ABSTRACT
Both investigations contain stories of excavated corpses, and in both Oaxaca and Valencia the role of church “ornaments” was actively discussed in the middle of the sixteenth century. This chapter explores the connections linking these two concerns, first showing how the decoration of Catholic churches was closely linked to ideas about Purgatory and to the practice of Catholic burial under church floors. These practices came into conflict with Native American and Muslim burial customs and the ideas they materialized about social relations between the living and the deceased. As a result, both sides of the Atlantic witnessed active struggles (both literal and metaphoric) over the bodies of the dead and their final resting places.
