Premature burial

A person trapped with fresh air to breathe can last a considerable time and burial has been used as a very cruel method of execution (as in cases of Vestal Virgins who violated the oath of celibacy), lasting sufficiently long for the victim to comprehend and imagine every stage of what is happening (being trapped in total darkness with very limited or no movement) and to experience great psychological and physical torment including extreme panic.

[2] According to a popular legend recorded by Joannes Zonaras and George Kedrenos, two 11th-century and 12th-century Byzantine Greek historians, the 5th century Roman emperor Zeno was buried alive in Constantinople after becoming insensible from drinking or an illness.

could be heard from within his verd antique sarcophagus in the Church of the Holy Apostles, but because of the hatred of his wife and subjects, the empress Ariadne refused to open the tomb.

[5] Folklorist Paul Barber has argued that the incidence of unintentional live burial has been overestimated and that the normal, physical effects of decomposition are sometimes misinterpreted as signs that the person whose remains are being exhumed had revived once in the coffin.

[8] Another similar story was reported in The Times on January 18, 1886, the victim of this case being described simply as a "girl" named "Collins" from Woodstock, Ontario, Canada.

According to the history of Nicephorus and perhaps because of the legend of Zeno's premature entombment, or perhaps for other reasons, the Proconnesian marble sarcophagus of the 7th-century emperor Heraclius was left open, on his own instructions, for three days after his interment in the Church of the Holy Apostles' Mausoleum of Justinian.

[4] According to Shane McCorristine, one of the purposes of an Irish wake (which entailed a prolonged waiting period before burial) was to ensure that the person was definitely dead.

It consisted of a movable periscope-like pipe that provided air and, when rotated or pushed by the person interred, indicated to passersby that someone was buried alive.

The patent text refers to "that class of devices for indicating life in buried persons", suggesting that such inventions were common at the time.

[27] Fleta, a medieval commentary on English common law, specified live burial as the punishment for sodomy, bestiality and those who had dealings with Jews.

[28] Herodotus in his book Histories wrote that burying people alive was an ancient Persian custom, which they practiced in order to be blessed by gods.

[29]In ancient Rome, a Vestal Virgin convicted of violating her vows of celibacy was "buried alive" by being sealed in a cave with a small amount of bread and water,[30] ostensibly so that the goddess Vesta could save her were she truly innocent, essentially making it into a trial by ordeal.

[33] In Denmark, in the Ribe city statute, which was promulgated in 1269, a female thief was to be buried alive, and in the law by Queen Margaret I, adulterous women were to be punished with premature burial, men with beheading.

However, the final outcome remains unknown, as the sentence required the King's approval and the relevant documents from that period are believed to be lost.

[36] In 1616, the 18-year old farmhand Tiufrid was sentenced by the governor in Jönköping, Sweden, Nils Stiernsköld, to be buried alive together with the cow with which he had committed bestiality.

[39] The jurist Eduard Henke observed that in the Middle Ages, live burial of women guilty of infanticide was a "very frequent" punishment in city statutes and Landrechten.

[46] In medieval Italy, unrepentant murderers were buried alive, head down, feet in the air, a practice referred to in passing in Canto XIX of Dante's Inferno.

In the 16th century Habsburg Netherlands, when the Catholic authorities made a prolonged effort to stamp out the Protestant churches, live burial was commonly used as the punishment for women found guilty of heresy.

The case aroused a great deal of protest in the rebellious northern provinces and foiled the peace feelers which King Philip III was at the time extending to the Dutch.

[citation needed] In the seventeenth century in feudal Russia, live burial as an execution method was known as "the pit" and used against women who were condemned for killing their husbands.

[48] Among some contemporary indigenous people of Brazil with no or limited contact with the outside world, children with disabilities or other undesirable traits are still customarily buried alive.

During the Gulf War, Iraqi soldiers were knowingly buried alive by American tanks of the First Infantry Division shoveling earth into their trenches.

Estimates for the number of soldiers killed this way vary: one source puts it at "between 80 and 250", while Colonel Anthony Moreno suggested it may have been thousands.

[62] On rare occasions, people have willingly arranged to be buried alive, reportedly as a demonstration of their controversial ability to survive such an event.

The Indian government has since made the act of voluntary premature burial illegal, because of the unintended deaths of individuals attempting to recreate this feat.

When St. Columba had repeated problems building the original Iona Abbey, citing interference from the Devil, St. Oran offered himself as a human sacrifice and was buried alive.

Host Jamie Hyneman attempted the feat, but when his steel coffin began to bend under the weight of the earth used to cover it, the experiment was aborted.

[72][73] In the fifth season finale of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, "Grave Danger", Nick Stokes is buried alive in a plexiglass coffin, with a video camera connected to a web site to let his colleagues watch his suffering.

In a 2008 episode of BBC soap opera EastEnders, Max Branning was almost buried alive by his wife Tanya Cross but was saved by her at the last minute.

In a 2013 episode of American comedy series The Office titled "The Farm", fictional character Dwight Schrute alludes to a history of premature burials in his family.