is once again on the rise—see:

Bradley describes multi-day wakes turning “raucous and exuberant,” with whisky as an entire community prepared for a funeral procession of epic proportions. Groups of women skilled at keening crooned over the body, often following behind as the men set off, several at a time hoisting a heavy casket shoulder-high. They’d rest and change bearers often, propping the coffin on piles of stones called cairns, which can still be found in many uninhabited places.Cairns were part of a series of rituals to prevent the dead from returning home, like traveling in winding routes to confuse the spirit, through water where it couldn’t follow; and the body’s feet pointed towards the burial site. These practices, Bradley says, initiated grieving in a community-led pilgrimage of gradual transition for both the living and the dead.

ScotWays, a charity maintaining Scotland’s rights of public access, details how to find several coffin roads in its guidebook,. Volunteer director Tim Simons says it’s difficult to estimate how many existed. Separate from other paths traveled in daily life, used only to usher coffins, many are lost to living memory.“Quite a few will have fallen out of use over 100 years ago,” Simons says, but those that remain, are an important part of the country’s cultural heritage, well worth exploring. “The more people travel [here],” he continues, “the busier it gets, but these routes are still relatively quiet. You can often do one and not see a single soul all day.”

Whether you’re undertaking a journey to commemorate a transition or just want to see some of Scotland’s most awe-inducing places, here are five coffin roads to explore.One of Britain’s most important historic sites is a great starting point. Just over two hours from Glasgow,

holds more than 350 ancient relics like burial cairns, standing stones, and barrows—many prehistoric, constructed before England’s Stonehenge or Egypt’s earliest pyramids—all clustered in a six-mile stretch outside Kilmartin village.

Bradley describes this as the archetypal coffin road. “It’s clear from archaeological evidence that it was essentially a ritual landscape,” he explains. “There’s no evidence [of] people living there, it’s all monuments to the dead. Its prime purpose seems to have been as a kind of coffin road through which the dead would have been carried, with probably considerable ceremony, to various kinds of graves.” The easily accessible, roughlyfor babies. And even low-cost, widely available crib mattresses can emit dozens of harmful chemicals, regardless of brand or

Below are three of the most concerning materials linked to off-gassing in crib mattresses, along with what the latest research says about their potential health risks.Phthalates (pronounced THAL-ates) are chemicals used to soften

, especially vinyl, and they’re often added to crib mattresses with waterproof surfaces. While some phthalates are restricted in children’s toys, they’re not fully banned in crib mattresses, leaving a major regulatory gap.found phthalates to be one of the most widespread and concerning chemicals detected in children’s sleeping environments. Researchers measured elevated levels in the air surrounding the beds of babies and toddlers, with many samples exceeding what’s allowed in toys.