Monthly Archives: July 2017

Why are the Dead Buried Six Feet Under ?

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  • It all started with the plague : The origins of “six feet under” come from a 1665 outbreak in England.
  • With 20 percent of London’s population succumbing to the Bubonic plague, the death rate had reached over 8,000 per week.
  • The disease continued to sweep the country due in part to the shallow graves that bodies were buried in.
  • The Lord Mayor of London literally laid down the law about how to deal with the bodies to avoid further infections. Among his specifications—made in “Orders Conceived and Published by the Lord Major and Aldermen of the City of London, Concerning the Infection of the Plague”—was that “all the graves shall be at least six feet deep.”

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