Observatory

Random Historical Fact of the Day

By Anoush ⋅ April 25, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Yesterday, we here at Project Whimwit were proud to bring you Lincoln’s Broadsword Adventure. Today, we give you Victorian burial practices, in which we learn that high end caskets came with bells attached and attendants standing at the ready to dig you right out–just in case you were napping, and not really dead.

From Vampires: A Brief History (Part 1):

We take for granted our society’s advances in medical technology, but back in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a disease known as catalepsy, whereby the person looked as if he was dead. He might even be buried before he reawakened. You can imagine that one or two of these premature burials come back to life would reaffirm the belief in vampirism, particularly to the superstitious townsmen. (And being buried alive was apparently more common that you might think. If you look at coffin designs even from the 18th centuries, they would include wires with bells attached so if some poor soul happened to wake up and find himself buried alive, he could just ring the bell and one of the cemetery workers would dig him out.)