Cemetery
A cemetery, burial ground, gravesite or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery (from Greek κοιμητήριον, "sleeping place")[1][2] implies that the land is specifically designated as a burial ground and originally applied to the Roman catacombs.[3] The term graveyard is often used interchangeably with cemetery, but a graveyard primarily refers to a burial ground within a churchyard.[4][5]
The intact or cremated remains of people may be interred in a grave, commonly referred to as burial, or in a tomb, an "above-ground grave" (resembling a sarcophagus), a mausoleum, columbarium, niche, or other edifice. In Western cultures, funeral ceremonies are often observed in cemeteries. These ceremonies or rites of passage differ according to cultural practices and religious beliefs. Modern cemeteries often include crematoria, and some grounds previously used for both, continue as crematoria as a principal use long after the interment areas have been filled.
Taforalt cave in Morocco is possibly the oldest known cemetery in the world. It was the resting place of at least 34 Iberomaurusian individuals, the bulk of which have been dated to 15,100 to 14,000 years ago.
Neolithic cemeteries are sometimes referred to by the term "grave field". They are one of the chief sources of information on ancient and prehistoric cultures, and numerous archaeological cultures are defined by their burial customs, such as theUrnfield culture of the European Bronze Age.
During the Early Middle Ages, the reopening of graves and manipulation of the corpses or artifacts contained within them was a widespread phenomenon and a common part of the life course of early medieval cemeteries across Western and Central Europe.[6] The reopening of furnished or recent burials occurred over the broad zone of European row-grave-style furnished inhumation burial, especially from the 5th to the 8th centuries CE, which comprised the regions of today's Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, the Low Countries, France, and south-eastern England.[6]
From about the 7th century CE, in Europe a burial was under the control of the Church and could only take place on consecrated church ground. Practices varied, but in continental Europe, bodies were usually buried in a mass grave until they had decomposed. The bones were then exhumed and stored in ossuaries, either along the arcaded bounding walls of the cemetery or within the church under floor slabs and behind walls.
Cemetery in Kavala, Greece
Les Innocents cemetery in 1550.
Cemetery overlooking the Danube, near Cernavodă, Romania
John Claudius Loudon, one of the first professional cemetery designers.
A cemetery in Nurmijärvi, Finland
A Soviet military cemetery on the island of Saaremaa, Estonia.
The town cemetery on the plains of Calhan, Colorado.
The 1,400 square feet (130 m
2) plot pictured here has the graves of nineteen members of the Hillendahl family, including one who was interred in 1854, in the Spring Branch area of Houston, Texas, United States. A descendant of the family sold all of the land around the grave site, but refused to move the actual graves.
[13] Avenue with linden in the cemetery by Ringkøbing, Jutland, Denmark.
Graves at the Hietaniemi Cemetery in Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland.
Monument of c. 1910 in the Monumental Cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa, Italy, one of the most spectacular of a number of Italian cemeteries featuring large-scale sculpture.
An artwork in a tomb by Victor Brecheret in Cemitério da Consolação, an example of monumental cemetery in São Paulo, Brazil.
A Muslim cemetery in Kashgar, Xinjiang, China.
Common Burying Ground and Island Cemetery in Newport, Rhode Island
Old graveyard in Elazig, Turkey
A Muslim cemetery at sunset in Marrakech, Morocco
A cemetery in Kyoto, Japan
Two Colonial era graves in Pemaquid, Maine
Noratus cemetery, a medieval Armenian cemetery with a large number of early khachkars. The cemetery has the largest cluster of khachkars in the country.
Cemetery in Franconia, Germany
Graveyard at the Basilica of the Holy Rosary in Bandel, West Bengal.
Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York
Overgrown cemetery overlooking the Danube, Romania
A columbarium wall at Lawnton, Queensland, showing empty niches, plaques and flower holders
Holland Cemetery: A rural cemetery in northeast Oklahoma
Family cemeteries in India
A village cemetery in Jednorożec, Poland
Flowers left on the grave of Édith Piaf
Small stones on a gravestone in a Jewish cemetery in Germany
Wooden crosses with remembrance poppies on them
Grave candles in the Old Cemetery in Łódź, Poland
Brass cemetery key of a pastor, with handover document and sheath - around 1935
A tomb retrofitted as a residence in the City of the Dead. Cairo's City of the Dead is a centuries-old cemetery that has become home to as many as 1 million Egyptians during the last decades.
[52] Prague's Old Jewish Cemetery is the last resting place for more than 100,000 people who had been buried here since the 15th century.
Jewish cemetery "Heiliger Sand" in Worms, Germany
Cemetery excavations, like this one in Madrid, can alleviate overcrowding.
A belltower at Forest Home Cemetery, in Fifield, Wisconsin. Tolling bells during funerals has been customary in some places around the world.
A roadside cemetery in Hualien, Taiwan
Cemetery gate, Galisteo, New Mexico
