When is the right time to die? The problem of timing death is an old one because, as I have stressed repeatedly, all challenges within the act of dying can be found in all periods and places in history. The current challenge is no different in this technical respect. My argument in this final chapter is only that the challenge of timing death has now become dominant and more urgent.

In some earlier small-scale societies we have seen how getting the timing ‘right’ for the death of a god-king has been important (Frazer 1911b). The health and vigour of this kind of king is a measure of the health and vigour of the community. It is important, then, that people observe the king carefully, noting his level of vitality as he ages. Timing is everything. Once a certain level of frailty is noticed the king must be ritually killed to save his ‘essence’ to pass on to the new king, thereby preserving this quality for the whole community. These are common concerns for some communities with god-kings.

At other times, in Europe in the late Middle Ages for example, there have been major anxieties about premature burial (Noyes 2005: 59). Being buried alive was a horrific but empirical fact of earlier times when incorrect assessments of the time of death had actually led to people being accidentally buried alive.