after they pass on, but not humans. No, we have to get all fancy with our dead people and put them in special places called graveyards. In this feature, we'll travel the world and visit 10 of the most over-the-top and weird repositories for human remains, from live-in mansions to an underwater paradise made from human ashes.
Hanging Coffins
Why exactly do we think that the ground is the best place to put dead bodies?
That is, aside from keeping them away from raccoons or whatever. In some parts
of China, corpses are hung out to dry -- literally -- in coffins tenuously
lashed to the faces of cliffs. In the Sichuan province, the Bo people who lived
there several centuries ago left behind one of the most perplexing graveyards
ever. Attached to the steep sides of several mountains are a number of coffins,
each carved from a hollowed-out tree trunk. Some archaeologists believe the Bo
thought that this weird form of burial would make it easier for the gods to
collect their spirits.
Khalid Nabi
The Middle East's attitudes towards sex and sexuality are notoriously
restrictive, which is why it's deeply weird that the cemetery of Khalid Nabi exists.
Located in the Golestan province of northern Iran, Khalid Nabi has become a
tourist attraction due to the curious shape of its tombstones. About 600 of the
site's grave markers resemble nothing more than erect human penises jutting
forth from the soil, and others look like the outline of women with huge
breasts. Some archeologists pooh-pooh that theory, claiming that they're
actually designed in the shape of men wearing turbans, but they really look
like dicks to us. Many tourists visit the graveyard every year, much to the
chagrin of the Iranian government who are a bit embarrassed by it.
Dargavs City Of The Dead
Sometimes a simple cemetery isn't enough to satisfy the dead. Sometimes they
need a whole city. The odd little village of Dargavs in the North Ossetia
region of Russia looks pretty charming from a distance, a smattering of 99 stone huts and
houses on a grassy
hillside over the Fiagdon River. But nobody lives in those houses -- they're
mausoleums, built by the native people in the 17th century. Legend has it that
a plague ravaged the area back then and the residents had to build the houses
to quarantine their relatives. When they died inside them, they simply walled
up the doors and turned them into makeshift crypts rather than take the risk of
burying them and exposing themselves to the plague.
Shirokorechenskoe
Cemetery
After the collapse of communism, the next natural step for Russia was the rise
of organized crime. We've all heard stories about the brutal ways of the Moscow
mafia, but if you want to see where they wind up, take a trip to the town of
Yekaterinburg. Located in the Ural Mountains, it's the fourth-largest city in
Russia and is known for metal processing and machine work. It's also known for
crime, as theShirokorechenskoe
Cemetery aptly
illustrates. Some of the region's most notorious Mafia bosses are buried in an
alley here, with massive black marble tombstones laser-etched with
photorealistic portraits of the gangsters in their prime. Beneath them are
descriptions of their skills like "expert in knife-throwing."
Neptune Memorial Reef
Burial at sea is a common practice for sailors far from home (and Osama Bin
Laden), but this is a little ridiculous. The Neptune Memorial Reef located off the coast of Florida is a
unique way to dispose of your mortal remains. The structures of this massive
man-made complex are made of concrete mixed with human ashes. Memorial plaques
with the names of "residents" are affixed to the objects, and the grand
design is of an underwater city with roads and benches that divers can relax
on. The project has fallen on hard times in recent years, and it's unknown as
to whether it will ever expand to its proposed final size of 16 undersea acres.
Eklutna Graveyard
Religious traditions play a big part in how people get buried, but what happens
when those traditions get weird? Take a trip up to remote Eklutna, Alaska, for
a pretty amazing example. This region was inhabited by the native Danaina
people, but when Russian Orthodox migrants settled there in the 1800s their two
cultures merged in an interesting way. One of the best examples is in the graveyard of St. Nicholas Orthodox
Church. When a local dies, their body is placed in an unmarked grave
and covered with a blanket. Forty days later, their family constructs a
"spirit house," a brightly colored wooden structure that looks like a
Barbie doghouse, and puts it over the plot. Over the next few decades, the
spirit houses rot away and are absorbed into the earth.
Merry Cemetery Of
Sapanta
Typically gravestones are pretty sedate affairs -- a slab of stone, maybe a few
lines carved on it, and we call it a day. But at one unusual cemetery in
Romania, the dead get a little more style. The Merry Cemetery of
Sapanta is famous
worldwide for its ostentatiously decorated grave markers, courtesy of one nosy
man. Stan Ion Patras was a local woodcarver who loved gossip, and when a town
resident died he would carve them a wooden cross for their grave that depicted
their life in all its glory, from triumph to tragedy. Patras passed on in 1977
but his apprentice is carrying on the bizarre tradition.
Manila Chinese Cemetery
Known as the "Beverly Hills Of The Dead," the notorious Chinese Cemetery in the capital of the Philippines is
the place for that country's super wealthy to retire in style. The cemetery was
built during the Spanish colonial period when non-Catholic Chinese were
forbidden from being buried, and it not only contains the island's oldest
Buddhist temple but many other monuments to the famous dead. The weirdest
residents, though, are still alive. Mausoleums are common for burial due to the
humid climate, and rich Filipinos have built enormous burial structures for
their dead family members. In keeping with Chinese tradition, the mausoleums
are equipped with beds, bathrooms and other conveniences for the dead person to
use. These buildings are so big that in some cases living relatives have also
moved into them to save money.
Sedlec Ossuary
Not all cemeteries bury their residents in the ground. Sometimes, they use them
for construction. The Sedlec Ossuary in
the Czech Republic town of Kutna Hora shows exactly how much mileage you can
get out of a bunch of old bones. Somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 dead
people are represented in the chapel and its grounds. Pretty much everywhere
you look there's furniture made from human bones, including a huge chandelier
that contains at least one of every bone in the body and the coat of arms of
the Schwarzenberg family who commissioned the ossuary's decoration.
New Lucky Restaurant
The problem with burying people in the ground is that you can't really do
anything with that space afterwards. Well, not usually. Welcome to the New Lucky
Restaurantin Ahmadabad, India. Owner Krishnan Kutti bought an old
Muslim cemetery with about a dozen graves in it and decided to just roll with
it and open a cafe where you can eat with corpses. Each of the grave areas is
blocked off with waist-high iron fencing, and tables fill the rest of the floor
space. Every morning, Kutti and his staff honor the original occupants by
wiping down their graves and replacing the flowers on them, then they open for
business. He says he's doing well financially, and patrons don't seem to mind
the unique experience.
greeeaaat