cremating your dearly beloved

The art of cremating the dead has been in the past referred to as broiling the dead with fire and while that  may sound like a morbid way of explaining the process of cremation it is a truth that defined the older less modernized methods of the interment or inhumation ritual. However times and techniques of cremating the dead have changed dramatically. 

Cremation is a funerary art and sometimes part of a religious ritual. It is classed amongst  the oldest forms of disposing of the dead. Europeans took on to the idea of cremating the dead while the Asians preferred to bury their dead and Egypt took to the art and science of embalming their deceased. Meanwhile some societies continued to allow the dead to remain exposed to open air where the allowing the corpse to waist while scavenger birds or animals picked at it .  

According to the Journal of Practical Medicine, Volume 1, the art of cremating the dead has led certain societies of the past into trouble.

Why ?

Cremation makes use of lumber. To burn one body takes no less than 30 times the body weight in wood the Journal states. This is one ton of wood for every 200 pounds of flesh and bones. In small villages surrounded by vast forest this would not mean an iota to the living standards of the populace. However with large populated towns and city states the burning of the dead would have had an impact on agriculture. Burning wood means changing the ecological climate. We understand that today as we watch debates unfold about deforestation and about the abuse of agricultural farm land.

So cremation or inhumation as it is also referred to has always been an alternate method of disposing of the dead in some parts of the world. Europe was influenced by paganism for centuries and some religious sects refused to participate in the cremation process. Cremation was not an acceptable means of disposing of the remains of the dead once the Roman Empire entered the Christian age. In fact for a long period leading up to the mid 1800's cremation was outlawed in Charlemagne's Europe and ruled under penalty of death. Working models of modern cremation ovens were created by the Italians' Brunetti and Gorini back in the late 1800's and from Italy and then Germany the process of cremating the dead became a normal and acceptable ritual once more. A Gorini type cremation oven was used to dispose of the countless bodies executed in the gas chambers during the Nazi War. This holocaust is just another example of the misuse well intentioned gadgets. It was written in the Journal of Practical Medicine, Volume 1, that everywhere where cremation was accepted there was bound to be trouble. The Journal goes on to say that because the old cremation methods required no less than 30 times the body weight in wood to dispose of that problems in agriculture arose due to the mismanagement of the forest.

Today inhumation is an art and science that is very well advanced and the cremation process is a very accepted burial method which remains somewhat controversial in certain religious sects.

The modern process of cremating a body takes 3 to 5 hours. A corpse remains in the casket during the process and the combination is placed in a cremation oven that is heated at approximately 2000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The exercise is performed by highly qualified staff and once the process is complete the ashes are placed in an urn and returned to the family of the deceased.