How to Wrap a Body in a Shroud
Shrouds have been in existence since ancient times. There are two primary styles of shrouds: the shroud that is wound and the shroud that is sewn like a type of fabric bag. The Egyptians used hundreds of yards of linen to wrap and shroud mummified bodies. Medieval societies sewed their dead into baglike shrouds from linen or whatever fabric they had available. Recently, archaeologists have discovered the shroud of Liu Wu, a king from the Western Han Dynasty whose shroud had more than 4,000 pieces of jade that made up its "fabric."
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Things You'll Need
- 9 linen strips, 8 inches wide by 20 feet long
- 2 rectangles of linen, 4 feet wide by 7 feet long
- 5 strips of linen, 5 inches wide by 40 inches long
- Needle
- Thread
Instructions
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The Wound Shroud
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Start with the body's head. Tie the end of one 8-inch-by-20-foot strip around the forehead, tucking the edges around the crown of the head and arranging as smoothly as the fabric will allow. To secure, hand-sew the fabric edges over the crown using a whip stitch.
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2
Wind the strip of linen around the head and over the neck, overlapping to thoroughly cover the body. When you reach the end of a strip, hand-sew another strip to the end of the one on the body. Jewish custom mandated no knots be used in the sewing, but other societies weren't so strict.
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3
Continue winding strips around the body, working toward the feet. Continue sewing strips of linen to the ones on the body to extend the material. Sew the end of the wound linen strip to the layers beneath.
The Sewn "Bag" Shroud
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4
Place two rectangles of linen atop each other. Hand-sew 2 inches from each edge, leaving one of the 4-foot-wide ends open for body insertion. Essentially, you're sewing a bag.
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5
Turn the shroud right side out by reaching inside the shroud, grasping an edge and pulling it through the opening. Insert the body into the shroud opening, tugging the shroud fabric against the crown of the head, straightening the fabric as you continue to pull toward the feet. Pull the excess past the feet.
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6
Tie one 5-inch-wide-by-40-inch-long strip around the outside of the shroud around the corpse's neck. Tuck the excess ends into the tie.
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7
Pull the fabric, straightening it, and tie a 5-by-40 strip around the outside of the shroud directly below the body's shoulders against the upper arms.
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8
Tie a 5-by-40 strip over the shroud and around the waist of the corpse.
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9
Pull the fabric, straightening it, and tie a 5-by-40 strip around the shroud over the knees of the body.
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10
Pull the excess fabric below the body's feet, rolling the fabric to the base of the feet and tucking the excess fabric beneath the lower ankles of the corpse. Tie a 5-by-40 strip around the outside of the shroud around the corpse's ankles.
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Using a whip stitch, sew the edges of the rolled fabric to the shroud layers beneath.
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Tips & Warnings
Rigor mortis, or stiffening of the body, sets in two hours after death. By the time a body was placed in a shroud, the body was stiff. This aided in the process. Spices and nitrate, a drying agent, were often sewn into shrouds.
Many shrouded corpses were buried without coffins, sometimes in mass graves with lime, and covered with dirt when the grave pit was full. Burial shrouds of this kind are deteriorated by the elements.
