Abier is a flat frame, traditionallywooden but sometimes made of other materials, used to carry acorpse forburial in afuneralprocession. In antiquity it was often simply a wooden board on which the dead was placed covered with a shroud (cloth used forburial). In modern times, however, the corpse is almost never carried on the bier without being first placed in acoffin, though the coffin is sometimes kept open.
