Dtyjlui

The person can completely bury himself using the following steps:

• dig the 6 feet deep hole and place the removed soil into a funnel like container with the bottom closed by a removable lid, extended for the entire length of the hole




• connect the said lid to a rope




• lay flat on the bottom of the hole




• pull the rope

The soil will drop in the hole and will fill it with the man inside.

The above mentioned procedure leaves only the funnel outside, and a fairly low bulge which can later be flattened, satisfying all the 3 requirements.

A classic grave like you picture is for lowering a coffin. Your condemned criminal does not get a coffin. They can bury themselves much more efficiently by digging a smaller hole (2-3 feet in diameter) down to 6ft, then a similarly-sized sideways tunnel (or a slanted tunnel from the surface). Then crawl into the tunnel, and make/let it collapse on themselves. A smaller/shorter shovel would actually be more useful.

The biggest issue is keeping the tunnel from collapsing early, and you not allow planks to reinforce the ceiling. I guess they can use their own body to support the tunnel roof, and rely on others to fill in the hole.

I hope you realize it will take a rediculous amount of willpower to do it.

Edit: New way. Made mud bricks, maybe using own clothes as reinforcement, and/or letting them dry in the sun. Make an arched vault ceiling out of them over the grave. Keep piling dirt on top the ceiling until grave is deep enough, then collapse it from below. The dirt will fall down, giving you your clean grave. It might indeed take a month due to premature collapses.

It would really help to have some material to reinforce the mud bricks. Is the criminal allowed to harvest grass or roots from the "sufficiently large' area?

Edit 2: undermining Thanks to OP's comment. Dig a small round hole down, then go sideways and turn it into a J, and then back up turning it into a U. Pile the dug out dirt on top of this U. Eventually the whole thing will collapse, with dirt piled on top going straight down. It will not be perfectly level, but at least there will be no dirt pile outside of the grave site.

Honestly, perfectly level gravesite is impossible. Regular graves are always raised a bit, since the body takes up space, and digging the earth fluffs it up.

This is kind of a guess, but it seems a human can't really dig a hole deeper than they can throw the dirt out (height to shoulders + length of arms + length of shovel from point your holding it + tossing height based on consistency and hydration of dirt...) and probably can't cover themselves by more dirt than they can disloge from the space above them once they reach that point. Since there's a certain amount of randomness in that effect and since the arms must stay below the head when you do it, I'm going for no more than 6-10 inches above the head unless you're really lucky ... and the shovel is sticking out when you're done.

As for a fixed number, that depends on too many variables to give you one.

The challenge isn't digging the hole as much as it is covering themselves afterwards. You could probably get a six foot hole dug, but you couldn't get more than a few inches of dirt back onto you. Even if you only dug a hole two feet deep or so, sat up and pulled the dirt onto you, the logistics become difficult. You could get your legs well covered for sure, but how do you get your arms and face covered to any sufficient degree?

About the only thing I can think of is to dig the hole, fill it very loosely, and burrow down into it, pushing the dirt to one side, and knocking it back over yourself. That'd certainly exhaust you, making the job of getting out more difficult.

You didn't specify that they need be face up when the process is complete. It might be easier to work if one went in face down. Also, one could (and here's where it really gets horrific) speed the process by pressing one's face against or into the more densely pack untouched earth as the bottom, smothering oneself, at least to the point of unconsciousness. That would leave you more vulnerable to a more permanent smothering and expiry.

One could also, I suppose, try to brain oneself with the shovel right at the end.

Dig diagonally until you're perhaps four feet under. Then, level horizontally and start pushing the excavated earth back (it won't go out of the hole, it'll just accumulate behind you, leaving only a narrow air space).

The difficult thing is actually not getting buried too soon. But once you're all below ground level, if the soil is loose enough, it will simply collapse. If it isn't, you can work on it before excavating, essentially building a mound of destabilized soil.

This actually happened to some kid years ago, he was digging under a sand dune at the seaside. It turns out that the weight of the soil will crush one's chest and lungs - they attempted a rescue, but I seem to remember that he didn't make it.

Even if you didn't manage to collapse the soil over your body, continuing to tamp the soil behind you will leave you sealed in a sufficiently airtight space. Suffocation will follow shortly after, and you will be effectively dead and buried below ground, with not too much earth displaced.

If soil is soft and loamy, the most reliable method would be a collapse.

1. Dig a narrow 8 feet deep pit;


2. Dig a cave in a side of it;


3. Once you are completely in the cave, start widening it;


4. Soon, the cave will collapse, and there would be enough dirt above to completely bury you.

Once the soil is at armpit height, you can't pull much more soil back into the grave. Then, even if you bury your arms, your head remains exposed. There are two ways:

1. make a deep trench, deeper than your own height. Then, dig a wider trench below. The overhanging soil will collapse. Someone still needs to flatten the ground afterwards.




2. L. Dutch's idea of a funnel is good. The main drawback: make sure the soil in the funnel is dry. Otherwise, the funnel gets jammed. After rainfall, it is better to fill it with sand instead. Someone still needs to clean after him.

You did not mention who places the tombstone after the job was done. :)