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Burial

Clerics carry the coffin after the funeral for Anglican Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu at the St George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa, Saturday, Jan 1, 2022.

What is aquamation, the burial practice Desmond Tutu chose instead of cremation? 

Science & Technology

Aquamation is a corpse decomposition process that uses water instead of fire to produce similar results — an urn of ashes. It’s seen as a “greener alternative” to carbon-emitting cremation. 

A woman is shown from behind and with her hands on her hips looking at several rows of graves.

Meet the woman who buries forgotten migrants from Venezuela 

Migration
A man stands at a counter holding an urn with many urn designs behind him

Greece’s first and only crematorium opens despite pushback from the church

Religion
Recompose artist's rendering

Going green — after death

Lifestyle & Belief
The bodies of thousands of Londoners, including plague victims, lie in the Bedlam Burial Ground.

Uncovering the plague pit beneath London’s streets

Health
Hospice hands

A new husband’s care for his father’s dead body changed his wife’s view of death and dying

Belief

After someone you love has died, the first of so many difficult tasks you face is deciding how to deal with what they’ve left behind: their body.

Some Americans return to old tradition of home funerals

Global Politics

For decades, Americans have turned to professionals to prepare the bodies of dead loved ones for burial. But now, in at least some circles, that practice is being challenged as a few Americans choose to prepare their own loved ones’ bodies on their own.

Japan’s high-tech graveyard in the sky

Traditional burial plots in Tokyo cost tens of thousands of dollars, so some Japanese are turning to a new form of cemetery.

Excavation of Human Skeletal Remains Botched in Mexico Cave

Arts, Culture & Media

As state authorities rushed to collect the bones recently found in southern Mexico, they ruined the archaeological values of the remains.

The World

Green Burials

Dying is big business in the United States. Some twenty billion dollars are spent annually on funerals and cemeteries. The past few years have seen an evolution in the funeral industry as individuals try to find creative ways to memorialize their loved ones. As Mitzi Rapkin reports from South Carolina, one man is offering burial […]