Urns

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For centuries urns have been a popular way to memorialize the dead, but they also have a wide variety of other uses. Urns are, in pottery terms, simply vases, and, like vases, they have been put to any number of uses besides the storing of ashes, the use for which, perhaps, urns are best known. Urns have been used over the years to store water, flowers, and even, in the 16th century, dinner knives. One of the most famous urns in the world today, in fact, has nothing to do with memorializing the dead: an urn is the coveted prize in a legendary biannual cricket competition between England and Australia. The competition is known as The Ashes, and the famous prize is an urn filled with the ashes of a cricket stick that was burned hundreds of years ago, before the competition series began.

But, alas, urns are probably best known for being a touching beautiful tribute to people whose bodies have been cremated. Urns used for cremation ashes have inspired a number of great literary works over the centuries. Most notably, perhaps, is John Keats's "Ode to a Grecian Urn," which classically relates the unique décor of almost every cremation urn ever made to mankind's eternal struggles with mortality. And, in 1658, English writer Thomas Browne explored similar themes about urns in his Hydriotaphia or Urn Burial, a classic work prompted by the discovery of a Bronze Age urn in Norfolk, England.
 
Urns have been a part of death memorials dating back to at least the Ancient Greeks who stored cremation ashes in a special type of urn called a lekythos.  In the days of the Roman Empire, urns with cremation ashes were often displayed together in a collective tomb called a columbarium. This practice continues today at many cemeteries across the world.

Urns, of course, are often still displayed in columbarium's, but it's not uncommon to see urns with cremation ashes in private residences. Cremation urns are also commonly buried in standard graves – often atop the grave of a loved-one. And, special biodegradable urns are often used today to provide an environmentally friendly disposal of cremation ashes. Whatever their use, urns remain timelessly appropriate for memorializing a loved-one because they can be personalized. The décor of cremation urns can speak volumes about the people the urns memorialize, assuring that memories stay alive for generations to come.

Urns designed for cremation ashes come in a wide variety of materials and styles. Urns can be made of wood, bronze, metal, marble, glass, or ceramic. Different materials, of course, are required for different memorial purposes. If they are to be buried, urns are usually made of bronze or some other metal. If they are to be displayed beautifully in a home or at a funeral, urns are often made of glass, wood, or ceramic. And if they are to be displayed outdoors – or as part of a columbarium, urns can be made of marble.

Urns have been around for centuries as a beautiful tool for assuring that a person's memory lasts for the ages. Though many have the same basic purpose, storing the ashes of the deceased, urns are also all as unique as the people they memorialize.