I found the part of the book dealing with prehistoric burials much more interesting than the part that deals with more modern ones, but that may be because we already have much more information about burial practices from the Middle Ages onwards. It was interesting to read about the similarities in burial sites in different parts of the country at a time when these communities would have had little to no contact with each other.

I was disappointed in this. I was expecting more about death, but this felt more like an archaeology textbook. I found there was precious little about the "death" promised in the title and far too much about excavated sites.

I loved this. It had me thinking about ancient people's and modern death rituals. We aren't that different. They just probably didn't have to remortgage a house to have a person buried. Of course, it did talk about the differences between the rich and the poor.
The photos helped illustrate the story too.

The first half of this book covers Neolithic death and burials and is quite interesting since it hasn’t really been covered in the other books I’ve read but it was interesting to a point. I felt there was too much coverage of it when the second half was shorter but had the photos we love to see and explanations of gravestone symbols.

It didn’t really have enough bite in it for me but it still appeals to people who are interested in this topic. I felt that the rituals aspect wasn’t covered very well in a broad sense.

This intriguing book is a look at how humans have celebrated and marked death and their dead loved ones through time, from prehistoric to modern day.
The author is incredibly knowledgeable and almost all of the sites mentioned or pictured in this book are ones he has personally worked on or visited extensively, this adds a great deal of personal details to the sites, rather than a photograph and brief description.
It's a very interesting book, with very valuable information, such as what symbols found on gravestones mean and the way people are buried, information left behind on grave markings in stone and how much themes seem to run through certain eras of burial and change throughout time.
I was particularly pleased to read the reburial part of the book as I have often wondered what happens to the bones that are found during excavation, building works or general disturbance of the earth and it doesn't sit well that they're probably disposed of in not very respectful ways, especially during the early days of archaeology.

A very informative book!

Thank you very much to NetGalley and the publishers for letting me read and review this book.

This book opens the door to topics which are often taboo and fearlessly asks and answers questions about death, which, after all, comes to us all. I particularly enjoyed the analysis of disaster and crisis on what is and is not accepted, especially in the context of the Bubonic Plague.

This is a very haphazard collection of “I woz there” accounts of some of the author’s Northumberland archaeological digs (50-odd pages, including a two-page list of coins found at one site) followed by a 50-page non-chronological photo album of Northumberland gravestones.
No general historic era overview, no glossary, one map. Sparse mentioning of any rituals per se, completely omitting the rich burial rites of Roman times and dealing with other eras within a page.

Many moons ago I went to one of Beckensall’s lectures and was interested to see how his considerable knowledge would translate into print. Alas, there was a man so brimful of facts that was so interested in every aspect of prehistoric burial that he had trouble to sift out a digestible number of site descriptions for his readers.
To the reader unbaptised with archaeological waters, this was an arduous stop ‘n go experience, having to look up a heap of technical terms - few explanations in the text.

All in all, I’m sorry to say, a disappointing offering given the title of the book.