A coffin (also known as a casket in North American English) is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains – either for burial or cremation.
In contemporary practice, coffins have six sides in cross-section, while caskets have four. So in reality a casket is not a coffin by any means.[1]
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Any box used to bury the dead in is a coffin. Again not true. link title. this is a coffin, where as this is a casket. title Use of the word "casket" in this sense began as a euphemism introduced by the undertaker's trade in North America; a "casket" was originally a box for jewelry.[2] North Americans may draw a distinction between "coffins" and "caskets", using coffin to refer to a tapered hexagonal or octagonal (also considered to be anthropoidal in shape) box used for a burial and casket to refer to a rectangular burial box with a split lid used for viewing the deceased as seen in the picture above.
Receptacles for cremated human ashes (sometimes called cremains) are called urns.
A coffin may be buried in the ground directly, placed in a burial vault or cremated. The above ground burial is in a mausoleum.
Some countries practice one form almost exclusively in others, it depends on the individual cemetery. The handles and other ornaments (such as doves, stipple crosses, crucifix, masonic symbols etc.) that go on the outside of a coffin are called fittings (sometimes called 'coffin furniture', not to be confused with furniture that is coffin shaped) while organising the inside of the coffin with drapery of some kind is known as "trimming the coffin".
Cultures that practice burial have widely different styles of coffin. In some varieties of Orthodox Judaism, the coffin must be plain, made of wood, and contain no metal parts nor adornments. These coffins use wooden pegs instead of nails. In China and Japan, coffins made from the scented, decay-resistant wood of cypress, sugi, thuja and incense-cedar are in high demand. In Africa, elaborate coffins are built in the shapes of various mundane objects, like automobiles or aeroplanes.
Sometimes coffins are constructed to display the dead body, as in the case of the glass-covered coffin of the Haraldskær Woman on display in the Church of Saint Nicolai in Vejle, Denmark or the glass-coffin of Vladimir Lenin which is in the Red Square in Moscow.
When a coffin or casket is used to transport a deceased person, it can also be called a pall, a term that also refers to the cloth used to cover the coffin.
Today manufacturers offer features that they claim will protect the body. For example, some may offer a protective casket that uses a gasket to seal the casket shut after the coffin is closed for the final time. Many manufacturers offer a warranty on the structural integrity of the coffin. However, no coffin will preserve the body, regardless of whether it is a wooden or metal coffin, a sealed casket, or if the deceased was embalmed beforehand. In some cases, a sealed coffin may actually speed up rather than slow down the process of decomposition. An airtight coffin, for example, fosters decomposition by anaerobic bacteria, which results in a putrefied liquefaction of the body, and all putrefied tissue remains inside the container, only to be exposed in the event of an exhumation. A container that allows air molecules to pass in and out, such as a simple wooden box, allows for aerobic decomposition that results in much less noxious odor and clean skeletonization.
Coffins are made of many materials, including steel, various types of wood, and other materials such as fiberglass. There is now emerging interest in eco-friendly coffins made of purely natural materials such as bamboo, willow or Banana Leaf.[3]
Coffins are sometimes personalized to offer college insignia or different head panels to better reflect the deceased's life choices.
Custom coffins are occasionally created and some companies also make set ranges with non-traditional designs. These include painting of peaceful tropical scenes, sea-shells, sunsets and cherubs. Some manufacturers have designed them to look like gym carry bags, guitar cases, cigar humidors, and even yellow dumpster bins. Other coffins are left deliberately blank so that friends and family can inscribe final wishes and thoughts upon them to the deceased.
In Taiwan, coffins made of crushed oyster shells were used in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In Medieval Japan, round coffins were used,which resembled barrels in shape and were usually made by coopers. In the 1961 Kurosawa film Yojimbo, the protagonist, anticipating a shortage of coffins due to an impending battle (planned by Yojimbo) persuades several coopers to start making more coffins.
There are occurrences of coffins lined with or constructed from lead, to bury radioactively contaminated dead.
In the 1990s, the rock group Kiss released a customized Kiss Kasket, which featured their trademark makeup designs and KISS logo and could also be used as a cooler. Pantera guitarist Dimebag Darrell was buried in one.
With the resurgence of cremation in the Western world, manufacturers have begun providing options for those who choose cremation. For a direct cremation a cardboard box is sometimes used. Those who wish to have a funeral visitation (sometimes called a viewing) or traditional funeral service will use a coffin of some sort.
Some choose to use a coffin made of wood or other materials like particle board. Others will rent a regular casket for the duration of the services. These caskets have a removable bed and liner which is replaced after each use. There are also rental caskets with an outer shell that looks like a traditional coffin and a cardboard box that fits inside the shell. At the end of the services the inner box is removed and the deceased is cremated inside this box.
In the United States, a number of companies like the Batesville Casket company, produce numbers of coffins. Some manufacturers do not sell directly to the public, and only work with licensed funeral homes. In that case, the funeral home usually sells the casket to a family for a deceased person as part of the funeral services offered, and in that case the price of the casket is included in the total bill for services rendered, which by Federal Trade Commission Regulations, must be completely itemized.
Often funeral homes will have a small showroom to present families with the available caskets that could be used for a deceased family member. In many modern funeral homes the showroom will consist of sample pieces that show the end pieces of each type of coffin that can be used. They also include samples of the lining and other materials. This allows funeral homes to showcase a larger number of coffin styles without the need for a larger showroom.
Under a U.S. federal law, 16 CFR Part 453 (known as the Funeral Rule), if a family provides a casket they purchased elsewhere, the establishment is required to accept the casket and use it in the services. If the casket is delivered direct to the funeral home from the manufacturer or store, they are required to accept delivery of the casket. The funeral home may not add any extra charges or fees to the overall bill if a family decides to purchase a casket elsewhere.
In the United States, some have turned to the Internet to purchase coffins. Because online stores generally have lower overhead, they may sell quality coffins at lower prices than funeral homes.
COFFIN (from Lat. cophinus, Gr. «ocPcvor, a coffer, chest or basket, but never meaning "coffin" in its present sense), the receptacle in which a corpse is confined. The Greeks and Romans disposed of their dead both by burial and by cremation. Greek coffins varied in shape, being in the form of an urn, or like the modern coffins, or triangular, the body being in a sitting posture. The material used was generally burnt clay, and in some cases this had obviously been first moulded round the body, and so baked. Cremation was the commonest method of disposing of the dead among the Romans, until the Christian era, when stone coffins came into use. Examples of these have been frequently dug up in England. In 1853, during excavations for the foundations of some warehouses in Hayden Square, Minories, London, a Roman stone coffin was found within which was a leaden shell. Others have been found at Whitechapel, Stratford-le-Bow, Old Kent Road and Battersea Fields, and in great numbers at Colchester, York, Southfleet and Kingsholme near Gloucester. In early England stone coffins were only used by the nobles and the wealthy. Those of the Romans who were rich enough had their coffins made of a limestone brought from Assos in Troas, which it was commonly believed "ate the body"; hence arose the name sarcophagus.
The coffins of the Chaldaeans were generally clay urns with the top left open, resembling immense jars. These, too, must have been moulded round the body, as the size of the mouth would not admit of its introduction after the clay was baked. The Egyptian coffins, or sarcophagi, as they have been improperly called, are the largest stone coffins known and are generally highly polished and covered with hieroglyphics, usually a history of the deceased. Mummy chests shaped to the form of the body were also used. These were made of hard wood or papier mache painted, and like the stone coffins bore hieroglyphics. The Persians, Parthians, Medes and peoples of the Caspian are not known to have had any coffins, their usual custom being to expose the body to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. Unhewn flat stones were sometimes used by the ancient European peoples to line the grave. One was placed at the bottom, others stood on their edges to form the sides, and a large slab was put on top, thus forming a rude cist. In England after the Roman invasion these rude cists gave place to the stone coffin, and this, though varying much in shape, continued in use until the 16th century.
The most primitive wooden coffin was formed of a tree-trunk split down the centre, and hollowed out. The earliest specimen of this type is in the Copenhagen museum, the implements found in it proving that it belonged to the Bronze Age. This type of coffin, more or less modified by planing, was used in medieval Britain by those of the better classes who could not afford stone, but the poor were buried without coffins, wrapped simply in cloth or even covered only with hay and flowers. Towards the end of the 17th century, coffins became usual for all classes. It is worth noting that in the Burial Service in the Book of Common Prayer the word "coffin" is not used.
Among the American Indians some tribes, e.g. the Sacs, Foxes and Sioux, used rough hewn wooden coffins; others, such as the Seris, sometimes enclosed the corpse between the carapace and plastron of a turtle. The Seminoles of Florida used no coffins, while at Santa Barbara, California, canoes containing corpses have been found buried though they may have been intended for the dead warrior's use in the next world. Rough stone cists, too, have been found, especially in Illinois and Kentucky. In their tree and scaffold burial the Indians sometimes used wooden coffins, but of tener the bodies were simply wrapped in blankets. Canoes mounted on a scaffold near a river were used as coffins by some tribes, while others placed the corpse in a canoe or wicker basket and floated them out into the stream or lake (see Funeral Rites). The aborigines of Australia generally used coffins of bark, but some tribes employed baskets of wickerwork.
Lead coffins were used in Europe in the middle ages, shaped like the mummy chests of ancient Egypt. Iron coffins were more rare, but they were certainly used.in England and Scotland as late as the 17th century, when an order was made that upon bodies so buried a heavier burial fee should be levied. The coffins used in England to-day are generally of elm or oak lined with lead, or with a leaden shell so as to delay as far as possible the process of disintegration and decomposition. In America glass is sometimes used for the lids, and the inside is lined with copper or zinc. The coffins of France and Germany and the continent generally, usually differ from those of England in not being of the ordinary hexagonal shape but having sides and ends parallel. Coffins used in cremation throughout the civilized world are of some light material easily consumed and yielding little ash. Ordinary thin deal and papier mache are the favourite materials. Coffins for what is known as Earth to Earth Burial are made of wicker-work covered with a thin layer of papier mache over cloth.
See also Funeral Rites; Cremation; Burial And Burial Acts; Embalming; Mummy, &C.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. -Dr H. C. Yarrow, "Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians," Report of Bureau of Amer. Ethnol. vol. i. (Washington,U.S.A., 1881); Rev. Thomas Hugo, "On the Hayden Square Sarcophagus," Journ. of Archaeol. Soc. vol. ix. (London, 1854); C. V. Creagh, "On Unusual Forms of Burial by People of the East Coast of Borneo," J.A.I. vol. xxvi. (London, 1896-1897); Rev. J. Edward Vaux, Church Folk-lore (1894).
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Categories: COC-COL
used in Gen 50:26 with reference to the
burial of Joseph. Here, it means a mummy-chest. The same
Hebrew word is rendered "chest" in 2Kg 12:9, 10.
what mentions this? (please help by turning references to this page into wiki links)
A coffin (also known as a casket) is a funerary box used in the display and containment of deceased remains -- either for burial or after cremation.
The word comes ultimately from Greek kophinos, a basket. In English, the word was not used in a funeral sense until the 1500s.
Any box used to bury the dead in is a coffin.
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| | Green Endings - Funerals of your choice: Environmental, humanist religious or secular by Green Endings. |
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