A receiving vault or receiving tomb, [1] sometimes also known as a public vault, is a structure designed to temporarily store dead bodies in winter months when the ground is too frozen to dig a permanent grave in a cemetery. Technological advancements in excavation, embalming, and refrigeration have rendered the receiving vault obsolete.
The receiving vault came into use in parts of the world such as northern Europe, northern North America, and far southern South America, where frozen ground made it difficult or impossible to dig graves during the winter months. In such areas, the receiving vault was used to temporarily store bodies until warmer weather permitted digging. [1] Receiving vaults were also used as a temporary burial site while an elaborate mausoleum or under ground crypt was being constructed to house the remains. Occasionally they were used to temporarily bury the remains of an individual until a decision was made regarding a permanent place of burial, or until the family had the funds to arrange for a permanent place of burial. [3]
In times of epidemics, in which large numbers of people could die within days of one another, receiving vaults were often used to hold remains until such time as individual or mass graves could be dug. [3] Disease-bearing corpses were also often stored in the receiving vault until such time as authorities believed it was safe to handle them. [4] Some cemeteries, however, barred the placement of diseased remains in the receiving vault for fear that the vault would become contaminated. [5] [6]
Receiving vaults largely ceased to be built once powered digging equipment, such as the steam shovel and backhoe, made it possible to dig graves in winter months. [7]
The receiving vault was most commonly seen from the 1800s into the early 1900s. [1] The earliest receiving vaults were simple underground chambers dug out of hills. Where the ground was level, the receiving vault was dug into the earth, and a mound heaped over it to mimic a hill. [1] Receiving vaults stored coffins or bodies in loculi, or shelves, set into the walls of the vault. The interiors were simple, and often plain, with heavy lockable doors to prevent entry by grave robbers or body snatchers. [8]
Receiving vaults built from the mid-1800s onward could be either above-ground or below-ground, and ranged from the simple structure with loculi (wall niches) for coffins to beautifully decorated, large, and ornate structures. Some cemeteries co-located a chapel (either next to or above) with the receiving vault to make it easier to hold a funeral in conjunction with the vault's use. The cost of constructing and operating the receiving vault was usually borne by the cemetery. Receiving vaults were usually located toward the center or the rear of a cemetery. [1] [9] Small cemeteries usually used a small, subterranean receiving vault, while larger burying grounds with more income built larger underground or above-ground structures. [8]
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burial ground and originally applied to the Roman catacombs. The term graveyard is often used interchangeably with cemetery, but a graveyard primarily refers to a burial ground within a churchyard.
A tomb is a repository for the remains of the dead. It is generally any structurally enclosed interment space or burial chamber, of varying sizes. Placing a corpse into a tomb can be called immurement, although this word mainly means entombing people alive, and is a method of final disposition, as an alternative to cremation or burial.
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objects in it, and covering it over. A funeral is a ceremony that accompanies the final disposition. Humans have been burying their dead since shortly after the origin of the species. Burial is often seen as indicating respect for the dead. It has been used to prevent the odor of decay, to give family members closure and prevent them from witnessing the decomposition of their loved ones, and in many cultures it has been seen as a necessary step for the deceased to enter the afterlife or to give back to the cycle of life.
The Catacombs of Rome are ancient catacombs, underground burial places in and around Rome, of which there are at least forty, some rediscovered only in recent decades. Though most famous for Christian burials, either in separate catacombs or mixed together, Jews and also adherents of a variety of pagan Roman religions were buried in catacombs, beginning in the 2nd century AD, occasioned by the ancient Roman ban on burials within a city, and also as a response to overcrowding and shortage of land. The most extensive and perhaps the best known is the Christian Catacomb of Callixtus located near the Park of the Caffarella, but there are other sites, both Christian and not, scattered around the city, some of which are now engulfed by modern urban sprawl.
A coffin is a funerary box used for viewing or keeping a corpse, either for burial or cremation.
A grave is a location where a dead body is buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of burial, such as graveyards or cemeteries.
A burial vault is a container, formerly made of wood or brick but more often today made of metal or concrete, that encloses a coffin to help prevent a grave from sinking. Wooden coffins decompose, and often the weight of earth on top of the coffin, or the passage of heavy cemetery maintenance equipment over it, can cause the casket to collapse and the soil above it to settle.
Grave robbery, tomb robbing, or tomb raiding is the act of uncovering a grave, tomb or crypt to steal commodities. It is usually perpetrated to take and profit from valuable artefacts or personal property. A related act is body snatching, a term denoting the contested or unlawful taking of a body, which can be extended to the unlawful taking of organs alone.
After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, a three-week series of events was held to mourn the death and memorialize the life of the 16th president of the United States. Funeral services, a procession, and a lying in state were first held in Washington, D.C., then a funeral train transported Lincoln's remains 1,654 miles (2,662 km) through seven states for burial in Springfield, Illinois. Never exceeding 20 mph, the train made several stops in principal cities and state capitals for processions, orations, and additional lyings in state. Millions of Americans viewed the train along the route and participated in associated ceremonies.
A gravedigger is a cemetery worker who is responsible for digging a grave prior to a funeral service.
Natural burial is the interment of the body of a dead person in the soil in a manner that does not inhibit decomposition but allows the body to be naturally recycled. It is an alternative to typical contemporary Western burial methods and modern funerary customs.
Enon Chapel was a building on Clement's Lane off Aldwych near the Strand in London and it was built around 1823. The upper part was dedicated to the worship of God, with the dead buried in a vault beneath, separated by a board floor. The chapel was notorious for allegations that thousands of bodies had been packed into the vault room in the space of 20 years.
The Catacombs of San Gennaro are underground paleo-Christian burial and worship sites in Naples, Italy, carved out of tuff, a porous stone. They are situated in the northern part of the city, on the slope leading up to Capodimonte, consisting of two levels, San Gennaro Superiore, and San Gennaro Inferiore. The catacombs lie under the Rione Sanità neighborhood of Naples, sometimes called the "Valley of the Dead". The site is now easily identified by the large church of Madre del Buon Consiglio.
The city of London, England, has several catacomb spaces, although the high water table limits subterranean construction. There has been a long tradition of burial under the floors of churches, and during the period of new church construction in the Victorian era many were provided with vaults or crypts under the main structure.
Riverside Cemetery Chapel is a historic chapel located in Riverside Cemetery at 3607 Pearl Road in Cleveland, Ohio. It was built in 1876, received an addition in 1897, and closed due to disrepair in 1953. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It underwent a major renovation beginning in 1995, and reopened in 1998.
The English coastal city of Brighton and Hove, made up of the formerly separate Boroughs of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, has a wide range of cemeteries throughout its urban area. Many were established in the mid-19th century, a time in which the Victorian "cult of death" encouraged extravagant, expensive memorials set in carefully cultivated landscapes which were even recommended as tourist attractions. Some of the largest, such as the Extra Mural Cemetery and the Brighton and Preston Cemetery, were set in particularly impressive natural landscapes. Brighton and Hove City Council, the local authority responsible for public services in the city, manages seven cemeteries, one of which also has the city's main crematorium. An eighth cemetery and a second crematorium are owned by a private company. Many cemeteries are full and no longer accept new burials. The council maintains administrative offices and a mortuary at the Woodvale Cemetery, and employs a coroner and support staff.
The Public Vault at the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C. is an early classical revival structure built 1832–1834 with funds appropriated by the United States Congress to store the bodies of government officials and members of the public before burial. About 4,600 individuals were temporarily interred in the vault, including three U.S. presidents, First Lady Dolley Madison, and sixteen congressmen who died while serving in office.
The Presbyterian Burying Ground, also known as the Old Presbyterian Burying Ground, was a historic cemetery which existed between 1802 and 1909 in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was one of the most prominent cemeteries in the city until the 1860s. Burials there tapered significantly after Oak Hill Cemetery was founded nearby in 1848. The Presbyterian Burying Ground closed to new burials in 1887, and about 500 to 700 bodies were disinterred after 1891 when an attempt was made to demolish the cemetery and use the land for housing. The remaining graves fell into extensive disrepair. After a decade of effort, the District of Columbia purchased the cemetery in 1909 and built Volta Park there, leaving nearly 2,000 bodies buried at the site. Occasional human remains and tombstones have been discovered at the park since its construction. A number of figures important in the early history of Georgetown and Washington, D.C., military figures, politicians, merchants, and others were buried at Presbyterian Burying Ground.
Digging, also referred to as excavation, is the process of using some implement such as claws, hands, manual tools or heavy equipment, to remove material from a solid surface, usually soil, sand or rock on the surface of Earth. Digging is actually the combination of two processes, the first being the breaking or cutting of the surface, and the second being the removal and relocation of the material found there. In a simple digging situation, this may be accomplished in a single motion, with the digging implement being used to break the surface and immediately fling the material away from the hole or other structure being dug.
A morthouse or deadhouse was a specialised secure building usually located in a churchyard where bodies were temporarily interred before a formal funeral took place. These buildings date back to the time when bodysnatchers or resurrectionists frequently illegally exhumed dead bodies that were then sold for dissection as part of human anatomy training at universities, etc. Morthouses were alternatives to mortsafes, watch houses, watch towers, etc.
