Is it possible to dig yourself out if you're buried alive in a coffin?
The first thing to do would be to stay calm and see how much room you have to move.If you have a way to know it is day time scream a few times every hours, do not exhaust yourself or waist air. (in a lot of TV series these days they put air bottles, you can use a lot less air than you think you need, do not waist it, keep control of your breath)Assuming you can move a little, you should remove your shirt or anything else and put it around your nose and mouth tightly to be able to breath for when (if you succeed) you will have sand/dirt all around and need to digg.Then you would need to read the way the wood of the coffin flows and try to break it in a way the sand/dirt weight will help to break inside while still being large enough to let you out while still not letting to much sand/dirt in. (if you have a knife, carve a long deep line back and forth in the middle from top to bottom, without going through, just to ease the work of breaking the plank).Now push back and forth with the help of the sand/dirt weight until the cover break in half, but don't get burrowed in sand/dirt inside.Keep your tools reachable, do not loose them in the sand/dirt or out of reach.You have to be breaking the coffin while four legged and pushing with your back on the last part because the sand is heavy, you do not want to have sand/dirt all around while laying on your back (the sand weight on top of yourself would be greater and impossible to deal with).It is probably the safest way to be able to hold the weight and pushing back to a large enough breach and be able to be "standing" strong enough to finish digging yourself out.Still that is a pretty bad place to be in.You would have to hope it is not a deep grave and have to do it fast enough while not consuming too much air.
Given enough time, could one eventually dig themselves out of a grave if buried alive?
Assume for a moment you are a virtually immortal human that does not need to eat or breath but roughly human strength. You're still buried under a couple tons of dirt.Soil weighs around 74–110 pounds per cubic foot[1] . In other words, if you’re buried 6 foot under, that means each square foot of coffin is under at least 450 pounds of dirt.It would be physically impossible to push that much dirt up out of the way. Pushing it to the side is going to be pointless because you will have tons of dirt pushing back, filling in the hole. In addition, the moment you punch a hole in your coffin, all that dirt is going to just fill up the interior of your space immobilizing you. That’s assuming you could punch a hole in the lid of your coffin in the first place, which is probably impossible. [2]But there might be a loophole. What if you let the dirt settle for the 2-3 months it takes to compact? At that point you could dig straight up, taking the dirt you scoop out and shoving it to the side. You "only" need to scoop out 6-10 cubic feet of dirt, the coffin should be able to hold that much.Even with the loophole it's going to be incredibly difficult. First, you have to be able to punch a hole. Wait until the dirt is compact and no matter how hard you punch the lid, there isn't going to be any give so you can't make a hole. Punch a hole before the dirt is compact (if even that is possible) and you will be immobilized by the hundreds of pounds of dirt pouring in.But assume you have a handy trap door that slides out of the way. Even then, it's going to be difficult to move around - you don't have room to sit up after all.So if you’re an immortal and can spend several months at the endeavor, it’s still highly unlikely. A normal person? No way.Footnotes[1] How much does a cubic foot of soil weigh?[2] MythBusters Episode 112: Coffin Punch
Why are caskets buried 6 feet into the ground?
They are buried so deep so that,no one can dig up the body.The Grave diggers dont want people stealing anyones body.6 feet is too deep for many people to go and get out of the grave.Also,when a flood,hurricanne,or something else like that happens,the ground gets flooded.Once the ground at a cemetary is flooded,the bodies will float up to the top and be floating around everywhere.That is gross.That happened in Hurricane Katrina.If these things happened,it would not only be sad and gross,but disrespectful to the family of that person and disrespectful to the dead.Also the grave diggers would have done all that work for nothing.That is why when you get buried,your body gets buried six feet.Also,someday if the dead come back to life,it will be hard for them to get out.
What is the folklore of why crosses were first placed on graves and when did this ritual begin?
I am not sure on this one but will give it my best shot. Crosses were around before Christ, but the Christian cross symbolizes the death of Jesus Christ. Thus, crosses stand for death. I think the practice of crosses on graves began in the 18th century. It seems like a late date, but prior to that stone slabs were the norm. Edit: I don't know if I researched the same encyclopedia you are using (Encyclopedia of Death and Dying), but in war there was fear of epidemics and the dead were quickly buried side by side. "The uniformity of design of all U.S. war cemeteries was influential on the subsequent design of war cemeteries in other countries. Each nation selected its own special grave symbol. The French had a cross made of concrete with the victim's name and a rose; the British typically employed a stele." This is the only thing I could find and it may not be right, as I don't understand how superstitions would tie into it. http://www.deathreference.com/Ce-Da/Ceme... Edit: In the past, burial at cross-roads was the chosen method in disposing of executed criminals and suicides. Cross-roads form a cross so these spots were selected instead of burial in consecrated ground. The ancient Teutonic peoples also built altars at the cross-roads, where criminals became human sacrifices, so these areas came to be treated as execution grounds. Superstition played a part in the choice of cross-roads in the burial of suicides. Folk belief was that these people could rise as some form of undead (like a vampire) and burying them at the crosses would prevent their ability to find and wreak havoc on the living. Since this is all I could find, I will now guess my way to an answer. The superstition that the cross would stop vamps and maybe even zombies from rising is why crosses started being placed over graves. http://www.answers.com/topic/burial Edit: Since your big hint was live burials, maybe it was thought that those unfortunates who were buriled alive would also come back as some type of undead creature, so the cross was placed there just in case. Is this the right answer?