About Honor?

I have always been curious how flowers came to be the traditional (at least in the U.S.) way to honor the deceased and since it is Memorial Day I thought what better time to find out. In other cultures different items are left for the dead and to me they make more sense than flowers. Offerings of food,money and favorite trinkets seem like things a dead person might have use for (providing the dead needed anything) but I found that flowers actually dated back to the Stone Age. The reason flowers were employed was more than just the decorative purpose they serve today. Flowers were originally put over the grave to mask the odor of decay not only for the survivors but also in hopes of deterring animals from digging up the corpse. The custom of marking the grave with a tombstone began when people still feared the deceased spirit might rise from the grave and inhabit the body of a living person. To prevent this the coffin was nailed shut and a heavy stone was placed on the lid,it was then buried deep in the ground. For extra security another stone was placed on the surface of the grave,giving us the word tombstone.