England had not won the urn for 19 years and the series was locked at 0-0 after two of the first four matches had days lost to the weather.

BBC: Classic Ashes: The Oval

Emperor Qianlong sent a golden urn to Lhasa, in which the names of candidates proposed for reincarnation would be placed.

ECONOMIST: Banyan

Worried that the TSA would confiscate her cremated remains from my carry-on, I packed the urn containing my mother's ashes into a suitcase filled with gifts for my Chinese relatives and entrusted the lot to United Airlines.

WSJ: Tess Gerritsen on Taking Her Mother's Ashes to China | Traveler's Tale

Thai royals, for example, historically had their bodies cremated many months after death, with their remains being moved from urn to urn until the final day of incineration, in the belief that the soul moves through a gradual transformation, exiting the earth and entering the spiritual world.

BBC: Laos�� strange plain of jars