State of the Human · Stanford Storytelling Project

Burying (full episode)

·59 min·5 clips

In 1824, Bathsheba Smith's family found her coffin empty, dug up by Yale medical students for anatomy lessons.

This episode of State of the Human, hosted by Aileen Williams, explores the theme of burying through diverse global stories. The show examines what happens when things we intend to stay buried—from bodies to emotions—resurface or go awry. The episode opens with a historical account of Bathsheba Smith, a 19-year-old whose body was stolen from a New Haven cemetery in 1824 for Yale Medical School's anatomy classes. This led to a riot and a Connecticut law against body snatching. Reporter Reed Levinson then travels to Mongolia to investigate sky burials, a tradition where bodies are left on mountainsides for vultures. An expert, Christine Murphy, explains how urbanization in Ulaanbaatar, now home to 1.7 million people, has made this practice difficult and led to a municipal ban. A local couple, Tsogbadrach and Tuya, describe their disturbing experience with a sky burial for Tuya's mother, where vultures did not immediately consume the body, sparking harmful rumors. Conservationist Dr. Keith Bildstein discusses the threat veterinary drugs pose to vultures as Mongolia industrializes. A segment on pet cemeteries features interviews with grieving pet owners and a worker who has performed cremations and burials for 16 years. The episode then profiles Jim Yount, acting president of the American Cryonics Society, who advocates for freezing bodies post-death for potential future revival, citing only about 340 people frozen worldwide since the 1970s. Art therapist Naveen Qasimali discusses using an "anger box" exercise to help process suppressed emotions, particularly within Muslim communities that may discourage sharing feelings. Iranian artist Barbad Ghoshiri describes creating temporary grave markers, like his "Untitled Tomb" using soot powder, to memorialize those whose graves are systematically vandalized by the state, such as Baha'is and executed intellectuals. Marine biologist Janet Voight introduces her work collecting benthic octopuses from the deep ocean. The historical story reveals that body snatching was driven by a legal prohibition on medical schools accessing cadavers, forcing doctors to employ "resurrectionists." In Mongolia, sky burials are tied to Buddhist beliefs that complete consumption of the body frees the soul for reincarnation. The pet cemetery worker notes that private, witnessed cremations are a service offered, and one pet owner recalls a cat saving them from a bully. Jim Yount argues that acceptance of burial or cremation is mere cultural conditioning and that cryonics offers a scientific alternative to permanent death. Naveen Qasimali references Carl Jung's concept of the "wounded healer" to explain why many become therapists. Barbad Ghoshiri points out that Tehran's Behesht-e Zahra cemetery contains graves of both war martyrs and executed leftists, serving as an unintended gallery of contested history. The tone is narrative and educational, weaving historical journalism with personal storytelling and field reporting from locations like Mongolia and Silicon Valley. The style is conversational yet investigative, presenting each story as a case study on the theme. Listeners interested in anthropology, history, and cross-cultural death practices would find this episode compelling. Those seeking light entertainment or a single continuous narrative might prefer to skip it.

As heard by us

Burial becomes a study of grief, ritual, and the refusal of finality.

State of the Human treats burial as a question of permanence, then keeps complicating it. It moves from the grave in New Haven in 1824 to the rituals people build around pets, and the Bathsheba Smith account gives the piece a sharp, memorable edge.

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Why you'd press play

You want a burial story that opens into a mystery.

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