NEW ORLEANS — In the midst of death, one funeral home has constant evidence of life. Its sweeping staircase has been the backdrop for photographs of Mardi Gras krewes, prom couples, homecoming queens and bride after bride after bride. "Thousands of brides have had their wedding pictures on our staircase," said Joe Daigle, manager of J.E. Hixson & Sons Funeral Home in Lake Charles, about 320 kilometres west of New Orleans.

Bedford, Ohio -- John Walters loves the feeling he gets from fixing up aging gravestones. "It's like you're saving history and artwork from more than 100 years ago," he said. "It seems like you are righting a wrong. "So many times, you look at the surnames on the graves and then look at the nearby roads - roads that were named after these people, They are the people who carved out this area." Walters, a gravestone restorer, was  summoned to work at Bedford Cemetery during the last full week in June. "It can be slow, pains-taking work," Walters said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- England's enigmatic Stonehenge served as a burial ground from its earliest beginnings and for several hundred years thereafter, new research indicates. Dating of cremated remains shows burials took place as early as 3000 B.C., when the first ditches around the monument were being built, researchers said Thursday. And those burials continued for at least 500 years, when the giant stones that mark the mysterious circle were being erected, they said.

Los Angeles, CA (AHN) -- Two California men were indicted on federal felony charges Friday, accused of dealing in human body parts. Authorities say the former head of the University of California, Los Angeles' cadaver program, Henry Reid, 58, sold the cadavers and body parts that were donated to the program to business man Ernest Nelson, 50, who then sold the parts to medical, pharmaceutical and hospital research companies.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A painstaking two-year investigation to determine which of two skulls belonged to Friedrich Schiller has found neither is a match, prolonging a 180-year-old mystery over the celebrated German poet's remains. A team of international experts came to their surprise conclusion after comparing DNA samples from the two skulls in question to material from the graves of the poet's relatives.

By JOHN ROGERS

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — Artist Kearine Muizz draws her greatest inspiration from places many people spend their lives trying to avoid — cemeteries. For more than two years, Muizz has wandered through graveyards, searching for the spark that will guide her to complete her most challenging work: nearly two dozen impressionist paintings based on the statues she saw at Paris' storied Pere-Lachaise cemetery. The project was inspired by the slaying of a close friend.

I apologize for being absent from Taph for so long. I have over 3000 post-worthy articles to post, some of them dating as far back as November. I also have dozens of submissions from members, which I greatly appreciate! Remember that news articles post in order of publication date, not posting date. Browse through the articles using the pagination feature ( Prev-1-2-3-4-Next) at the bottom of the page to look for newly posted articles. After all, if you haven't read it,, it's still news!!

DG

YANGON, Myanmar: A group of armed men on Wednesday stole the body of one of Myanmar's most revered Buddhist monks, whose corpse has been preserved in a glass coffin since he died more than four years ago. Officials said the coffin containing the body of Sayadaw Bhaddanta Vinaya, better known as Thamanya Sayadaw, was stolen from the monastery in eastern Myanmar where he had preached.