buried in honey

WE ALL LOVE HOENY!! But do you like it so much you want to be buried in it?

The body of Alexander the Great was placed in white honey in a golden coffin. Agessilaus, king of Sparta was transported home when he died in Libya in 360BC (before the invention of plastination) We can understand why, as the only truly preservable food, honey would be an appropriate liquid in the hot climates of Libya and Babylon, to keep human remains fresh on the way to wherver they were going.

But then there is the funny case of the first four Earls of Southampton, the Wriothesleys. The bodies of the Earls were interred in four sealed lead coffins in a vault in the parish church of St. Peter in Titchfield, Hampshire.

Word on the street was that they were full of honey. So when subsidence damaged one coffin about a hundred years ago, causing a liquid to trickle out at the seam, the workman repairing the church seized the oppertunity to prove the legend. He ran his finger along, then had a taste to confirm it was indeed honey.