Who knew that “eternity” was only 75 years?
The price of dying is going up in Rome, if a city auction of prime cemetery lots is anything to go by.
The most expensive burial ground in the city’s prized Verano cemetery is on offer for 312,629 euros — the price of a modest apartment — before tax.
The “sale” is only for 75 years:
Rome mayor Gianni Alamanno hopes to raise 2.5 million euros from the sell-off of tombs whose owners are no longer known, are empty or are threatened with collapse, and offers a 75-year lease.
Somehow, I thought eternity to be rather longer than this.
One wonders what the mayor would plan to do with the inhabitants of the plots at the end of the lease. Of course, he’s punting to another mayor, 75 years hence. But it would be instructive to see what he would do should he have to deal with dead tenants now.
I can just see the following clause in the legal contract future “clients” must sign:
“At the end of the Period of 75 years the corporeal remains of the Party of the First Part must have been physically removed from the premises by any of the following legally prescribed methods: exhumation, biological decay, reincarnation, translation, or resurrection. Such removal must take place no later than the aforementioned Period after the interment of the corporeal remains of the Party of the First Part. In the event that the Party of the First Part does not honor this Contract, the Party of the Second Part will be entitled to seek redress in a Court of Law against the Party of the First Part. Such redress may include requiring the Party of the First Part to pay fines of up to 100,000 Euros and incur imprisonment with a maximum penalty of one year in a European Union correction facility.”
I know from experience that in Norway, at least, it is common for graves to be used for 20 years. At that point, if the family chooses not to pay for further upkeep, the bones are dug up and the grave re-used. I think the bones go into storage somewhere, but I never asked about that part.
I had a history teacher, a Mr. Chalos in Terre Haute back in the early 70s who said that in Europe it was commonplace to dig the dead up every couple of hundred years to make room in the church graveyard for the newly deceased. He went on to say that the long dead had been long forgotten. No one could remember them, so there was no controversey with this policy.