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"All Is Vanity" by C. Allan Gilbert, suggesting an intertwinement between life and death.

Death is seen and handled in various ways in different cultures and beliefs. Image File history File links Wiki_letter_w. ... All is Vanity, by C. Allan Gilbert, 1873-1929 This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years or less. ... All is Vanity, by C. Allan Gilbert, 1873-1929 This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired in the United States and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years or less. ... Charles Allan Gilbert (1873 - 1929) was an American artist and illustrator. ... For other uses, see Death (disambiguation). ...

Settlement of dead bodies

In most cultures, before the onset of significant decay, the body undergoes some type of ritual disposal, usually either cremation or deposition in a tomb. This is often a grave, but may also be a sarcophagus, crypt, sepulchre, or ossuary, a mound or barrow, or a monumental surface structure such as a mausoleum (exemplified by the Taj Mahal) or a pyramid (as exemplified by the Great Pyramid of Giza). The crematorium at Haycombe Cemetery, Bath, England. ... A tomb is a small building (or vault) for the remains of the dead, with walls, a roof, and (if it is to be used for more than one corpse) a door. ... Grave has multiple meanings: A grave (IPA: ) is a place for the dead, see tomb, burial, grave (burial) A grave accent (IPA: ) is a type of diacritical mark (as in French crème de la crème). ... Stone sarcophagus of Pharaoh Merenptah Detail of a stone sarcophagus in the Istanbul Archeological Museum showing a hunting scene Anthropoid sarcophagus discovered at Cádiz A sarcophagus is a stone container for a coffin or body. ... Crypt is also a commonly used name of water trumpets, aquatic plants. ... A sepulchre (also spelled sepulcher) is a burial chamber. ... An ossuary is a chest, building, well or site made to serve as the final resting place of human skeletal remains. ... St. ... Taj Mahal The Tāj Mahal is a monument located in Agra, India, constructed in 22 years (1631 - 1653) by a workforce of 22,000. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Great Pyramid of Giza from a 19th century stereopticon card photo. ...

In Tibet, one method of corpse disposal is sky burial, which involves placing the body of the deceased on high ground (a mountain) and leaving it for birds of prey to dispose of. Sometimes this is because in some religious views, birds of prey are carriers of the soul to the heavens, but at other times this simply reflects the fact that when terrain (as in Tibet) makes the ground too hard to dig, there are few trees around to burn and the local religion (Buddhism) believes that the body after death is only an empty shell, there are more practical ways of disposing of a body, such as leaving it for animals to consume. This article is becoming very long. ... Sky burial is a ritual practice common in Tibet that involves placing the body of the deceased in a high ground (mountain) and expose it ritually, especially to birds of prey. ... Mount McKinley (Denali) in Alaska (USA) has the highest visible base-to-summit elevation on Earth (approximately 5400 metres). ... For other meanings of bird, see bird (disambiguation). ... Orders Accipitriformes     Cathartidae     Pandionidae     Accipitridae     Sagittariidae Falconiformes     Falconidae A bird of prey or raptor is a bird that hunts its food, especially one that preys on mammals or other birds. ... The soul, according to many religious and philosophical traditions, is a self-aware ethereal substance particular to a unique living being. ... This article is becoming very long. ... A replica of an ancient statue of Gautama Buddha, found in Sarnath, near Varanasi. ...

In certain cultures, efforts are made to retard the decay processes before burial (resulting even in the retardation of decay processes after the burial), as in mummification or embalming. This happens during or after a funeral ceremony. Many funeral customs exist in different cultures. In some fishing or navy communities, the body is sent into the water, in what is known as burial at sea. Several mountain villages have a tradition of hanging the coffin in woods. The word mummification has more than one meaning: The process of preparing a dead body for preservation; or the preservation of a body through natural processes; see: Mummy The practice of restraining a living body as part of a sexual bondage experience: see mummification (bondage). ... Embalming, in most modern cultures, is the art and science of temporarily preserving human remains to forestall decomposition and make it suitable for display at a funeral. ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea A funeral is a ceremony marking a persons death. ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea A funeral is a ceremony marking a persons death. ... Burial at Sea for two victims of a Japanese submarine attack on the US aircraft carrier Liscome Bay, November 1943 Burial at sea describes the procedure of disposing of human remains in the ocean. ...

A new alternative is ecological burial. This is a sequence of deep-freezing, pulverisation by vibration, freeze-drying, removing metals, and burying the resulting powder, which has 30% of the body mass. Ecological burial is a method of disposing of a corpse that produces less environmental disruption than a conventional burial. ... In a typical phase diagram, the boundary between gas and liquid runs from the triple point to the critical point. ... Hot metal work from a blacksmith In chemistry, a metal (Greek: Metallon) is an element that readily forms positive ions (cations) and has metallic bonds. ...

Cryonics is the process of cryopreservating a body to liquid nitrogen temperature to halt the natural decay processes that occur after death. Those practicing cryonics hope that future technology will allow the legally deceased person to be restored to life when and if science is able to cure all disease, rejuvenate people to a youthful condition and repair damage from the cryopreservation process itself. As of 2006, there were nearly 150 people in some form of cryopreservation at one of the two largest cryonics organizations, Alcor Life Extension Foundation and the Cryonics Institute. Cryonics (often mistakenly called cryogenics) is the practice of cryopreserving humans or animals that can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine until resuscitation may be possible in the future. ... Cryopreservation of plant shoots. ... General Name, Symbol, Number nitrogen, N, 7 Chemical series nonmetals Group, Period, Block 15, 2, p Appearance colorless Atomic mass 14. ... In thermodynamics, temperature is the physical property of a system that underlies the common notions of hot and cold —something that is hotter has the greater temperature. ... Rejuvenation is the procedure of reversing the aging process, thus regaining youth. ... This bigfoot Dewar is custom-designed to contain four wholebody patients and six neuropatients immersed in liquid nitrogen at −196 degrees Celsius. ... Cryonics Institute main facility in Clinton Township, Michigan The Cryonics Institute (CI) is a non-profit provider of cryonics services located in Clinton Township, Michigan. ...

Space burial uses a rocket to launch the cremated remains of a body into orbit. This has been done at least 150 times. Taurus Missile launch (Time Exposure) Space burial is a burial procedure in which a small sample of the cremated ashes of the deceased are placed in a capsule the size of a tube of lipstick and are launched into space using a rocket. ...

Graves are usually grouped together in a plot of land called a cemetery or graveyard, and burials can be arranged by a funeral home, mortuary, undertaker or by a religious body such as a church or (for some Jews) the community's burial society, a charitable or voluntary body charged with these duties. Graves at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies are buried. ... A funeral home or mortuary is a place where a wake is arranged. ... A mortuary is a cold chamber used to keep the deceased from seriously decomposing; this practice exists for the sake of recognition of the deceased and to allow time to prepare for burial. ... This article is about the vocation of a mortician and the death metal band; for the World Wrestling Entertainment superstar, see The Undertaker. ... A church building (or simply church) is a building used in Christian worship. ... Burial societies are a form of friendly society. ...

Settlement of legal entity

Aside from the physical disposition of the corpse, the legal entity of a person must be settled. This includes attributes such as assets and debts. Depending on the jurisdiction, laws or a will may determine the final disposition of the estate. A legal process, or probate will guide these proceedings. In law, jurisdiction (from the Latin jus, juris meaning law and dicere meaning to speak) is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area... This article is about law in society. ... Look up will in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Estate may refer to: Estate (law), a term used in common law to signify the total of a persons property, entitlements and obligations Immovable Property, Real Estate or Real Property Estate (house) may mean the grounds surrounding any very large property, such as a country house or mansion Estate... Probate is the legal process of settling the estate of a deceased person; specifically, distributing the decedents property. ...

Customs and superstitions

The number 4 in southeastern Asia

In China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan the number 4 is often associated to death because the sound of the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean words for four and death are similar (for example, 사 in Korean is the Sino-Korean number 4 and the word for death, as in 뇌사 (brain death)). For this reason, hospitals and hotels often omit the 4th, 14th, etc. floors, or substitute the letter 'F' for the number '4'. Koreans are buried under a mound standing vertical in coffins made from 6 planks of wood. 4 planks represent the 4 cardinal points of the compass, with 1 plank for sky and the other for earth. This relates back to the importance that the Confucian society placed upon the four cardinal points having mystical powers. Korea (Korean: (ì¡°ì„  or 한국, see below) is a geographic area, civilization, and former state situated on the Korean Peninsula in East Asia. ... Confucianism (儒家 Pinyin: rújiā The School of the Scholars), sometimes translated as the School of Literati, is an East Asian ethical, religious and philosophical system originally developed from the teachings of Confucius. ...

See also: List of faux pas#China, Taiwan

For a study of death, burial, and beliefs in the afterlife in 4th century BCE China, see book by C. Cook, Death in Ancient China: The Tale of One Man's Journey (Leiden: Brill, 2006) ISBN 90-04-15312 To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this list may require cleanup. ...

Consciousness after death

Main article: Afterlife

Belief in consciousness continuing after death is common and has endured throughout history. Almost every civilization in history has had some belief system relating to life after death. This point of view holds that consciousness is more than simply a function of the brain, which differs with the premise of evolutionary psychology. The afterlife (or life after death) is a generic term referring to a continuation of existence, typically spiritual and experiential, beyond this world, or after death. ... Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and ones environment. ... The afterlife (or life after death) is a generic term referring to a continuation of existence, typically spiritual and experiential, beyond this world, or after death. ... In animals, the brain, or encephalon (Greek for in the head), is the control center of the central nervous system. ... Evolutionary psychology (abbreviated ev-psych or EP) is a theoretical approach to psychology that explains many mental traits as adaptations in the sense of evolutionary biological, as a product of natural or sexual selection. ...

Personification of death

Main article: Death (personification)

Death is also a mythological figure who has existed in popular culture since the earliest days of storytelling.^{[citation needed]} The traditional Western image of Death, known as the Grim Reaper—usually resembling a skeleton, wearing black robes and carrying a scythe—is employed on a tarot card and in various television shows and films. Death, as a skeleton carrying a scythe, visiting a dying man. ... // The word mythology (Greek: μυθολογία, from μυθος mythos, a story or legend, and λογος logos, an account or speech) literally means the (oral) retelling of myths – stories that a particular culture believes to be true and that use supernatural events or characters to explain the nature of the universe and humanity. ... Death, personified is an anthropomorphic figure or a fictional character who has existed in mythology and popular culture since the earliest days of storytelling. ... Using a scythe A scythe (IPA /sαɪð/, most likely from Old English siðe, sigði) is an agricultural hand tool for mowing and reaping grass or crops. ... Most modern Tarot sets consist of 78 cards with allegorical representations today used for divination, that first appeared in Medieval times. ... Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ...

In articulo mortis

In articulo mortis, or at the point of death is a phrase used in Catholicism to refer to anything done, usually a blessing, for someone who is about to die[1]. The Sacrament of Last Rites is a notable example of a Catholic ceremony performed in articulo mortis. It has been suggested that Catholic, One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church be merged into this article or section. ... A sacrament is a Christian rite that mediates divine grace—a holy [[Mystery The root meaning of the Latin word sacramentum is making sacred. One example of its use was as the term for the oath of dedication taken by Roman soldiers; but the ecclesiastical use of the word is... The Anointing of the Sick is one of the sacraments of the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and some Protestant churches. ...