Tombstones That Last?

Reality Master 101 asks: "Being an engineer, I've always been annoyed by the quality of the average tombstone. The typical marble kind only seem to last a maximum few hundred years before the lettering gets worn away. Old-school stone ones were better, but you still max out at about 500 years. This started me asking the question of what would I make one out of that would last 1000 years? 10,000 years? Clearly a solid gold or silver tombstone would last without corroding, but that would be uneconomical and would probably be stolen. What material would give the most bang for the buck for lasting power? What other factors come into play when you start talking Egyption timespans? I was also thinking that I should mount the tombstone to the casket so it doesn't fall over or otherwise wander away." It's odd the links to things that you can find over the internet, so when I read this question, I was reminded of one of Piro's recent rants on MegaTokyo that starts off with an odd discussion about this very issue. Might the information passed in the beginning of the rant be a reason why tombstones made today don't last very long? Do Tombstones need to last for over 500 years, anyways?

Comments

Incredible

[ptomblin]

What sort of arrogance is it that could lead you to believe that anybody is going to care who you are and where you were buried 500 years from now? Sure, tombstones from 500 years ago are interesting to historians, but only because of the absense of other records about how people lived. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're pretty much a record keeping and artifact building culture now, not a bunch of rural peasants whose only impact on the land is wiped out by the next rain.

There are tons of grave yards that have been dug up and the tombstones placed on a wall somewhere because the land was needed for something else. And the pressure on land is only growing. I wouldn't give current grave yards a snowball's chance in hell of surviving out the next century without being paved over.

Do yourself and future generations a favour. Get cremated, have your ashes scattered somewhere that meant something to you, and build your legacy by having good children rather than a long-lived gravestone.

hmm

[Tumbleweed]

What about stainless steel?

Then electrify it so it doesn't get tampered with. :)

Ceramics

[whydna]

I'm not a materials engineer, but I remember seeing some demonstrations of ceramics in a class I took. They had hammers and engine componenents that were increadably strong and able to withstand extreme heat, etc. I'm not familiar with the corrosivity of ceramics, but they may hold the answer to your question. They look fairly nice too...

-Andy

Another slightly related question

[Mononoke]

How many of those stupid little white crosses are going to fill the shoulders of the highway until someone decides we've had enough?

I certainly hope my surviving friends and family remember me for the smart things I did, and don't imortalize me for doing something stupid like riding a bicycle in the traffic lane of a highway.

A marker at a 'final resting place' is one thing. A marker reminding everyone of where doofus rearended a semi is a waste of time and space.

--

Egyptian timespans

[ArcticChicken]

In part, I think the Egyptians lucked out. They happened to be in a good climate for preserving material: the desert.

These days, isn't it acid rainfall that causes the majority of disintegration of stonework? If so, my advice would be to step up your personal campaign against pollution and acid rainfall, and then arrange to be burried somewhere in a really, really dry desert area that's likely to stay that way for the next thousand years or so. Try the Sahara or something.

What an odd question...

[JediTrainer]

Firstly, kudos to you for asking the most unusual question I've ever seen on Slashdot.

I was surprised, however, that you didn't mention the fact that gold (even if not stolen) would NOT be an ideal material for this sort of thing. True, it won't corrode, but a larger problem with gold is that it is so soft that the weather alone will probably destroy your beautiful creation.

Alas, we need to find a material that won't corrode (or otherwise get destroyed in all but the most severe of weather conditions). Perhaps the solution lies in redundancy. First, make a granite (not marble) tombstone and carve with all the details. That should last you a while.

After doing this, encase the entire thing in titanium. Carve again. The titanium shell should last you a few centuries, I believe, and even if it falls away you'll still have a few more centuries worth of granite to erode before it disappears.