The bier is a wooden frame, partly resembling a coffin and partly a hand barrow. The deceased is arrayed in grave-clothes, the ankles are bound, the hands are laid on the breast, and a shawl is thrown across the face. Miss Rogers says of a bier she saw: “It was a painted wooden stand, about seven feet by two, raised slightly on four legs, with a low gallery round it, formed of uprights far apart and two cross-bars. Two strong poles projected at each end from the corners. Above it a canopy was raised, made of freshly-gathered elastic palm-branches. They were bent like half-hoops, and then interlaced and secured lengthways with straight fronds” (Domestic Life in Palestine, p. 162). The bier was lifted by four men who bore it aloft, the poles resting on their shoulders.