Bier facts for kids

A bier from Grendon church

A bier is a flat frame, traditionally wooden but sometimes made of other materials, used to carry a corpse for burial in a funeral procession. In antiquity it was often simply a wooden board on which the dead was placed covered with a shroud. In modern times, however, the corpse is almost never carried on the bier without being first placed in a coffin, though the coffin is sometimes kept open.

Images for kids

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  A bier from Tønder, Denmark

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  Gilded bier fashioned to resemble the goddess Sekhmet, the fierce protector of the kings in life and death, from the tomb of Tutankhamun, Cairo Museum