Coffin

Coffin, a special type of box intended for the transportation and burial of the deceased. Numerous excavations indicate the use of coffins even among primitive peoples. Depending on the degree of development and cultural needs of each people, on the geographical and climatic features of the area, on religious views, coffins were (and are) made from various materials (from wicker, burnt clay, gypsum, stone, marble, metal, lacquered cardboard, glass, etc.). Wooden coffins have become most widespread as they best fulfill their purpose, are the most inexpensive, simple, and accessible for manufacture even by primitive man. The shape of coffins varies. There are coffins for the horizontal position of the deceased and for the vertical position, when the deceased is given a sitting posture (Japan). Egyptian sarcophagi, which have reached a high degree of artistic perfection for storing mummies, royal tombs carved from marble or granite with sculptural figures, or metal coffins currently used in America, are known. As a historical fact, it can be mentioned that some peoples used boats (Vikings), boats (Slavs), sleds (Samoyeds), etc. instead of coffins. Depending on the material from which the coffin is made, it can significantly affect the degree of acceleration or delay in the process of decomposition of the corpse in the ground. Our sanitary regulations, namely the resolution of the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR of January 30, 1919, in development and addition to the decree of the Council of People's Commissars of December 7, 1918 "On cemeteries and funerals", regulate the question of coffins in two cases: 1) in case of transportation of the deceased from one populated locality to another and 2) in case of death from an acute infectious disease (plague, cholera, typhus, smallpox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, glanders, anthrax). In the first case, it is prescribed a) placing the body in two coffins, one of which is metal and sealed, b) in case of death from an acute infectious disease - placing the body after preliminary disinfection in a metal box (coffin), which in turn is placed in another dense box with filling of all free space between the boxes with sawdust, coal, peat, lime or other powdered substances. The same rules are also valid when exhuming a coffin or the corpse itself (in case of destruction of the coffin) and transporting it. In the second case, when death resulted from an acute infectious disease, it is forbidden to carry coffins openly, to bring them into the church and to leave them there, if disinfection measures were not applied to the body of the deceased. It is allowed to make an opening in the lids of coffins and to embed glass in it so that the face of the deceased is visible. In case of mass accumulation of corpses and lack of materials for coffins, sanitary regulations permit burial without coffins in so-called "mass graves". In case of cremation, there are special rules for the coffin.