The Reason Why Dead People Are Being Buried “Six Feet Under”

The six foot depth we associate with graves comes from a law enacted in England during the black plague in 1665, when the outbreak led the mayor of London to enact a law requiring all graves to be at least six feet deep in an attempt to limit the spread of disease.

With 20 percent of London’s population succumbing to the Bubonic plague, the death rate had reached over 8,000 per week. The disease continued to sweep the country due in part to the shallow graves that bodies were buried in, or so they believed at the time.

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By burying corpses deep in the ground, it was though the “bad airs” rising from the corpse wouldn’t be able to reach the living. But it turns out that the carrier of the deadly disease were infected fleas that would carry the plague from person to person.

Today, there is no current standard for grave depth. Most places require bodies to be placed in a sealed vault to prevent remains from mixing with the soil, making the depth of the burial irrelevant. In some places, however, such as low-lying wet land areas, graves must be much deeper than six feet, otherwise they would fill with water.

There are even common practices to stack coffins for mass graves, such as a husband and wife plot. If the “six foot” rule is applied, one casket will be buried more than six feet under, and the second less than six feet.

Importantly, we need to bury coffins well underground to protect them from grave robbers and body snatchers.

Source: MentalFloss