Introducing - the Sunday Funday Monday Leftover Knowledge Drip!
Every Monday at 7pm central, TipsyRoo and I host (except when we don't) a live community event where, collectively, we solve a NY Times Sunday crossword puzzle (without using the internet!). Each week following the episode either I, or the community, will select a clue/answer from that puzzle and I will delve further into the history & fun facts of this in a segment I'm calling
The Sunday Funday Monday Leftover Knowledge Drip!
Drip #1: Urn
Puzzle Date: January 4th, 2015
Episode 41, recorded live on January 4th, 2021
Puzzle Theme: The Descent of Man
Clue: Caterer's container
Answer: urn
When presented with the clue, "Caterer's container", I did not expect the answer to be, "urn". Granted, I'm not nor have I ever been, a caterer or worked with caterers, so the usage of "urn" as it pertains to catering is unknown to me.
As you might have guessed, urns aren't just for the ashes of a cremated loved one! According to wikipedia:
An urn is a vase, often with a cover, with a typically narrowed neck above a rounded body and a footed pedestal. Describing a vessel as an "urn", as opposed to a vase or other terms, generally reflects its use rather than any particular shape or origin. The term is especially often used for funerary urns, vessels used in burials, either to hold the cremated ashes or as grave goods, but is used in many other contexts; in catering large vessels for serving tea or coffee are often called "tea-urns", even when they are metal cylinders of purely functional design. Large sculpted vases are often called urns, whether placed outdoors, in gardens or as architectural ornaments on buildings, or kept inside.
Some Interesting Urnformation
Some pottery urns have been discovered from 7000 BCE (before current era)
There's an entire Urnfield culture ranging from 1300 BCE to 750 BCE where the dead were cremated, their ashes placed into urns, and those urns buried in fields
In ancient Greece, cremation was usual
Romans placed urns in a niche in a collective tomb called a columbarium
In later European traditions, a king's heart could be placed in an urn and buried in a different place from the body to symbolize affection for the place by the departed
The modern funeral industry has a wide selection of urns that vary in quality & elaborateness; there are even biodegradable urns
In 2015, cremation took over as the default option in the United States (the other being burial)
In 2019 the median cost of a funeral with burial & viewing: $9,135; for a funeral with cremation & viewing: $5,150
Cremation ashes aren't ash; the remains after cremation are bone fragments. These bone fragments are then pressed into a fine powder by a cremator until they resemble ash
Breast implants are usually removed from the body since the cremains stick to them
And my favorite piece of urnformation:
In 2010, a more than 16 foot tall, 16,500 pound black & white porcelain urn depicting some religious garbage in raised, bone-colored imagery, was installed in a plaza at the Village of Hope, a transitional facility for the homeless, in Tustin, California. This urn’s value is estimated at more than $300,000 and is considered to be the world’s largest* urn.
The Wikipedia article (about Urns) mentions a few other types but the one in this crossword puzzle was a "tea urn" which is a heated metal container. I know I've seen these before at a catered event and even at the mess hall when deployed or out in the field (military phrase for training exercise) but they are usually not found in domestic use, so I guess that explains my unfamiliarity with it!
Drinking coffee from an urn will surely grab the attention you desire the next time you attend a catered event....should that day ever come.
In additional to the wikipedia article and largest urn article, here are a few other “sources” I used:
https://www.inthelighturns.com/funeral-information/8-facts-about-cremation
https://decorative-urns.com/cremation-blog/about-cremation/strange-but-true-fun-facts-about-cremation/
Sunday Funday Monday is the brain-child of TipsyRoo that I’ve been honored to be a part of. Past episodes can be found on YouTube.
