Editing Burial (section)

====Inverted burial====
For humans, maintaining an ''upside-down'' position, with the head vertically below the feet, is highly uncomfortable for any extended period of time, and consequently burial in that attitude (as opposed to attitudes of rest or watchfulness, as above) is highly unusual and generally symbolic. Occasionally [[suicide]]s and assassins were buried upside down, as a post-mortem punishment and (as with [[#Burial at cross-roads|burial at cross-roads]]) to inhibit the activities of the resulting [[undead]].

In ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'', the [[Lilliputian]]s buried their dead upside down:
{{Blockquote|They bury their dead with their heads directly downward, because they hold an opinion, that in eleven thousand moons they are all to rise again; in which period the earth (which they conceive to be flat) will turn upside down, and by this means they shall, at their resurrection, be found ready standing on their feet. The learnèd among them confess the absurdity of this doctrine; but the practice still continues, in compliance to the vulgar.|Jonathan Swift|[[s:Gulliver's Travels/Part I/Chapter VI|Gulliver's Travels, Part I, Chapter VI]]}}

Swift's notion of inverted burial might seem the highest flight of fancy, but it appears that among English [[millenarian]]s the idea that the world would be "turned upside down" at the Apocalypse enjoyed some currency.  There is at least one attested case of a person being buried upside down by instruction; a [[Peter Labilliere|Major Peter Labilliere]] of [[Dorking]] (d. 4 June 1800) lies thus upon the summit of [[Box Hill, Surrey|Box Hill]].<ref>{{cite book |last1= Lander |first1= J |title= Peter Labilliere: The Man Buried Upside Down on Box Hill |year= 2000 |publisher= Post Press |location= Chertsey |isbn= 978-0-9532424-1-2}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Simpson |first=Jacqueline |title=The Miller's tomb: facts, gossip, and legend [1]|journal=Folklore |date=August 2005 |jstor=30035277 |doi=10.1080/00155870500140230 |volume=116 |issue=2 |pages=189–200 |s2cid=162322450 }}</ref> Similar stories have attached themselves to other noted eccentrics, particularly in southern England, but not always with a foundation in truth.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Simpson|first=Jacqueline|title=The World Upside down Shall Be: A Note on the Folklore of Doomsday|journal=The Journal of American Folklore|volume=91|issue=359|pages=559–567|date=January–March 1978|doi=10.2307/539574|jstor=539574}}</ref>