Useless Facts on Death And Dying
Undertakers report that human bodies do not deteriorate as quickly as they used to. The reason for this, they believe, is that the modern diet contains so many preservatives that these chemicals tend to prevent the body from decomposing too quickly after death.
After his death, Alexander the Great's remains were preserved in a huge crock of honey. Among the ancient Egyptians, it was common practice to bury the dead in this manner.
Obsidian balls, or occasionally brass balls, were placed in the eye sockets of Egyptian mummies. The bandaging of a mummy often took from six to eight months and required a collection of special tools, including a long metal hook that was used to draw the dead person's brains out through their nose.
When a man died in ancient Egypt, the females in his family would smear their heads and faces with mud and wander through the city beating themselves and tearing off their clothes.
When a person dies, hearing is generally the last sense to go. The first sense lost is usually sight. Then follow taste, smell, and touch.
When a crusader died, his corpse was chopped up and the flesh boiled away. This was done so that the skeleton could be conveniently returned to Europe for a Christian burial.
In ancient Egypt, when merchants left the country on business trips, they carried small stone models of themselves. If they died while abroad, these figures were sent back to Egypt for proxy burial.
It is possible to drown and not die. Technically the term “drowning” refers to the process of taking water into the lungs, not to death caused by the process.
More men than women commit suicide in the United States.
In Turkey the color of mourning is violet. In most Moslem countries and in China the color is white.
Among the Danakil tribesman of Ethiopia, when a male dies his grave is marked with a stone for every man he killed.
Until the 1950's, Tibetans disposed of their dead by taking the body up to a hill, hacking it into little pieces, and feeding the remains to the birds.