Sublime

But vultures aren’t only a symbol of death and cannibalizing ancient wisdom. They also symbolize silence,”

Sometimes the eggs hatch alive even within the quiescent body of the pupa. The same incredible thing occasionally occurs within the fly genus Miastor, again to both larvae and pupae. “These eggs hatch within their bodies and the ravenous larvae which emerge immediately begin devouring their parents.” In this case, I know what it’s all about, and I

Seahenge consisted of a large upside-down oak tree, surrounded by a tall wall of close-set oak posts. No bones were discovered, but it seems highly likely that a body had been laid within the tree roots, to be defleshed by carrion crows, buzzards and other scavenging birds. The tall wooden wall would have helped to exclude foxes, badgers, wild cats

High in the mountains of Tibet, where the ground is too rocky for burial and trees too scarce to provide wood for cremation pyres, Tibetans have developed another method of dealing with their dead. A professional rogyapa, or body breaker, slices the flesh off the corpse and grinds the remaining bones with barley flour and yak butter. The body is

What an impressive scene it must have been. This leader, this defender, this chieftain perhaps – lying in the open grave, fully clothed, with his two brooches, placed in his chariot; his trusted ponies going with him on the journey. And then there’s the accompanying feast, with suckling pigs being roasted – and people bringing some of the pieces of

quickly. Families that cannot afford a cremation but want their dead loved one to go into the Ganges will place the entire body into the river by night, leaving it there to decompose. Visitors to Varanasi see bloated corpses floating by or being eaten by dogs. There are so many of these corpses in the river that the Indian government releases