Gravedigger
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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A gravedigger is a cemetery worker who is responsible for digging a grave prior to a funeral service.
Description
If the grave is in a cemetery on the property of a church or other religious organization (part of, or called, a churchyard), gravediggers may be members of the decedent's family or volunteer parishioners. Digging graves has also been one of the traditional duties of a church's sexton. In municipal and privately owned cemeteries, gravediggers may be low-paid, unskilled and temporary labourers, or they may be well-paid, trained and professional careerists, as their duties may include landscaping tasks and courteous interactions with mourners and other visitors. In some countries, gravedigging may be done by landscaping workers for the local council or local authority.
A gravedigger implements a variety of tools to accomplish his primary task. A template, in the form of a wooden frame built to prescribed specifications, is often placed on the ground over the intended grave. The gravedigger may use a sod-cutter or spade to cut the outline of the grave and remove the top layer of sod. Digging the grave by hand usually requires shovels, picks, mattocks and/or other tools. Cemeteries in industrialized countries may keep a backhoe loader and other heavy equipment, which greatly increases the efficiency of gravedigging.
Typically, gravediggers – at least in most Western countries – will use a wooden box to put the soil in. This box consists of several large pieces of wood that fit together, and the box is assembled next to the grave. Once the grave has been dug and the soil from the grave has been placed in the box, the box will usually be covered with a piece of tarpaulin or similar material. The soil will then remain in the box until the day of the back-fill, when the funeral takes place and the soil is emptied back into the grave after the coffin has been lowered, after which the box is disassembled. Due to the close proximity of graves in cemeteries (4 feet (1.20 m) between the centre of each headstone is common in modern UK cemeteries), the wooden box is often placed in front of one or more other graves, and is seen as a nuisance to those wishing to visit graves adjacent to a grave that is due to be filled.
Although the expression "six feet under" refers to the depth at which people were traditionally buried, at least in the UK, the minimum legal depth for a new grave is seven feet (2.10 m).Template:Cn This allows a maximum of three coffins to be buried in the same grave, typically family members of the deceased who are buried at a later date – which is known as a re-open. Gravediggers must take care to get the proportions of a grave right, as the hole needs to be big enough for the coffin to be lowered in. Additionally, shoring is often used to stop a grave from collapsing. Gravediggers must make sure that the coffin can fit through the shoring. Additionally, on the day of the back-fill and for the funeral service, typically artificial turf will be placed around the grave whilst the coffin is being lowered.
In many cultures throughout history, gravediggers have been highly marginalized by their societies. In the traditional caste system of India, cemetery work has been the responsibility of the lowest castes, considered "unclean" or "untouchable" for their association with death.
See also
- Chevra kadisha – (Jewish grave diggers)
- Grave robbery
