6 feet under

We visited Linlithgow today and though there are loads of great things there to photograph, I couldn't resist this whole molar, found in the graveyard of St Michael's.

It is pretty common to find bones in graveyards. In the cemetary near us, the bones are probably there due to it being very close to a river so that when the river rises up, so do our ancestors. In the case of this tooth, rabbits were to blame and the surface was littered with bones, some identifiable and others not. In fact all of the whitish "stones" in this picture are bones.

Apparently the "6 feet under" burial depth came from the time of the Great Plague where bodies were required to be buried deeply to try and prevent the disease spreading. Bodies nowadays need not be buried that deeply and apparently need as little as 30 inches of soil though any burials I have attended have been much deeper than that.