As the corpse is placed in a casket or container (preferably prepared from a combustible material), the container burns down. Next, the heat dries the body, burns the skin and hair, contracts and chars the muscles, vaporizes the soft tissues, and calcifies the bones so that they eventually crumble.
One such story is that of Nero merrily playing the fiddle while Rome burned in the Great Fire of the first century. It was during the night of the 18 th July 64 AD, when a fire broke out in the merchant area of the city.
In 1649 the playwright George Daniel committed this line to print: âLet Nero fiddle out Romeâs obsequies.â And ever after, through Samuel Pepys and Samuel Johnson to our own time, Nero has been fiddling as Rome burned.