Why is “six feet under” the standard depth for burial?
I’m trying to find the origin for the practice of burying bodies six feet underground. Why is this particular depth so popular that it’s become synonymous with having shuffled off the mortal coil? I’m sure there’s a rotting-corpse stink factor in the story somewhere. — Sam Crutsinger Let’s lay to rest the idea that in the present day we must bury our dead deep to avoid stench or health crisis. Mark Harris, former environmental columnist for the Los Angeles Times, points out that “in the typical modern burial, the body is pumped full of toxic embalming chemicals [and] sealed inside a metal casket that’s entombed within a concrete bunker,” presumably making it an unlikely spot for disease to find any serious foothold. That’s just common sense, of course; in search of some real inside dirt I called Mike Miller, a funeral planner at Metcalf & Spilsbury Mortuaries in Saint George, Utah. He listened gravely (OK, OK, I’ll cut it out) to my inquiries before informing me that, sure enough, ther
