Explore 33 Grave week Collections - Atlas Obscura
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Grave Week
October 22–31

Grave Week

October 22-31

A small group picnics on ledger-style tombstones in Historic St. Luke's Ancient Cemetery. The photo is not dated but is believed to have been taken prior to St. Luke's 1957 Pilgrimage Service.
cemeteries

Remembering When Americans Picnicked in Cemeteries

For a time, eating and relaxing among the dead was a national pastime.
Jonathan Kendall October 18, 2021
Put a pumpkin on my grave.
cemeteries

We Asked, You Answered: The Foods You Want People to Leave on Your Grave

Atlas Obscura readers share their hungriest final wishes.
Eric Grundhauser October 31, 2018
Cremated remains enter the water in biodegradable bags.
oceans

Can Hong Kong Sell Its Residents on Watery Graves?

Sea burial is a way to save space in a dense city, but runs counter to funeral traditions.
Jessica Leigh Hester October 31, 2018
A Columbarios Roman burial ground funerary inhumation exhibition pictured in Merida, Extremadura, Spain.
gravestones

The Ancient Roman Libation Tubes That Connected the Living to the Dead

Families poured offerings through vessels directly installed into graves.
Teresa Bitler October 31, 2018
<em>The Kiss of Death</em>, designed by Joan Fonternat and carved by Jaume Barba in 1930, in Barcelona’s Poblenau Cemetery. It marks the grave of textile manufacturer Josep Llaudet Soler.
cemeteries

In Search of Cemeteries Alive With Beauty, Art, and History

These resting places celebrate life.
Anika Burgess October 31, 2018
Some of the fine funeral-related offerings from Sears.
gravestones

Sears Once Offered Mail-Order Tombstones

Its beloved catalogue had a good run.
Evan Nicole Brown October 30, 2018
video

In Sleepy Hollow, Life Imitates Legend

How a New York town made its fictional identity a reality.
Jessica Leigh Hester October 30, 2018
A succesful dumb supper in action.
food

When ‘Dumb Suppers’ Were a Halloween Love Ritual

To see into the future, young women held mystical meals.
Anne Ewbank October 30, 2018
Rex the Wonder Dog's grave.
pet cemeteries

The Final Resting Places of 7 Famous Dogs

Man's best friend in life and death.
Meg Neal October 30, 2018
A cemetery surrounded by a coal mine in West Virginia.
cemeteries

The Mountaintop Cemeteries Surrounded by Coal Mines

Hard to access and hemmed in by explosive activity, these graveyards are stuck in limbo.
Jessica Leigh Hester October 30, 2018
Houdini's Grave.
gravestones

4 Grave Secrets From New York's Past

In the spirit of Halloween, consider a tour of graveyards, memorials, and other places in touch with the afterlife.
Sarah Laskow October 30, 2018
Vincenzo Campi painted the hectic activities of Medieval kitchens.
medieval

Medieval Europeans Didn't Have Tupperware, They Had Pastry Coffins

The barely edible container was the progenitor of pie.
Leigh Chavez-Bush October 29, 2018
A reef ball graveyard beneath the waves.
death

Bury Me in an Artificial Reef

One Florida-based company offers a second life at sea by adding cremains to something called a reef ball.
Eric Grundhauser October 29, 2018
The pub, pictured circa 1990.
cemeteries

How a Dublin Pub Became a Haunt for Gravediggers and Ghosts Alike

The watering hole sits next to a cemetery and has stories to match.
Valentina Valentini October 29, 2018
A notched stake marked a burial place.
underwater

An Underwater Grave Site Was Untouched for 7,000 Years

Once far above sea level, this gravesite is now deep under the ocean.
Sarah Laskow October 29, 2018
A charnel house at the Saints Innocents Cemetery, Paris.
cemeteries

In 1590, Starving Parisians Ground Human Bones Into Bread

During a siege, desperation drove people to disinter skeletons from cemeteries.
Emily Monaco October 29, 2018
A lithopedion extracted 55 years after it formed.
medical museums

A Fetus Can Turn to Stone in Its Mother's Body and Go Undiscovered for Decades

"Stone babies"—or lithopedions—are incredibly rare.
Sarah Laskow October 29, 2018
Tatsuya Ezura's eggplant Cessna.
gravestones

The Cucumber Horses and Eggplant Cows That Welcome Back the Dead

During the Japanese summer festival Obon, ancestral spirits come home.
Ellen Freeman October 26, 2018