Death customs

Gifts dating back 1,800 years that have been given to the dead throughout history have been unearthed in a grave in the ancient city of Hadrianaupolis in the Ezkipazar district of the northern province of Karabük.

George Floyd was fondly remembered on June 9 as "Big Floyd" — a father and brother, athlete and neighborhood mentor, and now a catalyst for change — at a funeral for the black man whose death has sparked a global reckoning over police brutality and racial prejudice.

A Colombian advertising company is pitching a novel if morbid solution to shortages of hospital beds and coffins during the coronavirus pandemic: combine them.

ABC Displays has created a cardboard bed with metal railings that designers say can double as a casket if a patient dies.

Once huge funerals these days are mostly attended only by a small circle of close family members and friends, who have to observe social distancing measures.

The funeral processions are now done in the shortest time possible, and in some countries, police monitor the burials to make sure everyone obeys the rules.

The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece will convene an emergency meeting on Monday to decide upon measures it will adopt to fight the spread of the coronavirus.

Among the measures to be discussed will be the suspension of services. However, churches are expected to remain open, contrary to the situation in other countries.

The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece will be launching a campaign to inform the Greek public of the reasons for its opposition to cremation as a means of disposing of the dead, it decided at a meeting on Wednesday.

The Church has a duty to follow the scriptures on the issue, it said, pointing to the teachings of Christ's resurrection.

Egypt revealed Oct. 19 a rare trove of 30 ancient wooden coffins that have been well-preserved over millennia in the archaeologically rich Valley of the Kings in Luxor.

Mother Queen Helen's funeral procession left on Friday from the Elisabeta Palace toward Curtea de Arges in the applause of those attending the event. Welcomed by dozens of persons, some of them holding tricolor flags, the funeral cortege arrived at the Elisabeta Palace around 12:00hrs.

Mother Queen Helen's funeral procession arrives at Elisabeta Palace, where the body will lie in state in the Kings' Hall for 45 minutes. The procession has been welcomed at the Palace by tens of sympathizers of the Royal House, who brought flowers and tricolor flags. The Royal family will pray at the catafalque.

A religious and military ceremony took place at the Otopeni International Airport for Queen Mother Helen, whose remains were flown in to Romania aboard an aircraft of the Romanian Air Force. Queen Helen died in Switzerland on November 29, 1982, when Romania was under a communist dictatorship. She was buried at the Boix-de-Vaud Cemetery in Lausanne.