Published Cremation
I’m reading a book about funerary remains from burial sites in early Medieval England.
It’s about as exciting as it sounds…
But, the author makes reference to studies of particular burials, both inhumations and cremations. In describing buried urns that have been archaeologically discussed in scholarly journals, he uses the term “published cremations”.
I feel like a published cremation is a way too cool a concept to deserve imprisonment in such a dry book.
It’s something material, made immaterial through fire, entirely removed from the tangible world by representation in letters, and yet solidified forever in published print.
That’s amazing.
Here are two examples that I think might approach the concept of published cremation, old favourites of mine.
