People assume that once they are buried in a cemetery, they will remain buried there. That's not always so. When a piece of land that holds a graveyard is sold, the human remains must be moved before any new building is started. Sometimes a family -or community- wants to repatriate remains to their ancestral home, church, or even a new memorial. Sometimes there are questions about the identity or the circumstances of death. There are plans right now to exhume the bodies of John Dillinger and James Joyce, for different reasons, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco was exhumed just recently. In fact, disinterment happens more often than you might think.
The very idea of disturbing the dead has been a source of angst and spooky entertainment for much of recorded history. True believers say the “curse of the pharaohs” is responsible for the premature deaths of several members of the team that cracked open King Tut’s tomb. In Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein’s troubles begin when he imbues an assortment of stolen body parts with life. And zombies serve as metaphors for infection, racism, and climate change in books, movies, and TV. Dillinger’s relatives wanted to film the exhumation as part of a macabre History Channel documentary, which has since been scrapped. (The exhumation, however, is plowing ahead; it’s slated for New Year’s Eve.)
But digging up bones remains taboo, in part because many religions forbid the practice lest it disturb the afterlife. Certain Native American tribes believe moving a person’s remains can unsettle their spirit. Rabbis rarely approve the disinterment of Jews, with rare exceptions for things like reburial in Israel. Islam discourages opening, handling, or reusing graves until there are no traces of the original corpse left. And many Christians believe if someone’s body is disturbed or destroyed, they cannot be resurrected. (Even so, the Catholic Church announced it would “not oppose the exhumation of Franco.”)
Exhumations, however, continue across the globe. While no one knows how many are carried out globally each year, forensic experts extract DNA from human remains for criminal investigations, genealogical research, and identification of victims of war; and government agencies can relocate entire cemeteries to make space for a new skyscraper, bigger airports, or hydroelectric dams. And, as in the case of Jimi Hendrix, whose family members moved his remains from a humble grave to a grand memorial in 2002, the living move their dead to new plots, new cemeteries, even new cities.
But what do you find inside?
Vox explains how exhumation works, which varies depending on how long the body has been buried and on other factors that cannot be foreseen. While the article is not illustrated except for one title image, it may be disturbing. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: SNCH)
Colma in the San Francisco Bay area is a good example of such. Auburn is another, the original cemetery behind the pioneer church was relocated.
It's thought Watt's Earp's grave in Colma, if there are any remains left, are missing or not his. Low paid labor that plainly didn't place care in the work to be done correctly...if at all. There's much rumor of moved gravestones but the remains still exist under San Francisco neighborhoods.
Then again, said labor were lucky if an intact casket could be loaded on a wagon. As the article mentions there might not be much left at all...or much worse...coffin liquor.