Cemetery

see also: Etymology of Cemetery

A cemetery is a place where one buries the Mort S, generally after a religious ceremony, with the members of their family or tribe, and in the countries and at the times when the writing exists, by registering their name, birth dates and of death.

In the Western countries, the cemeteries are generally divided into Concession S, separated by alleys. Each concession is rented or sold with a person or a family, who can build there a Tombe or a Caveau. A concession called “to perpetuity” could be sold or offered to a family, but perpetuity becomes rare because of the lack of place in and around the cities. Certain cemeteries give the impression to reproduce the city with its rich districts, its poor districts and its ghettos of minorities. It can exist common graves reserved to the poor or dead not identified killed at the time of catastrophes or died of epidemic. Sometimes deaths were prepared, embaumés or momifiés before being buried or deposited in a cave or under a cliff overhang with their ancestors. In certain countries, the families spend of the considerable sums to build tombs in the shape of houses, built with more care than the true ones, for example with Madagascar.

According to the cultures and the times, the cemeteries, like the tombs besides, are more or less artificialisés or mineralized. The Catholic religion is characterized by stone tombs, imposing and decorated sometimes complex symbols; The end of the 20th century in France and in several European countries discouraged the expression of nature in the cemeteries: stones of Marble, caveaux of Concrete manufactured artisanalement, then industrially are aligned between alleys of schists or gravels often chemically weeded. The ceramics, plastic flowers or painted on enamels are next to bouquets generally deposited at the time of the festival of late, on November 2nd (not to be confused with All Saints' day (Nov. 1), festival of the saints which marked the Christian history). There exist exceptions, of which the Cimetière of the Father-Lachaise to Paris where the trees and the plant are very present, and who is visited more than of many Parisian gardens. The very maintained hedges and shrubs cut with the chalk line or grasses characterize the military cemeteries.

Sometimes however nature is present. In certain areas the Yew, plant symbolic system or the common lilac (plant symbolically important for the gipsies) is present in the cemetery. Certain Moslem cemeteries, of Northern Europe, country or Eastern Europe other are entirely enherbés and planted trees, and do not comprise alleys. Certain communes maintain there a flora favorable to the butterfly S and the Oiseau X so that they égayent the place.

The cemetery can pose medical and environmental problems

First cemeteries

The worship of deaths is famous characteristic of the mankind. The ground setting of died in dedicated places appeared very early in prehistory, well before the invention of the writing, with particular constructions (Tumulus, Nécropole) for the chiefs or religious personalities, often buried with many symbolic systems objects (of which symbols of richness). For this reason, since antiquity the tombs and cemeteries were often plundered.

Cemeteries of antiquity

In the ancient Egyptian civilization, the worship of deaths was such as a very complex organization was installation, leading to the creation of gigantic underground cemeteries: the Necropolis S.

See the article Catacombs with Rome.

In the Gaulle Roman, the cemeteries were arranged apart from the cities (ramparts when they existed), probably by fear of the stain, the epidemics and the spirits (manes). One found cemeteries of incineration and Inhumation.

the Middle Ages at our days

With the development of the Christianity, the cemeteries were managed by the Paroisse S. the majority of the cemeteries were and remain still often established in the vicinity immediate of a place of worship (churches, Temple S, etc), they are regarded as a Holy Land. Everyone did not have the right to be buried with the cemetery: the actor S, the committed suicide and the excommunicated for example were buried without ceremony with the doors of the city, in a Common grave.

Nowadays, and under the land Pressure, one seeks to recover the space used in downtown area by certain cemeteries, and to move towards the outside of the cities these places of meditation and to remember. Others practical funerary as the Crémation are presented like making it possible to reduce the influence on the ground (on 10 m ² one places 4 to 6 coffins, against 200 ballot boxes), but in ecological term of Empreinte the assessment of the cremation can be revalued.

Military cemeteries

Both World wars left so many Soldat S dead (without speaking about the civilian victims) which it was necessary to realize of the provisional cemeteries, then specifically military. In general, they were reconstituted after having unearthed the provisional remainders of cemeteries. They often consist of simple regular squarings of identical individual tombs only located by a Christian cross (or another reason in conformity with the religious confession of the buried soldier), without alleys, but where the omnipresent grass makes it possible to go in all the directions. The name is engraved on the stone, as well as the date of death, when they are known. The cemeteries of the the Commonwealth are maintained by the same organization since the end the War, and with the same standards of management in all the countries.

Myth of the cemetery of the elephants

A myth exists which makes us believe that the elephant S, feeling death to come, leave the group to go in a “ cemetery of the elephants ”. However, this forever attested behavior. It happens that one finds several bones at the same place, but that is explained by various reasons (attacks, Famine, Accident, Maladie, etc).

The myth of the “ Cimetière of the elephants ” was popularized by the writer Henry de Monfreid, and the Chanteur Eddy Mitchell.

See too

Internal bonds

List of the famous cemeteries
Cemetery and environment
Thanatopraxie

External bonds

downloadable Booklet on the cemetery of the Commonwealth

http://www.pompe-funebre.eu

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