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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> > O.K., so I'm gruesome.  What the heck do they do with the bones?  
> 
> I wondered the same thing.  My guess is that they contact the families 
> and offer cremation or removal of remains to a mauseleum.
> 

This was the way it was done in ancient times.  The dead were left in tombs 
for six months to a year during which time the flesh was eaten away.  The 
limestone container in which the dead reposed was called in Greek a 
'sarcophagus' 
that is 'flesh eater'.  Afterwards the bones were gathered up and put into a 
much smaller container (about the size of a bread box) called the 'ossuary'  
= 
'bone box'.   The smaller ossuaries took up less space and the sarcophagus 
could be used over and over.

Cremation was also common.  The poet Catallus returned from Africa to find 
that his brother had died and one line in his poem goes:

et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.

(I have come)
and speak in vain to your silent ashes.   </HTML>