What is a Pall?

This is my grandma's coffin.  The icon is one my mother made for her. 
The lights on the side of the coffin are called bier lights

 A pall is a large cloth covering a coffin in use in a western Christian traditional funeral service.  The pall makes no one’s coffin any different from any other person’s. I have a priest friend who accompanies his parishioners to the funeral home following a death.  He wants to make sure his parish members are not purchasing anything based on emotions.  Another reason he comes along is so that he can remind them that there will be a pall in use in the church funeral so that there is no need to purchase a fancy coffin or urn.  Placing a cloth on the coffin or urn should remind a Christian of all the clothing images throughout scripture.  For the non-Christian, the use of a pall in a funeral gives a visual image of the truth that just as in life, in death we are all the same.  All of us might do best to remember this truth in our daily life.  Under all that we have clothed ourselves in, riches or poverty, we are all the same in life and death.