Episode 41: Grave Goods

“Riches do not so much exhilarate us with their possession, as they torment us with their loss.” This quotation comes from Robert Burton, a 17th century Oxford scholar and clergyman who understood that our attachment to possessions is often less about enjoying them and more about dreading their loss. This dread, or as he describes it, torment, persists for some in the face of death. In this episode, I’ll be talking to third year Wake Forest Law Student Grace Mohlin about grave goods. As she explains, everyday people insist on being buried with items from this life – expensive jewelry, sentimental objects, and, as we’ll learn later, powder blue convertibles – not because they can take it with them (as we know, “there are no pockets in a shroud”), but because the idea of leaving them behind is somehow unbearable. But sometimes an object matters just as much, if not, even more, to the living then it does to the deceased. Imagine a person owning papers or artwork of historical significance. During their live, they have every right to destroy these things, no matter how much society might lament their loss. But death changes this dynamic. When someone demands an object be buried with them, burial, in effect, becomes a form of destruction. What could be tolerated as an act of a living owner might not be permitted as a request from a dead person.