Repositories of Bones, Part Two: The Winding Underworld of Catacombs

Narrow subterranean corridors interlace for miles, linking vestibules, chambers, and hidden entrances. Ceilings and temperatures down here are chilly, and damp dimness pervades the disorienting, psychologically confrontational environment.

Both ossuaries and catacombs originally served society in practical but distinct ways, providing alternatives to standard practice when burial space ran out. Catacombs (the name comes from the Latin phrase for “beside the quarry”,) were built from disused underground caverns and passages reclaimed for new graves, unlike ossuaries where bones were placed after the decomposing elsewhere.

This extinct form of burial from ancient death care is unique — many sites remain accessible and allow close-up examination by scholars, death care professionals, and the general public. Once relatively common across Europe and surrounding regions, catacombs today are primarily tourist sites, macabre spectacles in high demand.

Famous examples

When we hear “catacombs” these days, the widely-known site in Paris almost always springs to mind first, though interestingly it’s relatively small, as catacombs go. About twenty meters of corridors and larger chambers display the skulls and long bones of millions of individuals in elaborate arrangements, smaller bones tossed behind the ornate facade.

The place is slightly misnamed. From the official website:
The site was consecrated as the “Paris Municipal Ossuary” on April 7, 1786, and, from that time forward, took on the mythical name of “Catacombs”, in reference to the Roman catacombs, which had fascinated the public since their discovery.

Because of health problems in the city limits, Paris cemeteries which had been consistently in use for a full thousand years (the city itself has been around for 2,000) were emptied, and occupants removed to caverns of a municipal quarry. This is what happens with any proper ossuary. Other catacombs are underground primary burial places where the newly dead were placed.

Why the deliberate misnaming? Originators thought the term more poetic and believed it would support acceptance, perhaps hoping to offset some of the scandal of its creation. Over a period of years during the mid-1700s, remains from the largest, oldest cemeteries in the city were relocated at night, taking place under cover of darkness to avoid public outrage.

History

The first catacombs on record have Christian associations. They began with the church as resting places for clergy and were intended for reverence or contemplation. As with ossuaries, land shortages and burial restrictions contributed to their creation.

Catacombs were once widely used, and they were still commonly added to up through the 1800s. There’s a long and illustrative history of their active use. These places present a spectacle of human mortality that still fascinates widely, and anyone can visit the real thing in Italy to see it firsthand — Palermo, San Sebastiano, and Domitilla which dates back to 120 AD. And San Callisto, one of the originals, boasts a crypt of popes.

Death spaces across time

Such truly extraordinary places offer an intimate view of a bygone era’s relationship with mortality. These are death spaces straight from history; today’s more perfunctory, technical equivalents of prep rooms, cemeteries, even columbaria and memorial halls or regionally astonishing examples in places like New Orleans, don’t have the same sort of architectural gravitas and expression. It’s an authentically mesmerizing view of the changes in social relationships with mortality and death care practices over time.

Repositories of Bones, Part One: Ossuaries

Ossuaries can be, of course, elaborate and ornate places, sites of unique tribute to the deceased. The artistic displays of relocated human bones in ossuaries are often stunning arrangements with an impact that is not soon forgotten, as much for aesthetic force as its statement on the fleeting nature of mortality.

Originating as constructions intended to solve the logistical problem of graveyard overcrowding, ossuaries are not all fancy — some are more workaday collections, mass graves less of art than of preservation.

And ossuaries are distinct from (though simultanously similar in character to) catacombs, primarily in layout and set-up, though also a bit in nature: typically smaller rooms or buildings above-ground, ossuaries hold the bones of far fewer people than catacombs. More elaborate subterranean structures that range widely, sometimes sprawling and extending over hectares of distance, catacombs may house the remains of many thousands.

There are plentiful examples of both types of sites all over the world, though these days cremation has mostly eliminated their practical necessity. Still the prospect fascinates many, judging by the sheer volume of annual visitors to the world’s most well-known examples.

Widely practiced

Ossuaries can be found in especial abundance in Europe, where the most famous still attract tremendous numbers of visitors. Today there are still many accessible examples.

Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic is a church rather than a mass grave; it first became popular before the plague in Europe and was considered a holy place to be buried after an abbot brought a container of dirt from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified. After he spread its contents on the earth in the area, many desired to be buried at the location. Today, stunning arrangements of deconstructed skeletons arranged into elaborate designs inside a temple create a mystical, enchanting effect.

Another chapel is the Palace of Bones in Evora, Prague, which dates back to the 17th century. A trademark of the city of Evora and housing 5,000 human skulls, this UNESCO world heritage site bears a welcoming message: “We bones that are here, for yours we wait.” There’s Poland, with the Chapel in Czermna, holding the remains of some 21,000 souls. And don’t even get us started on Germany; examples here are thick on the ground, so to speak. If youre interested, though, don’t pass it up. There are even some in the United States from the period before colonization.

Ossuaries stand as a reminder that our lives and deaths are shaped by space, time, and circumstance. Whether ornate or austere, these places reflect a pragmatic reverence and a spiritual sense of obligation to the traces of human lives we recognize as significant.

Each skull, each stacked femur, speaks to a long lineage of grief, practicality, and beauty shaped from necessity. The walls echo with more than bones: memory, culture, and the enduring instinct to care for our dead, even when the means of doing so take forms we no longer need, but sense and honor. Beauty is a small price to pay when the placement of names and identities is no longer possible.

The negotiations to sell and or purchase a funeral home generally involve “what one is buying and how are they paying for it”.  It’s pretty common to hear the terms “asset sale”, “real estate”, “convenants not to compete”, “consulting agreement”, “equipment”, “inventory”, and “goodwill” among the nomenclature of the transaction that takes place between the buyer and the seller.

One term that you don’t hear very often, or at least I have never heard, is “Royalty payment” or “Royalty stream”.  What I’m talking about is a future payment to the seller by the buyer that is a percentage of the gross operating sales of the business going forward.  For instance if I sell a business to you that includes a 1% royalty payment then the buyer pays the seller $1 for every $100 of business going forward. . . . Most royalty payment agreements have a set time period built in, but some are perpetual.

Since this weeks articles in Funeral Director Daily are about thinking “outside the box”, one of the things that I’ve always wondered about is why are royalty payments never included in transactions involving funeral homes?

It seems to me that royalty payments are a natural when a well-known business name is involved and that business name has lots of history and customer retention or loyalty that will bring future business to the new owner.  Using that name and history is beneficial to the new owner as they don’t have to work a new identity into the marketplace and start building name recognition from scratch.

And what businesses in certain communities have that brand and name recognition that have endeared loyalty and retention of customers through generations?  Funeral homes.

Maybe there are reasons why it would not work as part of a funeral home business transaction, but if I owned a funeral home where I could trademark the name, slogans, and marks (logos) I think I would try to negotiate a perpetual royalty as part of the transaction.  That way, instead of receiving a lump-sum for the future use of the company’s historical trademarks, a selling owner would receive a revenue string of what could be increasing payments for twenty or thirty years or longer.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

And, as  the family name continues to be used, I would continue to benefit from that use.  I think it is one aspect of selling a family funeral home that bothers many former owners  — that is the name is gone from their control forever.  Being able to receive a monthly royalty from the use of that name would probably lessen that situation and may even bring a stronger bind between buyer and seller for a longer period of time. . . .which would probably be beneficial to the new owner.

Who knows, there may even be advantages for the purchaser to include this as part of the transaction.  For instance, it would require less cash and/or less borrowing at the time of closing.  While the upside of the transaction may have less profitability in future years there is also the flip-side of less initial capital lost if the transaction went south.  That’s simply because that if the business flounders or goes south and goes out of business, the royalty is lessened or, in the case of going out of business, is simply not paid.

If you are fortunate to be able to own a funeral home that would have multiple suitors if put on the market you might be in a position to try this in the negotiations.  Maybe one of the suitors would be amenable to offering a royalty payment in order to get a leg-up on the purchase competitors.

Being “Trademarkable” —  There is more than likely many funeral homes that would not be able to license their trade name, slogans, and logos.  One reason is that the business has to be “Trademarkable”.  For instance, trademarking the name “Anderson Funeral Home” would probably be impossible because there are other funeral homes with the same name.  One aspect of licensing your names, slogans, and logo for royalties is that they need to be licensible as unique and you would have to defend that trademark if it were discovered that someone else was using the same name.  That would not prevent the creative use of royalty payments in a sale but would require those payments not be based off that criteria and could be one downside to a seller.

However, there are many funeral homes with very unique names that I’m sure would withstand trademark standards and have very little risk of trademark infringement.

It’s done in other industries, why not funeral homes?  —  I’m aware of a group of investors who sold a chain of 73 pizza restaurants.  They sold only the physical facilities they owned and the operations of the company.  They kept ownership of the company name, slogans, menu item names, and logos and licensed them to the new owners at a 2% royalty rate.  Today, every $10 pizza sold at those restaurants brings the former owners 20 cents and as prices and the number of restaurants increase so does their royalty payment. . . . . The former owners certainly are cheering for the new owners to continue on and do very well.

Anyway, royalty payments are one of this week’s “Out of the Box” opportunities in funeral service.

Related Article — Here’s a great story of the Listerine mouthwash perpetual royalty situation that became contractual in 1881 and continues to this day.  “The people making millions off Listerine royalties“.  The Hustle

Funeral Director Daily take:  During my time on the Board of Regents at the University of Minnesota I learned a lot about royalty payments, licensing, and the legalities and opportunities presented with them.  I served on the legal committee of the board for six years and at a major research university licensing and royalties, and how they are going to be implemented, are an every day happening with the equipment, medical, technological, and pharmaceutical inventions that are patented almost every single day – on average we filed a patent application every third day.  If I remember correctly, our legal department had a staff of over 20 attorneys and much of the work dealt with this realm.

I actually believe that there are probably more situations available for licensing and royalties in Death Care than what has been presented today and those situations would not be limited to funeral home sale and purchase transactions.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Everest’s Graveyard: Permanent or Purgatory (Part I)

It’s no mean feat to recover the fallen from Everest, Earth’s highest mountain; the climb is notoriously deadly for all kinds of reasons (hurricane-level sub-zero winds; thousand-foot fatal falls; hypoxia; altitude sickness; avalanches; crevasses; and pulmonary and/or cerebral edema among them) and claims multiple lives every year. Human remains dot the landscape, serving as markers along the route.

Every year the mountain’s permanent population grows, partly due to the rising popularity of “summit tourism” (a trend of selling guided tours to climbers of questionable ability, an attempt that regularly claims the lives of the most experienced professionals). At this date there have been about 350 deaths, with an estimated 200 bodies remaining on the slopes.

As much as for its height, Everest is known for this ghastly display of victims. Nearest the summit, many still lie where they fell: an open-air graveyard dubbed Rainbow Valley for the colorful, frozen corpses adorning the last few thousand feet of the ascent. Bright down jackets poking through the snow along the route like colorful, grisly jewels.

Attempting retrieval

Many who die on Everest are likely to stay there forever, because it’s often impossible to get them down. A frozen body can weigh 300 pounds; depending on how long it has lain there, it can take hours, even days, to free from the ice. Once removed, frozen quite solid, remains are as apt to shatter into pieces as any icicle… and must be transported down the treacherous mountain. No helicopter assistance is possible above 21,000 feet; at this altitude, they cannot fly.

The process of removal (called “repatriation”) requires the efforts of entire professional rescue crews, often Sherpas, local climbers whose lungs are adapted to the altitude and often have elite abilities. Some have lost their own lives in recovery attempts. Only highly specialized teams trained in body extraction are granted permission, and costs are prohibitive at $20,000 – $70,000 USD or more per body.

And even with such skill and experience, attempts may fail. Locating remains is not always possible, or access may change due to natural processes in the Himalayas, such as earthquakes, avalanches, and rock collapse. Bodies may now be buried under feet of snow and ice.

Even if pinpointing the location of remains is possible, there are legal hurdles to overcome before a body can be removed, because the two main routes to Everest’s summit lie in different countries – the south in Nepal, the north in China — and each imposes its own legal requirements for the repatriation of remains being taken from the mountain.

Once the appropriate permissions have been obtained and the body is successfully recovered, remains will be handed over to local authorities for their own processing, and when complete, next of kin is notified.

The process may take months; sometimes the ordeal is worthwhile for a family in mourning, who will do whatever it takes to being their beloved home. And for all the challenges associated with the task, there’s no question of their commitment to seeing it through.

Once they come home and make it to the capable hands of death care pros, any number of special considerations of processing the bodily and psychological aftermath.

Then the real work begins.

What role do funeral directors play in this involved and convoluted process? Watch this space for Part II in this series on the recovery and processing of bodies from extreme mountain environments

AI and Grieving Series, Part 4: HereAfter.AI

AI-powered “companions” that are essentially chatbots based on the deceased (the moniker “deathbots” is catching on) are becoming thick on the ground, with more emerging all the time. A few incipient models not quite fully established are plugging right along in available (if limited) formats; one such service is HereAfter.AI (iOS and Android app reviews indicate development is ongoing, but the service is apparently up and running online from the website). 

As the final “deathbot” service we’ll take a look at for the time being, HereAfter shares a lot of features in common with StoryFile and Eternos.Life. Like the others, HereAfter maintains a repository of data in various formats accessible on demand in the form of photographs and audio or video recordings of a lost loved one. 

For the archive, files must be recorded using HereAfter technology, either from the website or via the apps (through which purchases are available). And paid customization of pre-existing, high-quality video and audio files is purportedly available, or will be. 

No Test Drive

I tried to create an account for the advertised 14 day free trial but for reasons inscrutable, HereAfter disapprove of my business email address. I was denied access, unless I opted to pay. I did not opt to pay. Perhaps you will have better luck. The website’s FAQ list is here. The homepage is likewise sparse, offering little of substance: no sample video, no demonstrations or tutorials, no additional educational content were accessible from the site. There was, however, the following:

What happens if your company goes out of business?

HereAfter plans to be around for a long time. But in the event that the company is forced to shut down, we will give every customer the opportunity to download their life story recordings.

Deathbots Unite

As far as I could discern, HereAfter.AI differentiates itself in the expanding deathbot genre by providing access to both “friendly virtual interviewers”, with an option to hire an “expert life story interviewer” (for an undisclosed fee). 

The legacy service itself, however, does seem reasonably priced: monthly tiered options include a “Starter” level (up to 20 stories and 20 photos, $3.99/monthly), a “Storyteller” tier (up to 50 of each, $5.99/month), as well as an “Unlimited” option (exactly what it sounds like at $7.99/month, but it also includes the option to download any of the files in mp3 format). 

And there’s a “pay once & done“ option for each level at $99, $159, and $199 respectively, which allows access in perpetuity to whomever has a link.

It will be interesting to see how HereAfter.AI, as well as any more such services still in the offing, may shape up in time. Hopefully, more unique and unexpected facets are on the way, perhaps to “flesh out,” as it were, both the human interviewer and the lost loved one angles. When things are better established I’d like to revisit this service, hopefully in a more hands-on way. 

Have we seen the full range of such legacy SaaS subscription options? Hard to imagine. Maybe somebody new will come along and shake up the paradigm. It’s awfully young to become stale.