Book Review - Burying the Dead

 * Thank you very much to Rosie Crofts and Pen & Sword for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

Burying the Dead: An Archaeological History of Burial Grounds, Graveyards and Cemeteries by Lorraine Evans.

Archaeology and burials are two things I am very interested in, so this title immediately caught my attention. In her book, Lorraine Evans takes us around the world, examining the customs, practices, and methods of what people have done with their dead throughout history, and how it differs depending on class, religion, and culture. Burying the Dead is a mix of archaeology, historical and modern mortuary practices, and a look into possible practices of the future.

The book starts with what pre-Christians did with their dead and ends with a chapter that looks at how we might do things in the future, as more and more people die. At the time of writing Burying the Dead, the author writes that it was estimated that there are 101 billion dead people on the planet, and another 7 billion are set to join them in the next century. It will be interesting to see how mortuary practices may possibly change with time.

As well as archaeology, there is the chapter Boneyards of Steel, which explores the ‘graveyards’ of cars, trains, ships, submarines, and planes etc. I thought the inclusion of such a chapter was very clever and interesting.

There are some detailed glossy black and white photos included in the book. Some of my favourites were the excavation of the Oseberg ship burial in 1904, Spirit Box Houses in Alaska and Deviant ‘vampire’ burials in Poland. You can tell the author has great knowledge and passion for the subject and she has done a great job of fitting such a broad topic into just 216 pages. Burying the Dead is a fascinating read and I highly recommend it.

You can buy a copy here