Flowers for Funerals: Around Since The Dinosaur Days
What goes with funerals? Other than dead people, that is. Flowers . And did you know that this tradition goes back to ancient times? According to a story at newswise.com, in prehistoric times, in what today is northern Israel, people buried their dead "on a literal bed of fragrant wild flowers, such as Judean sage, as well as blooming plants of the mint and figwort families." We, of course, place flowers around the funeral parlor room of the person who is being honored, or send them to the home of the deceased's family. But the intent is the same, it would seem -- to ease the passage of the person from this world to the next. The Web site reports that this is the oldest known use of flowers in "grave lining." Radio carbon dating has proved that the grave sites are between 11,700 and 13,700 years old. The work was done by Dr. Elisabetta Boaretto at the Weizmann Institute of Science, who was part of an international team that performed excavations i...