Corpses, Coffins, and Crypts, page 7
After a grave is dug, a liner or vault is typically placed inside it. The contraption over the top is a removable lowering device that cemetery workers use to lower the casket into the grave. An Astro Turf-type material is placed over the dirt around the lowering device.
Neolithic cemeteries have been discovered around the world. Many of them are barrows, or different shapes and sizes of mounds of earth with bodies buried in or under them. Neolithic bodies have also been discovered in shafts, pits, and tombs lined with sun-baked mud bricks. The residents of Eridu, one of the earliest Neolithic cities in the area of present-day Iran, created a cemetery with at least one thousand graves. Bodies were placed in boxes that were made from mud bricks. Some families used the same box by reopening it when the need arose and inserting another body. In 1980 I visited the site of 250 Neolithic graves in China near the present-day village of Ban Po, six miles east of Xian. All the skeletons were buried with their heads pointing toward the west. The bodies of small children were buried in large pottery vessels. Two men were buried together in one grave, four girls were buried together in one grave, and all the rest of the graves contained one person.
This postcard pictures the stones that marked the Neolithic cemetery on Amrum.
Marlise Johnson, who grew up on the island of Amrum, remembers when archaeologists discovered Neolithic graves in the sand dunes and marshes. The graves were in mounds of earth and topped with circles of large stones. “My friends and I were all ten years old, and we knew that we could get in trouble for digging,” she said. “But when we heard that the archaeologists had discovered amber, we went nuts anyhow and dug up half the island before we quit without finding anything.”
Shortly before 3000 B.C.E., people who lived in the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, in present-day Iraq, invented writing, and that is considered the end of the Neolithic period. Now people could write history and the period that has been labeled prehistory was over. People had come a long way from barely surviving as Paleolithic hunters and gatherers. They had learned how to grow crops, domesticate plants, and raise animals. Populations were soaring, civilizations were rising, and even more cemeteries were needed. As they had in the past, people met this need in a variety of ways.
The first known pyramid in Egypt. It is called the Step Pyramid of Djoser, after the king, and is located at the site of the ancient city of Saqqara.
In the Nile Valley, the ancient Egyptians built thousands of cemeteries. Some contained graves that were mostly ovalshaped and located outside the settlement. Others were filled with mastabas, or flat-topped, aboveground tombs with steeply sloping sides. Chambers, shafts, and hidden burial rooms were built in the mastabas and under the ground. Because streets ran between the rows of mastabas, the area became known as a necropolis, or “city of the dead.” The first pyramid, the burial sites for royalty, was built in about 2650 B.C.E. when Imhotep, a physician, architect, and statesman, conceived of stacking mastabas atop one another. Elaborate tombs were built as burial sites in other parts of Africa, including in the ancient kingdom of Ghana in western Sudan. In the kingdom of Aksum in the Ethiopian highlands, granite stelae, or stone pillars with carvings or inscriptions, were erected over the graves of royalty. The largest one still standing today is seventy-one feet high. In the Rift Valley of Kenya, burial sites were covered with cairns, or heaps of stones, some of which had stone-lined shafts at the center and were up to fifty feet across.
More than a thousand years ago people who are now known as Mound Builders situated this burial mound at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in the present-day town of Wickliffe, Kentucky. Archaeologists began excavations in 1932 and created exhibits for people to view. This picture is one of a series of postcards that were made of the area. Grave goods are visible next to some of the skeletons.
On another continent, North America, in about 1000 B.C.E. the Adena and Hopewell people, who lived north of the Ohio Valley and west of the Mississippi River in the present-day United States, began building dirt burial mounds. At first a small mound of dirt was placed over bodies that were buried in a shallow bark-lined grave or cremated in fire-reddened clay basins. In time other bodies were buried on top of the first mound and then covered with dirt so that the mound got higher, some up to seventy-one feet. For 1,700 years people built burial mounds throughout the United States, including in what are now known as the states of Oklahoma, West Virginia, and Georgia. In New Hampshire, near Lake Ossipee, a Native American tribe built a mound that was originally about twenty-five feet high, seventy-five feet long, and fifty feet wide. During excavations a number of circles of skeletons were found. In each circle the skeletons were facing outward, apparently in sitting positions around the common center. It was estimated that the mound contained no fewer than eight thousand bodies.
About C.E. 200 the early Christians, who lived in Rome, the capital of the Roman Empire, used elaborate subterranean cemeteries of connecting corridors and rooms, known as catacombs, in the soft volcanic rock that surrounded the city. Modern experts estimate that six million Christians were buried in the catacombs around Rome and if the corridors were put end to end, they would stretch six hundred miles. Catacombs were also built in other cities in Italy, North Africa, and France. The actual graves were cut into the walls, and the walls were frequently painted with religious scenes and portraits of religious leaders. In order to reduce odors the bodies were usually covered in plaster and sealed in the tombs, and perfumes were constantly burned. When the first level of catacomb was filled, the second level was built under it. Some catacombs went down six levels. During the time when Christians were persecuted, they took refuge in the catacombs because burial grounds were considered sacred under a Roman law that read: “Every person makes the place that belongs to him a religious place by the carrying of his dead into it.”
In the late C.E. 300s, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, Christians changed their burial sites to traditional tombs and graves, and the catacombs were eventually forgotten. In 1578, however, they were rediscovered when a person digging in a Roman vineyard accidentally broke through into a tunnel and saw a narrow passage lined on each side with tomb niches. Since then the catacombs have been very popular. Christians make pilgrimages to pray and hold religious services. Tourists come to sightsee. In his book A Traveler in Rome, H. V. Morton describes his visit to the Catacomb of St. Domitilla in Rome: “Grasping a taper, I followed an English group [of tourists] which descended on the heels of a French group; and no sooner had we left the daylight behind than the chill of the catacombs came up and gripped us like a bony hand. Even the humorist of the party, who had been lively enough at the ticket office, fell silent after a half-hearted attempt at facetiousness and we walked in single file into a darkness lit only by the flickering of our tapers. Like bunks in a ship the burial niches rose one above the other in the rough walls…. One’s first feeling of dismay at finding oneself in this dusty maze of death is soon replaced by an affectionate fellow feeling for those who had lived so long before us.”
Throughout history most people thought about where they created burial sites. “Any Malagasy who has to choose a tomb-site [which should be south-east or south-west of the village] is faced with a major decision because so many crucial fady (taboos) are involved,” Dervla Murphy writes in her book about Madagascar. “A wrongly placed tomb may lead to early deaths in the family so the ombiasa (loosely translated as witch-doctor) has to advise on the exactly right spot. The tomb door must face west but not due west, to avoid giving it the same vintana (destiny) as the family home; because the dead have a stronger vintana than the living, a shared alignment would put them in a dangerously powerful position. No tomb must be built at the end of a valley, or where it can be seen from a village, and the building of it must take more than one year.” In Korea a burial site had to be out of sight of the “baleful spirits” in order to protect the dead person. In China the choice of a site was based on an ancient way of divining the magical forces that flow through the landscape, known as geomancy, or feng-shui, which literally means “wind-water.” A geomancer, or feng-shui master, follows general principles of feng-shui. In her book The Imperial Ming Tombs, Ann Paludan writes: “The first principle is that the place must be protected from the evil spirits which come from the dominant—usually the north—wind. The second is that water should not run through the site…but should, if possible, run in front of it (because if the course of the stream is altered the spirit will take offense). The third is that it is desirable to have a view of mountains with auspicious shapes. These mountains should be continuous, that is, it should not be possible to see clefts or passage through them. In other words, the ideal site is very much what people would look for today—a sheltered place, facing in a southerly direction, dry but with a stream nearby and a good view.”
These signs are in a cemetery in New Orleans, Louisiana, where all interments are aboveground because the city lies below sea level.
Worried about the health hazards of decaying corpses, the ancient Jews and Romans created burial sites outside the city walls. Germanic tribes—the Franks and Saxons—put their cemeteries far away from where people lived too, but for a very different reason—they feared that dead people might harm living people. Just as many people paid close attention to the location of the grave, they also paid attention to how the corpse was positioned in the grave. Slaves in the United States typically dug their graves from east to west and buried the body with its head to the west and feet to the east. “The dead should not have to turn around when Gabriel blows his trumpet [on Resurrection Day] in the eastern sunrise,” writes Eugene Genovese in his book Roll, Jordan, Roll. Muslims are buried with their face turned toward Mecca, the most holy city in Islam.
A single or double-depth grave (buried one on top of the other) in Brookside Cemetery, Englewood, New Jersey, ranges from $900 to $1,250, plus $750 for Perpetual Care, which “provides for seeding and fertilizing and maintenance of the plot.” A cremation plot and an infant grave up to three feet is $375. After paying the full amount, the person receives a deed to the plot. Although people typically buy a plot when there is a “need,” because a relative has died, some people select their burial site, plan their funerals, and pay for everything “preneed,” or before they die. Other people join burial societies, also known as memorial or funeral societies. The basic idea is that members pay a regular fee and the society takes care of the funeral arrangements, including providing mourners. Burial societies have existed since ancient times. Today burial societies are organized by a variety of groups, including religious organizations and labor unions to provide lower-than-usual-cost funerals for their members.
As Christianity spread, particularly throughout Europe, Christians created cemeteries under the floors of their churches and cathedrals, sacred places that they thought would ensure their future in heaven. A section of the tile or stone church floor would be opened and a body buried in the earth underneath it. Not mummified bodies or decomposed-down-to-the-bones bodies, just decaying bodies, which were usually wrapped in cerecloth and placed in a coffin. Over and over this was done, and in time the whole floor got higher, sometimes to the point of meeting the lower windows of the church. Then bodies were buried in the churchyard. To cope with overcrowding, church officials started surreptitiously removing bones and partly decayed remains and piling them in ossuaries, or storehouses for bones.
The Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, the Czech Republic, is called Beth Chaim in Hebrew, meaning “House of Life.” As early as the tenth century, when Jews probably first settled in Prague, laws were passed that restricted many aspects of their lives, including how much space they could use for cemeteries. Bodies were buried in this cemetery from the fifteenth century until 1787, one on top of another and as many as eleven layers deep. The rakish angles of some of the gravestones were caused by overcrowding and the weather.
The situation became overwhelming as plagues swept through Europe and millions of people died. Ossuaries were built just to accommodate the bones of plague victims. In 1996 my son Jonathan and his partner, Katrin de Haen, toured an ossuary in the Czech Republic near Kutnáa Hora that had been built to hold the bones of thirty thousand people who died in the plague of 1318. The Schwarzenberg family acquired the ossuary in 1783, and in 1870 they commissioned Frantisek Rinta to arrange the bones in a decorative manner. Using nothing but bones, Rinta built religious symbols, the Schwarzenberg family crest, and a huge chandelier that is strung with skulls and every other bone in the human body. “Kutná Horrid!” was Katrin’s reaction. Jonathan agreed. “Seeing the bones arranged like they were toys was gross,” they said.
By the 1700s the cemetery situation in Europe was a disaster. A visitor to France in 1775 described the cemeteries in Paris: “There are several burial pits in Paris, of a prodigious size and depth, in which the dead bodies are laid, side by side, without any earth being put over them till the ground tier is full; then, and not till then, a small layer of earth covers them, and another layer of dead comes on, till by layer upon layer, and dead upon dead, the hole is filled with a mass of human corruption enough to breed a plague.” Stories about the dangers of decaying bodies were repeated over and over. According to one story, two hundred parishioners, forty children, and two church officials died after an “evil exhalation” arose from a tomb that had been dug on the same day beneath the church floor. Another story was told about a cellar wall that collapsed under the weight of neighboring tombs. Witnesses swore to the fact that the smell asphyxiated the owner of the cellar.
Today people can take tours of the ossuary near Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic and see a chandelier that contains every single bone in the human body as well as the Schwarzenburg family crest.
Ordinary citizens and reformers demanded changes, and finally the great cemetery cleanup in Europe began. In Paris six million bodies were removed from graveyards and buried in quarries outside the city limits, an undertaking that took eighteen months. Working at night by the light of torches, workers filled up carts with bones and remains. As they pulled the carts through the streets, priests walked alongside saying prayers while startled passersby retrieved bones that fell off. After much discussion about what were safe burial practices, new regulations were passed. In 1804 Père Lachaise, a new cemetery named after Jesuit friar Francois d’Aix de la Chaize, was opened. Because it was designed as both a burial place for dead people and a rural retreat for city dwellers, Père Lachaise is called the world’s first modern cemetery. To entice customers the remains of famous French citizens—among them the medieval lovers Abelard and Héloïse and the dramatist Molière—were exhumed and buried in Père Lachaise.
Frédéric Chopin’s grave in Père Lachaise, with his name inscribed as A. Fred. Chopin.
Within ten years it was clear that celebrated corpses and a beautiful setting were irresistible. Père Lachaise had become a prestigious burial site and was famous for its monuments. Guidebooks were published for the tourists who flocked to sightsee and city dwellers who came for outings. It is still a popular place. Some people are just curious. Other people have a mission like the high school junior I met who told me about her trip to Père Lachaise to find Jim Morrison’s grave. “I had been thinking about laying a red rose on his grave for a long time, and I was so happy when I finally did it,” she said. Frances Treanor went looking for Frédéric Chopin’s grave. “My mother, Alice, was an accomplished piano player and she played Chopin’s waltzes beautifully. As I stood at his grave, I could hear my mother playing in my head. A friend who was with me couldn’t recall any music by Chopin. So I thought about whistling a waltz, but then I remembered that I was in a cemetery, so I hummed instead. Tears were streaming down my face.”
Cemeteries like Père Lachaise, with pastoral scenery, monuments designed by famous architects, sculptures by famous artists, and famous bodies were replicated in other countries. One of the largest was Brookwood Cemetery, which was built by the London Necropolis Company. Situated about thirty miles outside of London, Brookwood had a private railway station in London and its own trains. The sign on the railroad station at Brookwood read: Necropolis.
It is not uncommon to find graves clustered according to family, religion, ethnicity, and race. Surrounded by an iron fence is the Warren family plot in the Burial Ground cemetery in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It includes the grave of Mercy Otis Warren, a playwright and historian of the American Revolutionary War, and her husband, James, who was a statesman and soldier during the American Revolution. The tallest stone has a bas-relief of James on the front, and it was erected in his honor more than a hundred years after he died.
In the United States, the history of cemeteries in Europe was repeated. In the 1600s in America, the first European settlers typically buried dead people in family plots on farms and plantations. But as churches were built, graveyards were created beside them. Dead people who were prestigious, however, were often buried inside the church—very important people were buried under the altar, important people went under the floor of the nave or aisles, and the minister was buried under the pulpit. In her book, Death in Early America, Margaret Coffin quotes the account of a colonial man who secretly watched a burial under a church when he was a youngster: “The body was carried into a dimly-lighted vault. I was so small and short, that I could see scarcely anything. But the deep sepulchral voice of Mr. Parker [the minister]…filled me with the most delightful horror. I listened and shivered. At length he uttered the words ‘earth to earth’ and Grossman [the sexton]…rattled on the coffin a whole shovelful of coarse gravel—‘ashes to ashes’—another shovelful of gravel—‘dust to dust’—another; it seemed as if shovel and all were cast upon the coffin lid. I never forgot it.”
