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 and out of consciousness for weeks, Beethoven succombed on March 26, 1827. Some 10,000 people lined the streets of Vienna at his funeral to pay homage to the composer who had forever changed the musical climate of Western Europe.