Around forty thousand years ago, along the shores of Lake
Mungo in southeastern Australia, a small group of aborigines took time out from wallaby
hunting and emu egg gathering to cremate the remains of a woman. Mungo Woman, as she is affectionately known today, was cremated and her bones crushed, then cremated again, before being buried along the shores of
this ancient lake. Discovered in 1968 by a young geologist scouting for fossils,
Mungo Woman would achieve fame not only as one of the most ancient skeletons
from the land down under, but also the oldest human cremation yet discovered.
It took a while for cremation to catch on. The
tried and true method of earthly interment began around one hundred thousand years ago and, although our friends in the Outback may have gotten a jump start on cremating,
it wasn’t until around five thousand years ago that it took hold as a custom. So let’s
trace its origins and see how it’s become one of the most common methods of
disposing of the dead.
Cremation on a regular basis first crops up in
northern Europe and the Near East. Stone Age Slavs were producing decorative
urns in which to house their loved ones' remains and the practice soon spread into the
British Isles and southern Europe. By three thousand years ago, the Greeks had jumped
aboard the cremation train and it quickly became their primary means of
disposal. Cremation was quick and clean, and proved a handy means of disposing of
the dead, especially during times of war (aka, most of Greek history).
By the rise of the Roman Empire, around two thousand years
ago, cremation had taken hold in Italy (an excellent means of dispensing with dead
gladiators). Urns had become so elaborate that they required special repositories;
they were simply too pretty to stick in the ground.
But with the rise of Christianity, cremation found
itself in a death spiral. Christians shunned the practice since it smacked of
paganism, and it soon fell by the wayside, except during the rare instances of
plague and war. From
this point on, the dead were placed in the ground and it would take another fifteen hundred years for cremation to emerge from the ashes (couldn’t help myself…).
And emerge it certainly did. But it didn’t just slink
back onto the stage. Modern cremation sprang to life at the opening of the
Vienna Exposition in 1873, when an Italian by the name of Brunetti displayed his
cutting-edge oven, guaranteed to reduce your loved one to a fine, ashy powder!
A year later in England, Sir Henry Thompson, surgeon to the Queen and enamored of the thrift of cremation, founded the Cremation Society of England, and
crematoriums began cropping up in England and Germany.
Never to be outdone by our friends across the
pond, Americans began experimenting with cremation - which is ironic, since
Native Americans had been cremating their dead for thousands of years before
the palefaces came ashore. The first American crematorium was built by Dr.
Francis LeMoyne in 1876 on a small parcel of his land, aptly named Gallows
Hill, within the quaint community of Washington, Pennsylvania. Fearing the
town’s crowded cemetery was leeching into local water sources, Dr. LeMoyne
deemed cremation a more sanitary alternative, so he spent fifteen hundred dollars of
his own money to have the small brick building erected.
He designed the oven to prevent direct flame contact with the bodies, and the first cremation was lit off on December 6th. Sadly, of the forty-two cremations that took place at Dr. LeMoyne’s crematorium, his would be number three. He was slid into the oven in 1879 and his ashes were placed in a small urn in front of the building, which still stands today and is run by the Washington County Historical Society. (Call ahead for private tours.)
He designed the oven to prevent direct flame contact with the bodies, and the first cremation was lit off on December 6th. Sadly, of the forty-two cremations that took place at Dr. LeMoyne’s crematorium, his would be number three. He was slid into the oven in 1879 and his ashes were placed in a small urn in front of the building, which still stands today and is run by the Washington County Historical Society. (Call ahead for private tours.)
Today, cremation is all the rage. It is a
world-wide custom practiced in most societies and integral to many religions.
From Buddhists to Christians, from Hare Krishna to Quakers, burying ashes has
become an accepted method of interment, although many have specific guidelines.
Yes, there are religions that shun the practice - Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and
even the Presbyterians, who don’t forbid cremation, but simply prefer the
ground - but cremation provides an economical alternative to the rising (and
ridiculous) cost of traditional burial.
In
fact, a quick Google search in my area not only turned up a plethora of
crematoriums, they also sport catchy names. According to their website, Island Cremations, located on Merritt
Island, provides an all-inclusive deal for the bargain price of $695. (“Don’t overpay on your most difficult day!”) There are even crematoriums for your pets! Pet
Passages, which claims to be the “Leading Authority in Pet Loss,” has a
website where you can choose the type of service, pick from a beautiful collection
of stylistic urns which start at seventy dollars, and peruse a list of books to help get you
through your loss (such as Cold Noses at the
Pearly Gates, by Gary Kurz).
So if
you haven’t done so already, give cremation some consideration. According to the fun
folks at the National Funeral Directors Association, the number of those preferring the oven
to the ground have skyrocketed, from a paltry three percent in 1960 to a whopping forty-three percent in
2012! It’s an affordable, space-saving means of disposal without all the fuss
and muss of a casket and hearse (urns fit comfortably in the trunk). Besides, I’d
rather be perched on the mantle than stuck in the cold, hard ground any day.
On a personal note:
Two of my books recently won silver medals in the
Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Book Awards. Check them out!
