Are These 5 Strange Tombs Macabre or Marvelous?

Do plain old tombstones bore you? Perhaps a wooden coffin in a grassy graveyard seems a bit prosaic? If so, why not take a look at these weird and wonderful tombs…

• The Cemetery in the Sky
• The Mummy-Filled Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo
• The Longest Sarcophagus
• The Tomb of Lady Dai
• The Neptune Memorial Reef

The Cemetery in the Sky

Usually the dead are laid to rest below the ground, but exceptions do exist. The Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica is fourteen stories high and the tallest cemetery in the Guinness Book of Records!

Situated in the city of Santos, the Necrópole towers over nearby buildings... but if you didn't know what it was, you'd think it was a block of fancy flats. It's not windows that look out over the city though - the gleaming panels are polished black marble slabs that cap the stacked graves.

The building itself features over 14,000 burial vaults (one of which holds the remains of the footballing great Pelé) along with a crematorium, a small tropical garden (complete with a waterfall) and a rooftop cafe. There's also a classic car museum, which seems a little strange!

The Mummy-Filled Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo

Sometimes people go into cemeteries to reflect - do you think that would be easy if the dead were looking back at you?

When the Capuchin friars were established at Santa Maria della Pace in 1534, they relied on a burial vault beneath the altar... but by 1597 it was apparent that they needed more room.

Plans were made to convert a nearby natural cave system into catacombs... but when the time came to transfer the forty-five bodies to their new accommodations, the monks found that the remains were intact and had become natural mummies.

Being religious fellows, they took this as a sign. The bodies were moved into the new catacombs, but not hidden away. Instead, they look out from wall niches at visitors entering the catacombs - they even equipped the body of Fra Silvestro da Gubbio (the first monk interred) with a sign commemorating the event!

The Catacombe dei Cappuccini di Palermo proved surprisingly popular, with the monks eventually allowing members of the public to be interred. These bodies were mummified in a variety of ways - the "natural" style involved replacing internal organs with bay leaves and straw before allowing the body to desiccate, then treating it with vinegar. Other methods include treating the bodies with arsenic baths.

The catacombs also feature the body of Rosalia Lombardo, a young girl who died in 1920. Her body was prepared by a taxidermist and sits sealed in a nitrogen-filled coffin - and at first glance, you'd think this century-old body was still alive!

The Longest Sarcophagus

It's not uncommon for a graveyard to expand over time... but have you ever heard of a coffin that needed extensions?

The mausoleum of Khodja Daniyar in Samarkand, Uzbek, plays host to a stone sarcophagus 18m long. Local legend claims that it holds some of the remains of Daniel, a figure found in the Muslim, Jewish and Christian faiths.

The story goes that the Turco-Mongol warlord Timur (Tamerlan) blamed the (already dead) Daniel for difficulties during a military campaign... so he ordered the body (or in some versions, just his arm) disinterred and reburied in Samarkand to bring him better luck.

There are two stories associated with the tomb. The first is that a spring appeared shortly after Daniel's remains were interred - and that the water has healing properties. The locals graze animals there to keep them healthy.

The second story is that the remains continued to grow as time went by. As a result the sarcophagus had to be extended, eventually reaching the impressive 18m length it is today. There's a slightly more prosaic explanation though - Timur may have wanted to make things difficult for would-be tomb robbers looking to make off with the bones of a saint... and having to deal with a massive sarcophagus would certainly do that!

The Tomb of Lady Dai

Some of these burials sound like a lot of effort went into them - but they don't come anywhere near the amount of resources expended on the tomb of Lady Dai (Xin Zhui) found in 1968 Mawangdui, China as workers attempted to build an air raid shelter.

Her body was steeped in an unknown liquid, wrapped in twenty layers of clothing bound in silk, situated inside four decorated (painted with scenes of divine animals and themes of the afterlife) and nested pine coffins, then buried beneath layers of charcoal and white clay.

The results were impressive - despite being over two thousand years old, the mummy kept her hair, her skin was soft and her joints could move. The body was in such good condition that researchers were able to perform an autopsy!

As if the efforts to preserve the body weren't enough, this noblewoman was buried with an astounding array of grave-goods. More than a hundred silk garments and 162 carved wooden "servant" figurines were buried with her, alongside nearly two hundred toiletries and bits of lacquerware!

The Neptune Memorial Reef

Do you like mythology? The minds behind Neptune Memorial Reef clearly do, as they've made an underwater tomb complex styled after the legend of Atlantis!

The site is designed as an artificial reef and sits three miles off the coast of Florida. The reef has an approved size of 16 acres and is open to divers and boats - much like visiting a land-bound cemetery. Unsurprisingly, fishing and lobster-trapping are not permitted.

If you want to be interred in the reef, you'll need to be cremated (technically the site is a "columbarium" rather than a cemetery) - as the ashes are mixed with cement and used to produce features or statues for the site.

If nothing else, the reef seems to be a success in the eyes of wildlife - it's home to a growing population of coral!

Thanks for reading - you might also like...

• Disturb These 5 Real-Life Vampire Graves at Your Peril... on Vocal
• 6 Bizarre Kinds of Mummification (From Smoked to Self-Made!) on Blogspot

Sources and Further Info:

• Memorial Necrópole Ecumênica
• 'A Tomb with a View'
• The Capuchin Catacombs
• Mausoleum of Khoja Daniyar
• Ancient Lady Dai: The Most Perfectly Preserved Mummy Ever Discovered
• Neptune Memorial Reef