[Avodah] Likut Atzomos

[Zev Sero]

Akiva Blum wrote:
> The Mishna in pesachim perek 8 mishna 8 mention someone who is melaket
> atzmos oviv, gathering bones, as tomeh. This also appears in perek 1 of
> moed katan. The Tiferes Yisroel in pesachim says that people would bury
> their dead in a temporary grave, and after the meat had rotted, the
> bones would be reinterred in their ancestral cemetery. Can anyone point
> to a source, and perhaps also an explanation for this practice?

An explicit source that sets out the procedure, I don't know, but it's
well known and undisputed.  The kuchin and bone depositories are to be
found all over Eretz Yisrael.   As for why they did this, the kuchin
were drilled into stone, and doing so was a lot of work.  So a burial
cave would have several kuchin, enough to hold a year's worth of meitim.
A body would be put into the kuch, and the cave sealed up with a rolling
stone (the golel).  After a year the bones would be removed from the kuch
and put in the ancestral bone collection, either in an individual ossuary
or just in a heap together with everyone else, and the kuch would be
available for the next meit.


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas