Dead body in the context of "Exhumation"

Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objects in it, and covering it over. A funeral is a ceremony that accompanies the final disposition.

Evidence suggests that some archaic and early modern humans buried their dead. Burial is often seen as indicating respect for the dead. It has been used to prevent the odor of decay, to give family members closure and prevent them from witnessing the decomposition of their loved ones, and in many cultures it has been seen as a necessary step for the deceased to enter the afterlife or to give back to the cycle of life.

Livor mortis (from Latin līvor 'bluish color, bruise' and mortis 'of death'), postmortem lividity (from Latin post mortem 'after death' and lividitas 'black and blueness'), hypostasis (from Greek ὑπό (hypo) 'under, beneath' and στάσις (stasis) 'a standing') or suggillation, is the second stage of death and one of the signs of death. It is a settling of the blood in the lower, or dependent, portion of the body postmortem, causing a purplish red discoloration of the skin. When the heart stops functioning and is no longer agitating the blood, heavy red blood cells sink through the serum by action of gravity. The blood travels faster in warmer conditions and slower in colder conditions.

Livor mortis starts within 20–30 minutes, but is usually not observable by the human eye until two hours after death. The size of the patches increases in the next three to six hours. Fixation will begin to occur during this timeframe, causing the patches to be unaltered due to movement. Maximum lividity will occur between eight and twelve hours after death. Areas of blood pooling in contact with the ground will blanch, or remain white. The blood pools into the interstitial tissues of the body. The intensity of the color depends upon the amount of reduced haemoglobin in the blood. The discoloration does not occur in the areas of the body that are in contact with the ground or another object, in which capillaries are compressed.

In archeology, a cist (/ˈkɪst/; also kist /ˈkɪst/;ultimately from Ancient Greek: κίστη; cognate to English: chest) or cist grave is a small stone-built coffin-like box or ossuary used to hold the bodies of the dead. In some ways, it is similar to the deeper shaft tomb. Examples occur across Europe and in the Middle East.A cist may have formerly been associated with other monuments, perhaps under a cairn or a long barrow. Several cists are sometimes found close together within the same cairn or barrow. Often ornaments have been found within an excavated cist, indicating the wealth or prominence of the interred individual.

This old word is preserved in the Nordic languages as kista in Swedish and kiste in Danish and Norwegian, as well as in Dutch (kist), where it is the word for a funerary coffin. In English the term is related to cistern and to chest.