History Extra Podcast Episode Summary
Episode Title: Bodies, Bones & Overflowing Churchyards: A History of Graveyards
Date: October 31, 2025
Host: Ellie Cawthorn
Guest: Roger Luckhurst
Explicit Ad/Promo/Intro Timestamps Skipped: [00:03–02:44, 19:20–20:49, 31:41–end]
Overview
This episode explores the rich and multifaceted history of graveyards and burial practices around the world, drawing on highlights from Roger Luckhurst’s new book, A History of Living with the Dead. Host Ellie Cawthorn and Luckhurst delve into the ways societies remember—and sometimes exploit—the dead, covering everything from ancient tombs and monumental mausoleums, to the politics of burial, cultural anxieties about death, and modern trends in remembrance.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Why Study Graveyards?
[02:44–03:45]
- Graveyards are often seen as morbid, but they draw huge numbers of visitors as major memorial sites—e.g., the pyramids, Taj Mahal, and Buddhist complexes.
- Exploring burial grounds illuminates how societies have always engaged with their dead, both practically and emotionally.
- Luckhurst: “We are engaged with our own dead. And that’s where the subtitle for the book came from, you know, this History of living with the Dead.” [03:36]
2. The Origins of Graveyards
[03:45–06:12]
- The identification of intentional burials was once believed to define modern humans, but new discoveries push intentional burial further back to earlier hominids such as Neanderthals.
- Case study: The “flower burial” in Iraq (1950s) was thought to prove Neanderthals buried flowers with their dead—until it was revealed to be rat-induced pollen.
- Luckhurst: “We desperately want these bones to speak to us. Of course, what we’re doing is throwing interpretations on them.” [04:44]
3. Graveyards: Sites of Beauty & Horror
[06:12–07:30]
- Graveyards are both places of peaceful contemplation and sources of gothic, gruesome fascination.
- Social attitudes have shifted: Whereas graveyards were once shunned, many now embrace them as restful spaces.
- Luckhurst enjoys both their tranquility and their stories of “waking up in graves” and supernatural horror.
4. Motivations for Memorializing the Dead
[07:30–09:57]
- Memorialization isn’t just personal—it’s deeply political and social.
- National collective memory often relies on “recruiting” the dead for ideological purposes (war memorials, pantheons, etc.).
- Example: Zimbabwe's cemetery shaped like an AK47; France’s secular pantheon; village war memorials in England.
- Notable Quote: “The dead do lots of work for us all the time. If you think about most national narratives, it’s nearly always about the sacrifice of the people who founded the modern nation.” [08:24]
5. Political Leaders and Monumental Burial
[09:57–12:00]
- Monumental burials for powerful people stretch from Egypt's pyramids to Lenin’s preserved corpse.
- The preservation of Lenin was directly inspired by the 1920s fascination with Tutankhamun.
- A secretive lab beneath Lenin’s tomb maintains his body and did so for other communist leaders (Ho Chi Minh, etc.).
- Politics on both right and left have used bodies for ideological continuity (e.g., Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy).
- Luckhurst: “They retain power in this odd sort of way even beyond their own life. And the body itself becomes this token that you can kind of move around and again recruit politically for your particular kind of means and ends.” [11:51]
6. Extravagant Tombs and Spectacular Burials
[12:00–14:23]
- Egypt’s well-preserved tombs overshadow less-durable burial traditions (e.g., Assyria).
- Mass burials of servants and soldiers (Assyria, China’s First Emperor/Terracotta Army) illustrate how deep the need to protect the dead could go.
- Terracotta Army: Each figure has distinct ethnicity and features; still being unearthed.
- Luckhurst: “They are all there, still waiting, still protecting the first emperor. So those are really remarkable instances.” [13:32]
7. Recurring Global Burial Practices
[14:23–15:56]
- Mummification is a cross-cultural phenomenon: Egyptians perfected it, but Andean cultures and modern Buddhist sects practiced (and still practice) their own sophisticated body preservation.
- The idea of preserving the “special dead” persists even in cultures where detachment is central (e.g., keeping Buddhist holy figures on display).
- Luckhurst: “Mummification is something that we discovered as a species quite early, several thousand years ago, but is still in practice.” [15:39]
8. Shifting Attitudes to Death and “Exotic” Practices
[15:56–20:29]
- Western cultures tend to fear and hide death, making body preservation or public display seem alien.
- Practices that seem odd to outsiders—body exhumation, public funerals, or relic displays—might be common for locals, and vice versa.
- Case study: Jesuits in “New France” were both horrified and fascinated by complex Huron/Wendat bone rituals.
- Luckhurst cautions against “exoticising” other death practices, while acknowledging their compelling variety (e.g. Varanasi’s river funerals, Tibetan sky burials).
- Notable Quote: “It’s not an entertainment for you. It’s not a gruesome spectacle. This is... embedded ritualistic tradition. And I think it’s worth having some anxiety about how we exoticise the dead whilst also confessing it’s endlessly fascinating what we do with dead bodies.” [19:23]
9. Catacombs and Ossuaries
[20:49–23:24]
- Ossuaries are “bone stores” for when natural decay finishes, and can become elaborate displays (e.g., Paris Catacombs).
- Major Catholic countries (France, southern Europe) display bones for contemplation; rarer in Protestant England due to religious views.
- Medieval bones, particularly post-Black Death, were omnipresent, inspiring arts like the Dance of Death.
- Luckhurst: “Bones are everywhere around you in the medieval period, and particularly after 1348 and the Black Death... So in a way, a repression of all of that is perhaps a sense of where we are getting over this major European trauma.” [22:36]
10. Overflowing Churchyards and Urban Crises
[23:24–26:57]
- Ancient Rome kept burials outside city limits (necropolis concept), but Christianity brought the dead close to the living, crammed around/within churches.
- By the 18th/19th centuries, population boom in cities (especially London, Paris) created grisly public health crises: graveyards literally “overflowed.”
- Famous scandal: In Paris in the 1780s, a graveyard burst—dead bodies ran through the city. In London, the Enon Chapel sat atop 20,000 decomposing bodies, with children dancing above.
- Lead to the banning of urban burials and the rise of landscapes cemeteries on city edges.
- Luckhurst: “It makes it much more traumatic when we come across it because we don't live with it. People don't die at home anymore. People don't have bodies in their houses, laid out for wakes and so on.” [26:41]
11. The Garden Cemetery Movement
[27:04–29:57]
- 19th-century reforms produced “garden cemeteries” (Pere Lachaise, Paris; Highgate, London, etc.), integrating nature and recreation.
- Garden cemeteries were intended to offer peaceful, picturesque alternatives for both remembrance and leisure.
- Trend spread to the US and inspired today's “green burials” where nature predominates, and life cycles are emphasized (e.g., tree growth from remains).
- Notable Quote: “There are some very, very beautiful places I’ve been to, some very beautiful cemeteries actually, and funerals in those kinds of spaces, which can be very moving... an embrace of [natural cycles].” [29:33]
12. Modern Practices and the Future of Graveyards
[29:57–31:41]
- With cremation now surpassing burial, traditional graveyards are less central—but new rituals form, from scattering ashes in nature to turning remains into diamonds or even launching them into space.
- Returning to nature, tying remembrance to landscape, gives comfort and a secular sense of ongoing life cycles.
- Luckhurst: “I just think the idea of kind of him being able to see the chocolate factory and all of that chocolate that he loved is a lovely thing. So it really does, I think, link you to nature, but also to cycles... a way, maybe a more secular way actually, of just sort of thinking, well, this is... the rhythm of life.” [31:24]
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
- “We are engaged with our own dead. And that’s where the subtitle for the book came from, you know, this History of living with the Dead.” — Roger Luckhurst [03:36]
- “The dead do lots of work for us all the time. If you think about most national narratives, it’s nearly always about the sacrifice of the people who founded the modern nation.” — Roger Luckhurst [08:24]
- “They retain power in this odd sort of way even beyond their own life. And the body itself becomes this token that you can kind of move around and again recruit politically for your particular kind of means and ends.” — Roger Luckhurst [11:51]
- “Mummification is something that we discovered as a species quite early, several thousand years ago, but is still in practice.” — Roger Luckhurst [15:39]
- “It’s not an entertainment for you. It’s not a gruesome spectacle. This is... embedded ritualistic tradition. And I think it’s worth having some anxiety about how we exoticise the dead whilst also confessing it’s endlessly fascinating what we do with dead bodies.” — Roger Luckhurst [19:23]
- “Bones are everywhere around you in the medieval period, and particularly after 1348 and the Black Death... So in a way, a repression of all of that is perhaps a sense of where we are getting over this major European trauma.” — Roger Luckhurst [22:36]
- “There are some very, very beautiful places I’ve been to, some very beautiful cemeteries actually, and funerals in those kinds of spaces, which can be very moving... an embrace of [natural cycles].” — Roger Luckhurst [29:33]
- “It really does, I think, link you to nature, but also to cycles... a way, maybe a more secular way actually, of just sort of thinking, well, this is... the rhythm of life.” — Roger Luckhurst [31:24]
Key Timestamps
- 02:44 – Start of main content and overarching theme
- 03:45 – Earliest graveyards and burial evidence
- 06:22 – Graveyards as sites of rest and gothic horror
- 07:44 – Beyond remembrance: the politics of burial
- 10:11 – Leaders' bodies as powerful symbols
- 12:15 – Most extravagant tombs worldwide
- 14:23 – Recurring burial practices (mummification)
- 16:20 – Cultural “otherness” and funeral practices
- 21:01 – Introduction to catacombs and ossuaries
- 23:45 – Overflowing graveyards and urban health crises
- 27:24 – The rise of the garden cemetery
- 29:57 – Modern cremation, eco-burials & the evolving place of the graveyard
Tone & Style
The conversation mixes scholarly insight with wit and personal anecdotes, balancing a sometimes macabre subject with levity and genuine curiosity. Cawthorn’s questions are conversational and open, while Luckhurst provides vivid stories and careful consideration of cultural complexity. The style is accessible, reflective—and, in the end, deeply human.
Recommended for:
Listeners interested in history, anthropology, cultural studies, and anyone curious about how societies cope with mortality, memory, and the spaces between the living and the dead.