Cemetery

Situated in the heart of Paris, France, Père-Lachaise is a magnificent monumental cemetery with more than two centuries of history. Every year 2.5 million people visit Père-Lachaise as if it was a big open air museum; every day hundreds of Parisians decide to go to Père-Lachaise for a walk, to meet other people and do open air activities. For many people who live in the same neighbourhood as the cemetery, it is a recognized place and a precious source of income. So, besides its principal function as a necropolis, the cemetery has become a unique and extremely complex place, where collective memory is connected to particular ideologies of resistance and transgression. It's a multifunctional space which allows and encourages practices and behaviors elsewhere unthinkable. For example, Père-Lachaise is one of the favourite places of eroticism in Paris. Transgression marks, in different forms and in a deep way, the daily life and perception of the world's most famous cemetery.

In current environmental discourse, disposal does not remove and destroy waste but rather transforms it into something useful or harmful and/or re-locates it. This article shows how this operates when the ‘waste’ comprises human remains, specifically how innovative ‘dispersal’ practices are now challenging the ‘disposal’ discourse of nineteenth-century burial and twentieth-century cremation which contained the dead within special death spaces separated from everyday environments for living. Since the 1990s, disposal practices have been supplemented by practices with an entirely different rationale. Instead of containing the dead in safe, out of the way places, new practices disperse human remains back into environments that sustain the living, whether this be via natural burial, new cremation practices or new technologies currently being developed, namely alkaline hydrolysis and freeze-drying. Promoters of all these innovations appeal to ecological usefulness, blurring the boundary between the living and the dead, thereby positioning the dead body as a gift to the living and/or to the planet. Thus, a new ecological mentality is increasingly framing the management of all the dead – not just those interred in natural burial grounds. In the light of this, we reconsider land use policy, and question death studies’ use of the term ‘disposal’.

Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
—Leonard Cohen (Anthem)

India has the largest deer species in the world. There was one rufous-fawn white-spotted doe that I still remember. The deer was a companion of a green-robed Sufi.

The Sufi held a cigarette between his index and middle finger, between the first and second knuckle, palm facing his handsome hooded face and fingers pointing upward. He extended another cigarette, unlit, to his deer who munched it with relish, lips curling outwards showing small teeth in the lower jaw and none above.

I sat entranced by the deer’s seductive eyes, wondering how you could chew without upper teeth, while I waited for the Sufi to speak.
‘So you are an architect?’...

H Masud Taj “The Sufi & The Architect” Ordinary Chaos of Being Human Ed. Marguerite Richards (Singapore: Penguin Random House SEA) 2019 p.41

Excerpt published with permission from Penguin Random House SEA

This article is dedicated to the former Catholic cemetery in Czerniowce Podolskie (Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine). In the spring of 2009, a group of students under the supervision of the authors conducted a field study, the purpose of which was to record any remaining tombstone inscriptions, establish the identity of the people interred there, and tidy up the cemetery itself. All the gravestones found date from before the revolution and have inscriptions in the Polish language. The information provided by those inscriptions concerns the parishioners of the Czerniowce parish. It is interesting to note that those names number among the most distinguished noble families of Podolia: Houses of Biliński, Jakubowski, Komarnicki, Nagorniszczewski, Pilawski, Różycki, Sobolewski, Witkowski i Wydżgo. One of the most interesting finds was the sepulchral chapel of the Mańkowski family – very important to the history of the region. The family mausoleum was built in the classical style, in a manner that was characteristic of the nineteenth-century landed gentry of Kresy. Until recently, it has served as a church for the local Orthodox parish. During the field study, a number of facts were established concerning those buried at the cemetery with the use of a comprehensive genealogical, archival and press research, and by interviewing the local residents. It is the authors’ firm belief that even such a ruined cemetery can make a significant contribution to the studies of the region’s past. The history of the lands of Czerniowce should not be deprived of their Polish chapters. The aim of the article is to increase the awareness of scholars and the general public alike and to draw their attention to the fate of the monuments of Polish cultural heritage outside the country.

In 1835, a governmental decree established public cemeteries. In that year, the Cemetery of Prazeres was inaugurated, with new funeral ceremonies and a tomb art adapted to the cult of the Lisbon bourgeoisie. Texts that allude to this necropolis and its promotion as a model of public health began to be published since 1837. Although some initial oddity it caused, this space soon inspired meditations on the brevity of life, imbued with a Romantic sensibility. Several authors express the anticlerical current, either by the absence of Catholic symbols or by the consecration of individualism. Supported by 19 th century texts, related to art, medicine, public health or feminine condition, this communication aims to convey the dynamism of the cemetery of Prazeres throughout the 19 th century: it inspired poets, induced secular practices, promoted new professions, intensified the press, contributed to the thanatology and served as scenery of lyrics and narrative plots.

Throughout the nineteenth century, Maskilic journals increased their publication of anti-Hasidic satires. From the eighteen-sixties onward, this literature came primarily as a response to the revival in the publishing of Hasidic hagiography and to the spread of Hasidism into new territory. To this point, no complete review or even general survey has been performed on this extensive polemical literature, despite the fact that it has much to teach us about Hasidism and the Haskalah in those years. We are not speaking of an insignificant bibliographical lacuna, but of a disregard for an entire field of research which would shed light not only on a forgotten chapter of modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature but also on an important chapter in the relationships between Maskilim and Hasidim in that period and the genesis and development of the different streams of Hasidism. This Maskilic literature intended to do more than eradicate Hasidism; it aimed to strengthen the self-consciousness of the individual Maskilim who found themselves alone in Hasidic territory. Paradoxically, the literature documented the very movement it intended to eradicate from the world. The distorted reflection displayed in the anti-Hasidic literature does more than present a caricature of its subject -- it conceals hitherto unknown elements about the nature and development of the Hasidic movement. The present article deals with one such case, a satire on Bratslav Hasidism from 1863, which has at its core a Maskilic satirical text written by Yehiel Meller on pilgrimage to the grave of R. Nahman of Bratslav in Uman.





כתבי עת של משכילים לאורך המאה התשע עשרה הרבו לפרסם סאטירות בגנותה של החסידות. משנות הששים ואילך באה ספרות זו בעיקר כתגובה להתעוררות הדפסת ספרות השבחים החסידית ולהתפשטות החסידות במרחבים חדשים. לא קיימת עד עתה סקירה שלימה, ואף לא מיפוי כללי, של אותה ספרות פולמוסית ענפה, על אף שיש בה ללמד הרבה על דרכי החסידות וההשכלה באותן שנים.  לא מדובר רק בחסרון ביבליוגרפי שאין לו משמעות, אלא בהתעלמות משדה מחקר רב עניין שעשוי להאיר לא רק על פרק נשכח בספרות עברית ויידיש החדשה אלא גם על פרק חשוב ביחסים בין משכילים לחסידים באותה תקופה, ועל דרכי צמיחתם, פיצולם והתפתחותם של זרמים שונים בחסידות. הייתה זו ספרות שיותר מאשר נועדה לבער את החסידות נועדה לחזק את תודעתם העצמית של המשכילים הבודדים במרחבים החסידיים; ספרות שבאופן פרדוקסלי תיעדה תנועה אותה חפצו לבער מן העולם. הבבואה המעוותת בה התהדרה הסאטירה האנטי חסידית לא רק הציגה דימוי – אלא טומנת בחובה הצבעה על אלמנטים חדשים ועל התפתחויות בחסידות. במקרה אחד ממין זה הנוגע לחסידות ברסלב בשנות השישים של המאה התשע עשרה עוסק המאמר. שלפנינו - שעיקרו מהדורה של טקסט משכילי שכתב יחיאל מלר - בשנת 1863 - על העלייה לקבר ר' נחמן מברסלב באומן
"""

Archaeological researches in the Reformed Church of Telekfalva
(Abstract)
The archaeological excavation in the Reformed church of Telekfalva brought important results in
cognition of the church history and architecture in the Late Middle Ages and the Modern Era. With the
archaeological surveys these results threw new light on the village’s medieval history too.
The archaeological excavations made in 2007 in the church interior and the partial research of the
walls solved the building history of the church: the small, orientated, polygonal, buttressed church was
originally built to Reformed church at the beginning of the 17
th
century. For the first time it was rebuilt
and widened at the end of the 17
th
century, then in the 18
th
century. In the course of the research we ob
-
served that in Telekfalva not only the medieval and gothic church building traditions had survived, but
the medieval custom of being buried in the church. During the 17
th
century inside the church irregularly
only children were buried. We analysed the burials according the contemporary, mostly Transylvanian
church historical documents and the archaeological examples. The grave horizon found north from the
church refers to the existence of an earlier cemetery and church, but tracks of the latter hadn’t been found.
One of the greatest moral of the excavation was that basing merely on the rites, for example the ori
-
entation, dating the burials can be illusive. For this it is necessary the observation and description of the
graves’ parameters and the close survey of the association between them and the surrounding. In this sense
and in several other regards – this is the message of our research and study – the archaeological research of
the Reformed churches must succeed the excavation methods of the medieval Roman Catholic churches

Tema doktorskog rada vezana je uz područje Komarničkog arhiđakonata koji je u Popisu župa zagrebačke biskupije 1501. godine podijeljen na Gornju (Superior) i Donju Komarnicu (Inferior Kamarcza). Na tom je području upravna organizacija kroz srednji vijek često bila nejasna, a crkvena gotovo nepromijenjena od 1334. godine pa do kraja srednjeg vijeka. Danas je to područje hrvatske Gornje Podravine, a sagledat će se da li su joj granice mogle nastati već u srednjovjekovlju. Pritom je rad u osnovi podijeljen na dva odvojena dijela, pri čemu se nakon uvodnih poglavlja u prvom osvrće na razvoj srednjovjekovnih posjeda kroz po tri referenta arheološka istraživanja na različitim tipovima srednjovjekovnih lokaliteta: crkve s grobljima, utvrđenja i ruralna naselja. Analizom arheoloških zapisa na pojedinim lokalitetima dobit će se podaci o vremenu nastanka i trajanja pojedinih posjeda, kao i međusobnim utjecajima na lokalnoj i europskoj razini te kvaliteti života ondašnjih zajednica. Drugi dio povezuje dosadašnja saznanja o promatranom području naslanjajući se na povijesnu topografiju, a u cilju izrade novog interdisciplinarnog metodološkog modela istraživanja za razdoblje razvijenoga i kasnoga srednjeg vijeka. Naime, preciznim mapiranjem i ubiciranjem velikog broja arheoloških položaja s povijesnim naseljima ispitane su dosadašnje pretpostavke o granicama vlastelinstava, vesnikata, manjih samostalnih posjeda, ali i crkvene organizacije. Ujedno su promatrani procesi koji su uvjetovali osnivanje i održivost različitih posjeda, poput utjecaja Ugarskog Kraljevstva, mongolske opasnosti 1242. godine i osmanlijske prisutnosti od kraja 15. stoljeća. Riječ je o razdoblju za koje su nam povijesni pisani izvori donekle dostupni, a koji će se usporediti s arheološkim zapisima na 383 položaja. Istraživanjem jedne takve regionalne zatvorene cjeline pružena je jasnija slika o razvoju i prostornoj organizaciji srednjovjekovlja u sjevernoj Hrvatskoj.

The research study aims to investigate the reasons why people have found shelter and have continued to live inside the Manila North Cemetery. Furthermore, the research study also aims to reveal the ways on how people have sustained their daily lives inside the said cemetery for decades since; in order (1) to describe what people living inside the Manila North Cemetery consider as habitable housing and living conditions; (2) to describe and identify the factors that make the Manila North Cemetery a considerable place to live in for the people living inside the said cemetery; (3) to describe and document the daily lives of the people living inside the Manila North Cemetery; and (4) to explain and analyze the ways on how the people living inside the Manila North Cemetery have been sustaining their daily lives. The research study employed a quasi-ethnographic method of collecting data and information through purposive-snowball sampling among internal rural-urban migrants living inside the Manila North Cemetery, under a subjectivist methodological perspective. The research study found out that as a long-standing final resting place for the dead of Manila, it is as peculiar as it is ironic to regard that, within its walls and fortified borders, the Manila North Cemetery also has become and has transformed into a life-giving sanctuary to those who have become lost, to those who were left with nothing but to wander around aimlessly, and to those society has casted away. Generations upon generations of this cast away, almost “disposed”, population of people have made Manila North Cemetery what it is today: an equal community of the living—of the barely living; having formed its own rules and ways of life—a unique zone wherein the living thrives among the dead.

This study aims to understand the Monastery of S. Salvador of Vairão after the extinction of religious orders, namely the new uses of the complex, and the construction of the public cemetery. The construction of the cemetery begun in 1876, since in that decade several parishes around Porto built public cemeteries. The construction was delayed because of other constructions in the parish such as the aqueducts for the managing of water of the public fountain. The cemetery's main door indicates 1878 as its date of completion. The last abbess died in 1891, and from then began the process of integrating assets into the National Treasury. The inventory of all the assets of the churches and chapels of Vairão of July 9 1912 mentions the church with a tower and its dependencies, the chapel of St. John, and the address of houses with backyards, which served as the parish priest's house, as well as several chapels that were incorporated into the National Treasury, along with its objects. The monastery and its dependencies were heavily transformed in 1922, 1944 and 1966 due to renovations and expansions. Those were documented by DGEMN because they were in the protection area of the St. John chapel, classified as of public interest. Having been a Nursery and Vocational School, the monastery is now an inn for pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela, and a holiday center, while the church continues to be used as the parish temple. The appreciation of the monastery's heritage is seen on the PDM provided by the Vila do Conde City Council that informs that the church was proposed to be classified as of Public Interest. The monastery is still surrounded by agricultural land, probably not to the full extent it would have been. This space is not used, except for a small building that serves as the parish headquarters of the Association of Portugal´s Young Farmers.

Excavations by Archaeological Research and Consultancy University of Sheffield in 2007–8 revealed the remains of an Anglo-Saxon inhumation cemetery at
North Ridge Community School, Woodlands, Doncaster. Forty graves were excavated, thirty-seven of which contained in situ burial remains. Radiocarbon samples from five graves gave an overall date range extending from the late seventh to late eight centuries AD. The latter is commensurate with that suggested by the limited range of grave goods recovered from two of the graves. The majority of the burials were made supine and extended within graves predominantly arranged in two rows, and the demographic profile suggests
it served a domestic population. There were occasional deviations from the ‘norm’ in burial position and orientation, and one adult female appears to have suffered a violent death. Strontium and Oxygen (Sr/O) isotope analysis of seven individuals showed mixed origins including local, regional/national migrants and two long-distance migrants.

Two interesting graves with cremation burials from Ptuj are presented in the article, which differ from the usual grave of the Ruše Urnfield group in terms of the grave goods. The gradual stratification of society is reflected in them, which acquired a new form with the onset of the Early Iron Age.

The burials from the cemetery at Vetricella have been
analyzed following an archaeological and anthropological
approach in an attempt to answer both general issues and specific
questions tied-in to a distinctive archeological context,
not a settlement or religious complex, but rather an administrative
centre, a royal court connected to the Kings of Italy
and the Ottonian Dynasty of the German Kings during the
post-Carolingian period. The study was carried out with the
aim of reconstructing the biological and palaeodemographic
profile of a human community that, between the mid-10th
and beginning of the 11th century, during a phase that sees
a change in function of the royal centre of Vetricella, and
the beginnings of the graveyard. Over the course of three
excavation campaigns (2016-2018) a total of 52 graves were
identified and documented. While taphonomic observations
have made it possible to reconstruct rituals and ways of burial
that would otherwise have had little or no archaeological
visibility, the topographical analyses of the cemetery, on the
basis of the distribution of a number of graves, confirmed
the initial hypothesis of the existence of a religious structure.
For the anthropological study of the skeletal remains we did
not limit ourselves to the uncritical application of traditional
anthropological methods, but rather endeavored to comprehend
which would be the most suitable approaches to garner
data as near as possible to the biological reality of the sample,
comparable to other topographically and chronologically
analogous contexts. Sex determination analyses were carried
out along with age at death, stature in life, unspecific and
functional stress markers, pathologies and traumas. Results
were submitted, where possible, to statistic tests and compared
to other coeval sites.

"Thapsos is the name-site of the Sicilian Middle Bronze Age. It lies in south-eastern Sicily, in the gulf of Augusta, on
a low lying limestone promontory connected to the mainland by a narrow isthmus. The site was systematically investigated by Paolo Orsi at the end of XIXth century: these first researches were focused on the cemetery of rock-cut tombs, lying in the north-eastern part of the site, that yielded the first bulk of the local grey hand-made pottery along with a number of Mycenaean vessels. In the same period (between the end of XIXth and the first years of XXth century) Orsi unearthed a group of Middle Bronze Age cemeteries, lying round the eponymous centre: Cozzo del Pantano, Plemmirio, Matrensa, Molinello. These centres yielded both the local pottery and few Mycenaean imports. In this area the archaeological researches were resumed between the end of 1960’s and the first half of 1980’s and were for the first time focused on the residential quarter lying on the isthmus of Thapsos’ site. Two elaborate rectangular complexes were unearthed, standing out from the circular huts of local tradition. The two structures were regarded, although not unanimously, to be of Mycenaean inspiration, similar to that found in the tholoi-like profile of few rock- cut tombs. In these years a new area of the Thapsos’ cemetery were investigated: the tombs A1 and D yielded local vessels along with Mycenaean and Cypriot pots.
Despite the knowledge of the Middle Bronze Age culture in south-eastern Sicily grew enormously in the second half of the past century, the aspect of the chrono-typological seriation of the Thapsos’ ceramic repertoire was so far neglected. This paper will firstly try to fill this gap, working on the bulk of pottery so far published: we will take into account the tombs with few burials in order to sketch out a possible development of the local pottery’s types; we will distinguish, therefore, three different phases. On the grounds of the association with Mycenaean pots within the local contexts and/or using the cross-dating with other contexts and/or on the basis of the influence of Mycenaean pottery on the local types, we will link our phases to the MIC IIIA1, MIC IIIA2 and MIC IIIB1. The characteristic types and decorations of each phase will be taken into account in order to find out the so called “fossili guida” of the repertoire; we will point out the ties (and/or the differences) with both the preceding Early Bronze Age cultures (facies of Castelluccio and Rodì-Tindari-Vallelunga) and the contemporary Aeolian Milazzese culture. We will take into consideration, moreover, the influence of the Mycenaean culture on the local repertoire in terms of both pottery types and decorations; this topic will be useful, moreover, in order to find out the lower chronological term of the Thapsos’ sequence, which we fix, like we said above, to the early part of MIC IIIB. Subsequently, on the grounds of the different trends of use of the cemeteries under discussion, this paper will be focused on sketching out the historical dynamics involving south-eastern Sicily in the Middle Bronze Age, with special attention to the problematic cultural and chronological relationship with the following Pantalica Nord culture. During our last phase only Thapsos (and, possibly, Cozzo del Pantano) survives, while the other sites (Plemmirio, Matrensa, Molinello) seem to disappear. In the same moment the presence of few (but meaningfully late in date) Thapsos’ sherds found at Pantalica (the name-site of the Late Bronze Age) could be explained with the transfer of people from the coast. This insecurity’s sign could be linked to the Siculi’s invasion from the Italian peninsula, which leads destructive effects on the Aeolian islands. Moreover, was this “geo-political” situation encouraged by the first problems suffered by the Mycenaean centres? In conclusion, as regards the relation between Thapsos and Pantalica Nord, our analysis agrees with the recent overall study of the Late Bronze Age culture and strengthens the Bernabò Brea’s historical frame based on the diachronic sequence between the Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Age cultures."

"Two (local) Middle Bronze Age sites in Sicily are known for having yielded Cypriot imports: Thapsos to southeast, and Cannatello in the south-central part of the island. These imports come from contexts with a strong intercultural character, as they are featured by the presence of items from other Mediterranean areas, especially Mycenaean Greece. Moreover, the existence of bronze working activities is documented in these sites. Thapsos and Cannatello belonged to a wider network of Middle Bronze Age sites, covering the whole Sicily (from the island of Ustica to the Aeolian Archipelago and, moving southward, Madre Chiesa).
The task of this paper is twofold and deals primarily with the documentation of south-eastern Sicily. The evidence of Cannatello is taken into account in a comparative perspective. The author will firstly attempt to stress some key elements in the problem of the chronology and origin of the Base Ring II juglets from Thapsos’ contexts in south-eastern Sicily. Their origin is, in fact, debated, since two different hypotheses were put forward by scholars: Levantine and local. Taking into account some contextual and chronological data, the author suggests discarding the Levantine hypothesis.
In the second part of the paper, the author will focus on the existence of other goods, yielded mainly by Thapsos tomb contexts, that could be ascribed to Cypriot trade and that could have been arrived to Sicily along with Base Ring II juglets, if the latter are to be considered of Cypriot origin (in this author’s opinion). On the grounds of compositional analysis of grave assemblages, the different use and appreciation of the juglets at Thapsos will be stressed in comparison with other parts of the Mediterranean area. The same is done in relation to other Cyprus-related items, like the Cypriot- fashioned local handmade bowls, objects of the author’s earlier work. It becomes clear that Cyprus- related items at Thapsos are strictly connected to the high-status segment of the local society. To this author’s mind, these ties can give reason to link Thapsos and Cyprus: Thapsos’ elite kept under control the local bronze dagger production and this needed raw material (copper and/or tin) provided by Cypriot counterparts. The role of the local elite in Cypriot long-distance movements will also be explored. It must be stressed that a Thapsos’ type dagger was present aboard the Uluburun ship. This study enables to make some further remarks on the geopolitical condition of the eastern Mediterranean area at the close of the fourtheenth century BC and on its possible drawbacks for Thapsos èlites’ interests."

“Carnivalesque” is perhaps the best, if not the only way to describe what was going on at the Bab al-Saghir Cemetery that hot summer afternoon in 2008.  In front of the graves of the Prophet’s wives, Shi‘i pilgrims could buy Viagra, sex-enhancement creams, and massage oils.  Sexual mores were normally strictly guarded in Syria and medicines were usually available only at pharmacies.  Yet, there in one of the most historically and religiously significant cemeteries in Damascus, makeshift vendors sold an array of sex-related items.  In order to analyze this phenomenon, this article draws on Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the “carnivalesque.”  First, it provides a short background of Twelver Shi‘ism in Syria and explains how Shi‘i religious tourism encouraged the development of black markets.  Then, it examines how Shi‘i pilgrimage, which occurred all year around, but peaked during Muharram, fostered an attitude that liberated Shi‘is from prevalent social norms and emphasized “grotesque” imagery and practices, including blood, death, and sex.  In short, it follows Michael Taussig’s call for anthropologists to attend to the transgressive aspects of religious ritual.

"Velikim arheološkim istraživanjima akvedukta na Viminacijumu prethodila su sistematska geofi zička
snimanja zone ugrožene radovima površinskog kopa „Drmno“. Korišćenjem georadara (GPR – Ground
Penetrating Radar) utvrđena je tačna trasa gravitacionih kanala. Na osnovu dobijenih rezultata
iskopavanje je fokusirano na arhitektonske ostatke čime se uštedelo na vremenu, suzila potrebna širina
iskopa i izbegle prazne sonde. Pošto se na trasi akvedukta u zavisnosti od više faktora prave krivine
one su precizno locirane."

The chapel of St Peter and Paul in Zagreb`s central cemetery Mirogoj belongs to a group of the most interesting sacral buildings erected in Croatia`s capital at the end of the 19th century. It is one of the first monumental mausoleums ever built outside the Mirogoj`s arcades and one of the fi nest works by the architect Herman Bollé in his version of the neo-Byzantine style. It was erected in 1891 to serve as lieutenant general Petar Kukulj`s mausoleum by his widow Judita. Petar Kukulj was an Austro Hungarian field-marshal. Since such mausoleums were used by a small number of worshippers, there was no need to make them large. Moreover, the locations where they were going to be built were often very limited in order to leave more space for the cemetery. Therefore, during historicism such cemetery chapels were often erected as centrally planned buildings whether the mausoleums in question were Catholic, Orthodox, Evangelical or Jewish. Hence, Bollé was provided with an opportunity to practice designing centrally planned neo-Byzantine buildings. Since he had been working for the Orthodox Church he was mostly compelled to restore earlier buildings and build new ones of a longitudinal plan which could facilitate a greater number of believers. On those churches he hadn’t had a chance to build domes. The chapel of St Peter and Paul at Mirogoj cemetery is one of the Bollé`s most signifi cant neo-Byzantine centrally planned domed buildings. Looking at his work, we can see that Bollé`s neo-Byzantine style is infl uenced by Byzantine, Romanesque and even Renaissance elements. He also found a great inspiration in late Rundbogenstil (Round-arch style) of Berlin architecture of the 1860s and 1870s. Orthodox bishop Miron Nikolić commended his work in the chapel and it seems that it had convinced him to entrust Bollé with a comprehensive renovation work on his cathedral in Pakrac, as well as some other buildings in Pakrac eparchy (parish church in Bjelovar for example). Thanks to his work on Kukulj chapel and renovation work on parish church of Transfi guration in Zagreb, Bolle was later commissioned to renovate the Orthodox monastery Grgeteg on Fruška Gora, and the Church of Holy Spirit, Ruma, and so on. Immediately after the work in the chapel of St Peter and Paul was fi nished, the walls were painted and the interior was furnished. Zagreb Crafts School professor Josip Bauer is the author of all decorations on the walls and icons on the iconostasis. All the icons were made on a gold background showing Bauer`s relation to the Byzantine art of drawing. The author attended the Academy in Munich. Therefore, compositions of his works are inherently in correlation with the tradition of western painting but there is also a very strong infl uence of the Nazarenes. Bauer was obviously familiar with the orthodox iconography which resulted in numerous commissions by the Orthodox Church in Croatia. The position of icons on the iconostasis follows the usual rules of the Orthodox Church, but still there are some differences. In the bottom line we can see Annunciation in imperial court with icons of enthroned Christ and Virgin by its side. On the side doors we can see Michael the Archangel and Gabriel the Archangel. Saint Peter and Paul, to whom the chapel is dedicated, are painted on the left end of the row and Saint John the Baptist is on the right end. Two central rows of icons on the iconostasis depict the scenes from the life of Christ and Virgin Mary. The top of the iconostasis shows the prophets painted in round medallions and in the central axis we see the crucifixion of the Christ flanked by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist) painted above the icons showing the Holy Trinity and God the Father. Herman Bolle is the author of the design for the iconostasis as well as the entire chapel project. The estimated cost of the chapel was 14.000 forints (28.000 krones) which was a substantial amount in that time.

Exploring the construction and maintenance of Nationalist Chinese soldiers' graves overseas, this article sheds light on post-World War II commemorative politics. After having fought for the Allies against Japanese aggression in the China-Burma-India Theater, the Chinese expeditionary troops sporadically received posthumous care from Chinese veterans and diaspora groups. In the Southeast Asia Theater, the Chinese soldiers imprisoned in the Japanese-run camps in Rabaul were denied burial in the Allied war cemetery and recognition as military heroes. Analyzing archival documents from China, Taiwan, Britain, Australia, and the United States, I demonstrate how the afterlife of Chinese servicemen under foreign sovereignties mattered in the making of the modern Chinese state and its international status.

People in the Neolithic Near Eastern societies buried their dead in various locations. Most often the deceased were buried in the settlement associated with certain building structures and in courtyards. However, excavations in the northern Levantine Neolithic sites have revealed real cemeteries for the first time in this period. In this context, the excavations at Tell el-Kerkh (northwestern Syria) have revealed a unique outdoor communal Pottery Neolithic cemetery. This cemetery was utilized for inhumation of the deceased regardless of age and sex. Up to the 2010 excavation season, the cemetery was confirmed within layers 6-4 of the Rouj 2c phase, dated to between 6400-6200 cal. BC., and revealed c.241 individuals, which suggests the continuous use of the cemetery over hundreds of years. The cemetery at Tell el-Kerkh is considered one of the oldest outdoor communal cemeteries discovered in the Near East, so far. This paper will introduce the excavation results, how the cemetery was uncovered and the distribution of burials in each layer.

ABSTRACT: In this article, I edit and analyze an oral legend that was communicated to me by don Luis Marín (b. 1943), great repository of the oral tradition of Guanajuato (Mexico) in 2018. It is a legend known in the state of Guanajuato as «The Spider Girl», and in other traditions as «The Taxi Driver of the Souls» or «The Driver of the Ghost Woman». It tells how a young ghost asks a taxi driver to take her to the graveyard, which she gets into by climbing up the walls; the taxi driver ends up dying because of the impression produced by that vision. I also analyze other versions: oral, published in the press and published online (in written format and in video format) related to the graveyard of the city of Guanajuato and the nearby city of Salamanca. They are much poorer (especially the Internet versions) than don Luis Marín's oral version. I also refer to the parallels in other Hispanic countries and throughout the world.
RESUMEN: En  este  artículo  edito  y  analizo  una  leyenda  oral  que  me  fue  comunicada  por  don  Luis  Marín  (n.  1943),  gran  depositario  de  la  tradición  oral  de  Guanajuato  (México)  en  2018.  Es  leyenda  conocida  en  el  estado  de  Guanajuato  como  La  niña  araña,  y  en  otras  tradiciones como El taxista de las ánimas o El conductor  de  la  mujer  fantasma.  Narra  cómo  una  joven  fantasma  pide  a  un  taxista  que  la  lleve al panteón, en el que ella ingresa trepando por las paredes; el taxista acaba muriendo por causa  de  la  impresión  que  le  produce  aquella  visión. Analizo además otras versiones: orales, publicadas en la prensa y publicadas en internet (en  soporte  escrito  y  en  soporte  de  video)  relativas al panteón de la ciudad de Guanajuato y  de  la  cercana  ciudad  de  Salamanca.  Son  mucho más pobres (sobre todo las versiones de internet) que la versión oral de don Luis Marín. Me  refiero  también  a  los  paralelos  tanto  del ámbito hispánico como de otras procedencias.

A Salgótarjáni és Kozma utcai zsidó temetők síremlékei között különleges csoportot alkotnak az egyiptizáló stílusban épült síremlékek és családi mauzóleumok, amelyek nagyszerűen illusztrálják az ókori egyiptomi  művészet hazai sírépítészetre gyakorolt hatását. Tervezésük többnyire a kor jeles  építészeihez köthető. A jelentős műemléki, művészet- és kultúrtörténeti értékkel bíró csoport önálló művészettörténeti elemzésére – néhány síremlék ismertsége ellenére – eddig nem került  sor. Tudományos feldolgozásuk az egyiptológia területén szintén elvégzésre vár. Tanulmányom elsősorban ezt a hiányt kívánja pótolni, és választ keres többek között  arra a kérdésre, hogy mi motiválhatta a megrendelőt, amikor síremléke egyiptomi  stílusa mellett döntött. Egyben lehetőséget nyújt a kutatás során nyert, eddig feltáratlan építészettörténeti adatok ismertetésére, és kísérletet tesz az egyiptománia hazai  sírépítészetre gyakorolt hatása mögött megbúvó kulturális és társadalmi jellegzetességek feltárására.

Short summary of the results of the excavation in Mezőhegyes in 2017, where we discovered the edge of a cemetery around a church and a roof tile kiln from the Arpadian Age in addition to an earlier ditch. Fragments of various roof tiles from the kiln and the area of ​​the cemetery were also found in large quantities.

Rövid összefoglaló a 2017-es mezőhegyesi ásatás eredményeiről, melynek során egy korábbi árok mellett egy templom körüli temető szélső sírjait, és egy Árpád-kori tetőcserép-égető kemencét sikerült feltárnunk. A kemence környékéről és a temető területéről nagy mennyiségben különböző tetőcserepek töredékei is napvilágot láttak.

Preliminary report on the excavation of the Sarmatian cemetery at Csanádpalota–Country Border, Motorway M43, Site 56

Site 56, Motorway M43 is located south of Csanádpalota. The total excavation area was situated between stream Krakk and the Hungarian-Romanian border. The Móra Ferenc Museum conducted here preventive excavation between 26 October 2010 and 30 August 2011, and between 29 November and 7 December 2012. In the central zone of the excavated area, a Late Sarmatian cemetery with 53 inhumation graves was discovered.

The total number of skeletons that can be examined by archaeological and anthropological methods is 49. Out of 53 graves, human remains were found in 51 burials, there were no bones in two graves. Out of 49 burials, 19 belonged to men, 12 to women, 12 to children, and one adult’s gender could not be determined. Most of the dead were oriented to the south. The grave pits had regular shape with a rectangular plan and rounded corners.

Five burials (9, 22, 35, 37, 48) belonged to the largest graves of the cemetery. The graves were 300–350 cm long, 130–180 cm wide and over 5 sq.m in size. At the bottom of four graves, there were remains of timber structures. Based on our analysis, the timber imprints in graves 35 and 37 could have belonged to a bier or funerary stretcher, on which the deceased was placed for transportation and finally buried with it. In the case of the largest timber frame (grave 48), a burial chamber or bier with sidewalls can be suggested.

In the cemetery, 11 graves were surrounded by a circular ditch, with a diameter of 10–13 m. In these graves, mainly adults were buried, but in one case a child was found. Traces of funeral feast could be traced in the circular ditches: numerous pottery fragments and animal bones (dogs and horse).

Most of the graves were robbed, probably in Antiquity. 66 percent of the graves were looted, but many pieces of inventory could be saved during the excavation. Jewelry and costume items include earring fragments, various types of pendants, and silver, bronze, or iron brooches. A small number of beads of various shapes, colors, raw materials, and sizes were found. Among the beads, a rare mosaic ornament of glass beads was also found. Besides, round, oval, square, and D-shaped buckles emerged from the graves. Objects of everyday use included spindle whorls, iron knives, bone needle holder, and bronze pincers. 25 vessels were identified in the cemetery. In most cases, they were placed by the feet of the dead, by one, rarely by two (in graves 24 and 48). According to these findings, the cemetery was used in the Late Sarmatian Period, dating from the first half of the 4th century to the beginning of the 5th century.