Decorating graves with flowers and wreaths is an old custom which appears to date back to the earliest human burial observances. Wreaths made of thin gold have been found in Athenian graves during archaeological excavations. The Egyptians adorned their mummies with flowers, and paintings on the walls of tombs depict the mourners carrying flowers in their hands.
Not everyone who died in ancient Egypt was buried in a tomb. Although the Egyptians believed firmly in an afterlife, they were also of the opinion that only the powerful and important in the earthly life would have any notable status in the world to come. According to rank and wealth, those who were great in Egypt, and therefore likely to be important in the next life, were laid to rest in magnificent tombs with treasure, servants, food, and weapons to accompany them; the ordinary people were buried in rude stone compartments.
The rulers of the ancient city of Thebes—once the capital of upper Egypt (1580–1085 B.C.E.)—and their subjects never constructed massive pyramids to house their coffins, but cut their tombs from rock. As soon as a pharaoh would ascend the throne, his loyal subjects began the preparation of their tombs. Excavation went on uninterruptedly, year by year, until death ended the king’s reign and simultaneously the work on his tomb—which also became a kind of an index revealing the length of his reign. These tombs, cut from the rock in the mountains in Upper Egypt, are still to be seen.
In sixteenth century Europe, it was customary to make wreaths of flowers from ribbon and paper and give them to the church in memory of the deceased. These artificial wreaths of long ago evolved into the contemporary mourning wreath of living flowers, usually brought by friends or relatives of the deceased and placed upon the grave.
Graveyards are reminders that we are mortals and that we will one day join those who rest below the well-manicured lawns. The crypts and mausoleums found in many cemeteries are another matter. For some reason, they seem to stir ancestral memories of ancient tombs and the restless undead that lie within their darkened confines.
Pastor Robin Swope, known as the Paranormal Pastor, was not always sequestered behind the pulpit and the comfort of his library. There was a time when he worked as a gravedigger, and he has shared two of these eerie experiences from those days and nights. In the following account, he tells of a most unusual occupant of a mausoleum near Pittsburgh:
In the late 1970s a cemetery near Pittsburgh had built a new Mausoleum. It had been promised for years, and the salesmen eager to make a lucrative commission, had presold crypts long before they were available. So many makeshift cement above-ground crypts were quickly built for those who had purchased mausoleum spaces and had passed on before they were built.
When the mausoleum was finished it was the job of the gravediggers to disinter the bodies and place them in their new crypts. It was a disgusting and dirty job, for many of the caskets leaked the liquefied remains of the deceased. To make matters worse for the gravediggers every body had to be physically identified by a mortician who had originally embalmed the victim—and not just by their clothing or jewelry—to make sure the corpse in the casket was the person named on the makeshift crypt.
The supervisor remembered each decaying face, for they were burned in his memory, but one stood out. Most of the bodies had long since dried up and become desiccated. If any flesh was left [it] was almost tanned leather hanging off the boney skeleton. Some looked as if they were made out of [gelatin] as the corpse had decomposed into a liquid goo. But one was odd.
When they opened the coffin of the old man it was like he had just been laid to rest. Except for one disturbing and obvious fact. He was covered with a furry grey-green fungus. All his flesh had been eaten by the fungus but it held the shape of his face so well it shocked the superintendent and the undertaker. Except for the odd color and the fleece-like look of his skin he looked like he might just open his eyes or mouth at any moment.
They quickly got over the initial shock and noted that, yes, he was who he was suppose to be, and they put the coffin in the second level in the back of the newly constructed mausoleum.
Monday morning when the maintenance crew came to open up the office they noticed the mausoleum door was open. As they neared the open door they immediately knew something was wrong. Something was smeared on the glass door of the mausoleum, and as they looked inside, one of the crypts was open.
And it was empty.
Fearing the disgusting work of grave-robbers they went to call the police, but as they rounded the corner to head back to the office they passed the old makeshift cement crypts.
One was open and it held a casket.
It was the casket of the mold man, right back in the place he had been interned for the last five years. To be sure everything was all right and they did not have a grave robber playing a joke they opened up the coffin.
The body was still there and the jewelry he wore was still intact. They called the police, but there was nothing the officers could do other than file a vandalism report. The body was placed back in the mausoleum.
After they sealed up the crypt again, the staff noticed that the smear on the door was the same color as the mold that covered the man. Also disturbing, there seemed to be small pieces of the stuff on the carpet that covered the floor from the crypt to the doorway. The body did not look molested at all, and the casket had shown no visible signs of forced opening, but it was still very disturbing.
Two weeks later, it happened again. Everything was the same, the crypt was opened and the casket was found resting in its old spot. Even the smear and pieces of mold scattered here and there were the same.
But one thing was different this time. It had recently rained and the ground was soft. A single trail of footprints ran from the mausoleum to the makeshift crypt.
And they were almost erased by the tracks left by the dragged coffin.
There were only a single set of tracks.
And it was then that they noticed the handles of the coffin were also smeared with the gray-green mold.
It was if the mold man had somehow [come] out of the coffin and dragged it back to his original resting place.
But that was physically impossible. Wasn’t it?
Nevertheless a close look at the corpse and the fallen mold made everyone present shiver. They were the same material.
Once again the body was laid to rest in the mausoleum, and the funeral director brought in a Catholic Clergyman to give Last Rites and a blessing on the tomb.
Mold man stayed put this time.
The maintenance crew always gave his crypt special attention.
They always feared that one morning they would find it open again, and see the evidence of mold man once again walking the earth.
When you work at a cemetery for any length of time and meet others who have lived the life of a gravedigger for years, you hear some strange and unexplained stories.
And you hope that you are not the next one to come in the next morning with fear in their eyes and tell the others, “You are not going to believe this, but….”
One body in the mausoleum was peculiar. Though the flesh had decayed, the corpse was covered in a green fungus that mimicked the features of the once-living man (art by Ricardo Pustanio).
As explained in the notes before the previous account, before Robin Swope became a pastor, he worked as a gravedigger. Although one does what one has