Premature burial, also known as live burial, burial alive, or vivisepulture, means to be buried while still alive.
Antoine Wiertz's painting of a man buried alive
A burial vault built c. 1890 with internal escape hatches to allow the victim of accidental premature burial to escape
Killing the Scholars and Burning the Books, anonymous 18th century Chinese painted album leaf depicts Confucian scholars being buried alive in Imperial China during the 3rd century BC
16th-century Portuguese illustration from the Códice Casanatense, depicting a Hindu ritual, in which a widow is buried alive with her dead husband
In ancient Rome, the Vestal Virgins or Vestals were priestesses of Vesta, virgin goddess of Rome's sacred hearth and its flame.
2nd-century AD Roman statue of a Virgo Vestalis Maxima (National Roman Museum)
House of the Vestals and Temple of Vesta from the Palatine
Relief of the Vestal Virgins at a banquet, found in 1935 near Rome's Via del Corso (Museum of the Ara Pacis)
The most prominent feature of the ruins that were once the Temple of Vesta is the hearth (seen here in the foreground).