Something that absolutely fascinates me is how we attempt to commodify absolutely everything under the sun. From place names on the expensive new rapid transit system in Dubai, to huge sports venues across the globe, to “designer” prescription drugs, we are truly an interesting species.
More related to death, I was searching for something entirely different when I came across a “top news” story on a funeral home trying to increase sales by creating special send offs to reflect the deceased’s sexual orientation. The Cologne funeral home offers caskets decorated in nude renaissance male figures, or simply with a rainbow pattern. The send offs are customized to suit the desires of the deceased and their “life partner” and/or family but may include grave-side champagne toasts or a spectacular release of multicoloured balloons to properly honour the dead.
What I find interesting about this is how these burials – and the business behind them – have come so far away from their religious roots in order to make a profit. It is also an interesting reflection of how drastically Western society has changed over even the past century; from churchyard segregation based primarily on religion, to ethnicity, to sexual orientation? I truly do not understand the significance of being buried in an area where you are guaranteed to be buried alongside only other homosexual individuals. It seems to me as though this is a case of the funeral home taking advantage of the fact that humans strive to be special in some way, and by designating special plots of land for the gay community, they certainly succeed in making their clients feel entitled. (Quite genius really)
The next thing I thought about was how segregating gay and straight burials would affect the archaeological record. It made me laugh thinking about how this could possibly be interpreted for what it is! Although, I suppose that given the flamboyant nature of the caskets being designed by this funeral home, archaeologists may have a chance at finding the pattern. But then the research team would have to ask themselves why the gay community – or straight population – felt the need to make this split. Some possible explanations I can imagine would be incredibly negative despite its entrepreneurial, pride based origin.
Below is my attempt at a mildly humorous, semi-serious taphonomic interpretation of the plots:
I would imagine that archaeologists would interpret this split as a reflection of negative relations between the two groups. They could not, however conclude that one population was more entitled than the other because both would have equal access to ornately decorated caskets and tomb stones. Perhaps residue from the elaborate send offs within the gay plots would remain visible (particles of balloons and champagne glasses buried with the casket maybe?) and researchers would interpret this as some ritualized way of sending off the dead in the gay community? And from this is it possible that the team would conclude a split between two sexual orientations which evolved over time into reformed religious/ritual burial practices? One would hope that some of the vast amount of written records we keep survive into the future so future archaeologists do not have to suffer through some of the more obscure things humans do with their dead in the West today.
Reference:
Pictures:
1. http://www.totallyfierce.com/.a/6a00e54fb092d5883401348927d17f970c-800wi
2. http://www.welt.de/multimedia/archive/01255/sarg_BM_Bayern_Koe_1255500p.jpg
3. http://images.sodahead.com/polls/001345099/ab231_bright_rainbow_xlarge.jpeg
No comments:
Post a Comment