Ossuaries are buildings or containers where human skeletal remains are kept as way to reduce the space needed to store human remains. They are typically used in locales that need to re-use burial plots because space for graveyards is very… Read More ›
Taphophobia, or the fear of premature burial, reached a fever pitch at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. One of the reasons for this was people realized that the methods doctors used to confirm death were… Read More ›
Frightening stories of people who were accidentally buried alive, also known as premature burial, have been repeated around fireplaces and reported in newspapers since the 18th century. True or not, these tales really scared a lot of people so families went to… Read More ›
According to legend, in the mid-14th century a heart-broken King Peter (Pedro) I of Portugal exhumed the corpse of his lover to have her posthumously crowned queen. The romantic scandals of European royalty could fill a library so it can… Read More ›
Patrons from far and wide came to sip drinks with names like Cholera and Arsenic while sitting at a coffin under a real human bone chandelier in the Cabaret of Death, a peculiar Parisian watering hole that opened in the… Read More ›
The vampire myth originates in ancient beliefs in demons or evil spirits who feed on the blood and flesh of the living. Cultures all over the world have a version of a blood-sucking creature that returns from the grave to… Read More ›
Taphophobia (taphos meaning grave and phobos meaning fear) is the fear of being buried alive and it permeated Europe and America in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was especially bad during cholera and small pox epidemics because people… Read More ›
Every year in the week following the Day of the Dead, the citizens of La Paz, Bolivia gather at the chapel of the General Cemetery to celebrate Dia de los Natitas, or the Day of the Skulls. The skulls are… Read More ›
