A bizarre grave-digging championship has taken place in Hungary over the weekend, it has been reported by AP.
18 two-man teams of Hungarian gravediggers displayed their skills for a place in a regional championship to be held in Slovakia later this year.
Participants in the contest held in plot 37A of the public cemetery of the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen were being judged on their speed but also getting points for style — the look of the finished grave mounds.
Janos Jonas, 63, who teamed with his son, Csaba, saw the competition run by the Hungarian Association of Cemetery Maintainers and Operators as a sort of last hurrah as he was just a few weeks from retirement.
"We didn't have to prepare in any special way because we do this every day," said Jonas, from the nearby village of Hosszupalyi. "This is good earth, quite soft and humid, just right for the event."
Organizer Iren Kari said they hoped the race would help increase respect and recognition for the gravediggers' profession and attract more people to the job, which is under threat, for example by the increasing popularity of cremations.
All contestants had shovels, rakes, axes and pickaxes to dig graves 0.8 meters (2 feet 7 inches) wide, 2 meters (6 feet 6 inches) long and 1.6 meters (5 feet 3 inches) deep, but no two teams seemed to use the same technique.
Some preferred to dig simultaneously, while others had one man digging while the other formed the dirt into neat piles around the gravesite. For safety reasons, like the collapse of a grave wall, only one member of each team was allowed to work in the grave after reaching a depth of 1 meter (3 feet 3 inches).
After every team finished digging — the fastest time was just over 34 minutes — there was a short rest and then the dirt was shoveled back into the graves, each topped with a burial mound about the size of a large casket.