The danger of premature interment : $b Proved from many remarkable instances of people who have recovered after being laid out for dead, and of others entombed alive, for want of being properly examined prior to intermentTaylor, Joseph
History
The danger of premature interment : $b Proved from many remarkable instances of people who have recovered after being laid out for dead, and of others entombed alive, for want of being properly examined prior to interment
Taylor, Joseph
Burial, Premature; Funeral rites and ceremonies
Kommanus tells us, that in Valentia, a city of Spain, there was found
the body of Adonizam, the servant of King Solomon, together with his
epitaph in Hebrew. It appeared, that he had laid buried above two
thousand years, yet was he found uncorrupted: so excellent a way of
embalming the dead were those skilled in, who lived in the Eastern
Countries.
He also mentions the body of Cleopatra, which had remained undamaged
for an hundred and twenty-five Olympiads, viz. five hundred years,
as appears by the letter of Heraclius the Emperor to Sophocles the
philosopher.
I remember not, continues Kommanus, to have read any thing like this
amongst the Romans, unless of the body, as some say of Tulliolæ, the
daughter of Cicero, which was found entire and uncorrupted (as some
have computed) one thousand and five hundred years, the particulars of
which are described as follows from Houghton’s collections, volume the
_2nd_, page 346.
In the papacy of Paul the Third, in the Appian way, where abundance of
the chief Heathens of old were laid, a sepulchre was opened; where was
found the entire body of a fair virgin swimming in a wonderful juice
which kept it from putrefaction so well, that the face seemed no way
damnified, but lively and handsome. Her hairs were yellow, tied up
artificially, and kept together with a golden circle or ring. Under
her feet burnt lamps, which vanished at the opening of the Sepulchre.
By some inscriptions it seems she had lain 1500 years. Who she was is
not known, although many thought her to be _Tulliolæ_, the daughter of
Cicero.
* * * * *
Cedrenus makes mention of a lamp, which (together with an image of
Christ) was found at Edessa, in the reign of Justinian the Emperor. It
was set over a certain gate there, and privily enclosed, as appeared by
the date of it, soon after Christ was crucified: it was found burning
(as it had done for five hundred years before) by the soldiers of
Cosroes, king of Persia, by whom also the oil was taken out and cast
into the fire; which occasioned such a plague, as brought death upon
almost all the forces of Cosroes.
* * * * *
At the demolition of our monasteries here in England, there was found
in the supposed monument of Constantius Chlorus (father to the great
Constantine,) a burning lamp which was thought to have continued
burning there ever since his burial, which is about three hundred years
after Christ. The ancient Romans used in that manner to preserve
lights in their Sepulchres a long time, by the oil of gold, resolved by
art into a liquid substance.
* * * * *
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