Why do we humans insist on locking our dead bodies in boxes and putting them in the ground forever? The rest of nature is content getting eaten by vultures and contributing their nutrients to the soil after they pass on, but not humans. No, we have to get all fancy with our dead people and put them in special places called graveyards. In this feature, we'll travel the world and visit 10 of the most over-the-top and weird repositories for human remains, from live-in mansions to an underwater paradise made from human ashes.
Hanging Coffins![crazy graveyards]()
Why exactly do we think that the ground is the best place to put dead bodies? That is, aside from keeping them away from raccoons or whatever. In some parts of China, corpses are
hung out to dry -- literally -- in coffins tenuously lashed to the faces of cliffs. In the Sichuan province, the Bo people who lived there several centuries ago left behind one of the most perplexing graveyards ever. Attached to the steep sides of several mountains are a number of coffins, each carved from a hollowed-out tree trunk. Some archaeologists believe the Bo thought that this weird form of burial would make it easier for the gods to collect their spirits.
Khalid Nabi![crazy graveyards]()
The Middle East's attitudes towards sex and sexuality are notoriously restrictive, which is why it's deeply weird that the cemetery of
Khalid Nabi exists. Located in the Golestan province of northern Iran, Khalid Nabi has become a tourist attraction due to the curious shape of its tombstones. About 600 of the site's grave markers resemble nothing more than erect human penises jutting forth from the soil, and others look like the outline of women with huge breasts. Some archeologists pooh-pooh that theory, claiming that they're actually designed in the shape of men wearing turbans, but they really look like dicks to us. Many tourists visit the graveyard every year, much to the chagrin of the Iranian government who are a bit embarrassed by it.
Dargavs City Of The Dead![crazy graveyards]()
Sometimes a simple cemetery isn't enough to satisfy the dead. Sometimes they need a whole city. The odd little village of Dargavs in the North Ossetia region of Russia looks pretty charming from a distance, a smattering of
99 stone huts and houses on a grassy hillside over the Fiagdon River. But nobody lives in those houses -- they're mausoleums, built by the native people in the 17th century. Legend has it that a plague ravaged the area back then and the residents had to build the houses to quarantine their relatives. When they died inside them, they simply walled up the doors and turned them into makeshift crypts rather than take the risk of burying them and exposing themselves to the plague.
Shirokorechenskoe Cemetery![crazy graveyards]()
After the collapse of communism, the next natural step for Russia was the rise of organized crime. We've all heard stories about the brutal ways of the Moscow mafia, but if you want to see where they wind up, take a trip to the town of Yekaterinburg. Located in the Ural Mountains, it's the fourth-largest city in Russia and is known for metal processing and machine work. It's also known for crime, as the
Shirokorechenskoe Cemetery aptly illustrates. Some of the region's most notorious Mafia bosses are buried in an alley here, with massive black marble tombstones laser-etched with photorealistic portraits of the gangsters in their prime. Beneath them are descriptions of their skills like "expert in knife-throwing."
Neptune Memorial Reef![crazy graveyards]()
Burial at sea is a common practice for sailors far from home (and Osama Bin Laden), but this is a little ridiculous. The
Neptune Memorial Reef located off the coast of Florida is a unique way to dispose of your mortal remains. The structures of this massive man-made complex are made of concrete mixed with human ashes. Memorial plaques with the names of "residents" are affixed to the objects, and the grand design is of an underwater city with roads and benches that divers can relax on. The project has fallen on hard times in recent years, and it's unknown as to whether it will ever expand to its proposed final size of 16 undersea acres.
Eklutna Graveyard![crazy graveyards]()
Religious traditions play a big part in how people get buried, but what happens when those traditions get weird? Take a trip up to remote Eklutna, Alaska, for a pretty amazing example. This region was inhabited by the native Danaina people, but when Russian Orthodox migrants settled there in the 1800s their two cultures merged in an interesting way. One of the best examples is in the
graveyard of St. Nicholas Orthodox Church. When a local dies, their body is placed in an unmarked grave and covered with a blanket. Forty days later, their family constructs a "spirit house," a brightly colored wooden structure that looks like a Barbie doghouse, and puts it over the plot. Over the next few decades, the spirit houses rot away and are absorbed into the earth.
Merry Cemetery Of Sapanta![crazy graveyards]()
Typically gravestones are pretty sedate affairs -- a slab of stone, maybe a few lines carved on it, and we call it a day. But at one unusual cemetery in Romania, the dead get a little more style. The
Merry Cemetery of Sapanta is famous worldwide for its ostentatiously decorated grave markers, courtesy of one nosy man. Stan Ion Patras was a local woodcarver who loved gossip, and when a town resident died he would carve them a wooden cross for their grave that depicted their life in all its glory, from triumph to tragedy. Patras passed on in 1977 but his apprentice is carrying on the bizarre tradition.
Manila Chinese Cemetery![crazy graveyards]()
Known as the "Beverly Hills Of The Dead," the notorious
Chinese Cemetery in the capital of the Philippines is the place for that country's super wealthy to retire in style. The cemetery was built during the Spanish colonial period when non-Catholic Chinese were forbidden from being buried, and it not only contains the island's oldest Buddhist temple but many other monuments to the famous dead. The weirdest residents, though, are still alive. Mausoleums are common for burial due to the humid climate, and rich Filipinos have built enormous burial structures for their dead family members. In keeping with Chinese tradition, the mausoleums are equipped with beds, bathrooms and other conveniences for the dead person to use. These buildings are so big that in some cases living relatives have also moved into them to save money.
Sedlec Ossuary![crazy graveyards]()
Not all cemeteries bury their residents in the ground. Sometimes, they use them for construction. The
Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic town of Kutna Hora shows exactly how much mileage you can get out of a bunch of old bones. Somewhere between 40,000 and 70,000 dead people are represented in the chapel and its grounds. Pretty much everywhere you look there's furniture made from human bones, including a huge chandelier that contains at least one of every bone in the body and the coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family who commissioned the ossuary's decoration.
New Lucky Restaurant![crazy graveyards]()
The problem with burying people in the ground is that you can't really do anything with that space afterwards. Well, not usually. Welcome to the
New Lucky Restaurant in Ahmadabad, India. Owner Krishnan Kutti bought an old Muslim cemetery with about a dozen graves in it and decided to just roll with it and open a cafe where you can eat with corpses. Each of the grave areas is blocked off with waist-high iron fencing, and tables fill the rest of the floor space. Every morning, Kutti and his staff honor the original occupants by wiping down their graves and replacing the flowers on them, then they open for business. He says he's doing well financially, and patrons don't seem to mind the unique experience.
