Копатель могил: обязанности и особенности профессии.

Cemetery worker responsible for digging a grave

A gravedigger is a cemetery worker who is responsible for digging a grave prior to a funeral service.

If the grave is in a cemetery on the property of a church or other religious organization (part of, or called, a churchyard), gravediggers may be members of the decedent's family or volunteer parishioners. Digging graves has also been one of the traditional duties of a church's sexton. In municipal and privately owned cemeteries, gravediggers may be low paid, unskilled and temporary labourers, or they may be well paid, trained and professional careerists, as their duties may include landscaping tasks and courteous interactions with mourners and other visitors. In some countries, gravedigging may be done by landscaping workers for the local council or local authority. A gravedigger implements a variety of tools to accomplish his primary task. A template, in the form of a wooden frame built to prescribed specifications, is often placed on the ground over the intended grave. The gravedigger may use a sod cutter or spade to cut the outline of the grave and remove the top layer of sod. Digging the grave by hand usually requires shovels, picks, mattocks and/or other tools. Cemeteries in industrialized countries may keep a backhoe loader and other heavy equipment, which greatly increases the efficiency of gravedigging. Typically, gravediggers – at least in most Western countries – will use a wooden box to put the soil in. This box consists of several large pieces of wood that fit together, and the box is assembled next to the grave. Once the grave has been dug and the soil from the grave has been placed in the box, the box will usually be covered with a piece of tarpaulin or similar material. The soil will then remain in the box until the day of the back fill, when the funeral takes place and the soil is emptied back into the grave after the coffin has been lowered, after which the box is disassembled. Due to the close proximity of graves in cemeteries (4 feet (1.20 m) between the centre of each headstone is common in modern UK cemeteries), the wooden box is often placed in front of one or more other graves, and is seen as a nuisance to those wishing to visit graves adjacent to a grave that is due to be filled. Although the expression "six feet under" refers to the depth at which people were traditionally buried, at least in the UK, the minimum legal depth for a new grave is seven feet (2.10 m). This allows a maximum of three coffins to be buried in the same grave, typically family members of the deceased who are buried at a later date – which is known as a re open. Gravediggers must take care to get the proportions of a grave right, as the hole needs to be big enough for the coffin to be lowered in. Additionally, shoring is often used to stop a grave from collapsing. Gravediggers must make sure that the coffin can fit through the shoring. Additionally, on the day of the back fill and for the funeral service, typically artificial turf will be placed around the grave whilst the coffin is being lowered. In many cultures throughout history, gravediggers have been highly marginalized by their societies. In the traditional caste system of India, cemetery work has been the responsibility of the lowest castes, considered "unclean" or "untouchable" for their association with death.

Fossor (Latin fossorius, from the verb fodere 'to dig') is a term described in Chambers' dictionary as archaic, but can conveniently be revived to describe grave diggers in the Roman catacombs in the first three centuries of the Christian Era. The duties of the Christian fossor corresponded in a general way with those of the pagan vespillones, but whereas the latter were held in anything but esteem in pagan society (many religions consider corpses, and sometimes anyone who touches them, 'unclean' also in a religious sense), the fossors from an early date were ranked among the inferior clergy of the Church.

One of Barbara Paul's novels was titled First Gravedigger as an allusion to this scene. Gravedigging has been used as a theme in detective and crime fiction. Gravedigger Jones is one of two black detectives featured in the "Harlem cycle" of novels by Chester Himes. His partner in the novels is Coffin Ed Johnson and the pair are often involved in violent confrontations. The timbre of these novels is frequently mordant, and a funeral director is a recurring character.

In the terminology of Marxism, a rising revolutionary class which is destined to overthrow and supplant an earlier ruling class is often referred to as that earlier class' "gravedigger". Thus, the bourgeoisie's historical role was to act as "the gravedigger of feudalism", but by creating a vast exploited working class which is bound to organize and stage a revolution, the bourgeoisie has inevitably created its own "gravedigger". This metaphorical use of gravedigger is already attested in Karl Marx's own writings, and was continued in the same sense by Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky and many other Marxist theoreticians and leaders.

In several societies worldwide, gravediggers are often drawn from the lowest social class or caste, and regarded as unclean. In India, gravediggers and related professions have traditionally been drawn from among the Untouchables. In feudal Japan, gravedigging was one of the "unclean" professions historically allotted to the Burakumin class. Other examples can be found in Ancient Egypt and elsewhere.