Just-in-case coffins

There's a great post today on the Athanasius Kircher Society Blog about ways to ensure that someone was actually dead before burying them in the days before modern medicine. These included a delightful hospitals for the “doubtful dead", also known as waiting mortuaries. These were environments which encouraged the rotting of a dead body (probably very warm, very wet, and with Celine Dion songs playing on a loop)...each doubtful dead would be equipped with a string attached to a bell, so they could be all, "duuude! I'm not dead!" Sadly, corpses have the unnerving tendency to twitch, so these waiting mortuaries were rife with false alarms.

Lots more (including "security coffins" with air tubes and horns for tooting, in case you awake to find yourself buried) at Athanasius Kircher Society.

And if you're into that sort of thing (and who doesn't want to be a Lost Boy, I mean really?) head over to Germany, and check in to Propeller Island City Lodge, a hotel filled with wacky novelty rooms including a coffin room, where, dream of dreams! you can finally sleep in a coffin. The site has pictures of all 45 rooms, and if you've got some spare time on your hands (and I know you do), it's pretty fun to look at. I especially enjoyed the room with the cages hanging from the ceiling.