Being a (displaced) New Orleans native, I inquired into this a bit further during a cemetery visit a few years back. I had visited a small above-ground tomb in a New Orleans Cemetery with 13 names on it. I asked the caretaker if it weren't a bit crowded in there, seeing how it was only a little larger than an ordinary casket. The caretaker informed me that above-ground burial is very much like a slow crematory: the heat and other natural forces cause degradation of the remains until very little is left - he assured me there is plenty of room in the tomb, despite 13 people having been entombed there. Jim [email protected] wrote: > Subject: > > [SWITZ] Burial New Orleans Style > From: > > [email protected] > Date: > > Fri, 20 Sep 2002 13:04:16 EDT > To: > > [email protected] > > > This discussion wouldn't be complete for me without telling how New Orleans, > La. USA does it. > Because of the Mississippi River and other waterways dumping in at New > Orleans, La., the place is one of the most saturated in the world. Because of > it, burials are in stone vaults, bodies stacked on top of one another, I > guess, because the weight is needed to hold a normal pine box under the > ground.